On November 13, 2015, the world watched with shock and sorrow as terror erupted at several sites in Paris, including the Bataclan Theater where at least 89 people were killed. Among the dead was Hélène Muyal-Leiris, whose husband, Antoine Leiris, was at home watching their 17-month-old son. Leiris soon posted a Facebook message to the attackers that went viral, beginning, “On Friday night, you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hate.”

You Will Not Have My Hate is his account of the immediate days after the attack as he struggled to make sense of his loss. Leiris’ slim memoir is a portrait of raw grief, of trying to keep one’s head above water in a world that no longer makes sense. His son, Melvil, became an anchor amid the tragedy, providing a need for daily routine that kept his father moving forward. The author describes the heartbreak of seeing his wife one last time in the mortuary, the beauty of his son’s innocent smile, and how he sat down at his computer one afternoon to write his famous post: “House, lunch, diaper, pajamas, nap, computer. The words continue to arrive. They come on their own, considered, weighed, but without me having to summon them. They come to me.”

His account ends with Hélène’s funeral and his subsequent visit to her grave with his toddler, as they bravely “go on living alone, without the aid of the star to whom they swore allegiance.”

The book reaffirms Leiris’ profound message that he will raise his son to “defy [the attackers] by being happy and free. Because [they] will not have his hate either.”

This article was originally published in the November 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Although his father was a small-time actor (with outsize dreams), Bryan Cranston didn’t pledge himself to Thespis until he was stranded for six rainy days and nights in a picnic area on the Blue Ridge Parkway with only an anthology of plays for entertainment. He was 21 at the time and had already done a smattering of amateur theater. But until this soggy epiphany broadsided him, his focus had been on a career in law enforcement.

It would be another six years of small roles and TV commercials before Cranston found steady work, acting on the ABC soap opera “Loving.” There followed such memorable mileposts as six appearances on “Seinfeld” as self-aggrandizing dentist Tim Whatley, seven seasons as the goofy dad, Hal Wilkerson, on “Malcolm in the Middle” and, most triumphantly, five seasons on “Breaking Bad” as Walter White, the emotionally defeated high school chemistry teacher turned psychopathic drug lord.

Cranston’s memoir, A Life in Parts, is an engrossing blend of stories and tricks of the acting trade. He learns to slaughter chickens, becomes a mail-order minister, motorcycles from coast to coast with his brother, barely survives a crazy girlfriend and proposes marriage in a bubble bath. And that’s just a sampling. 

He advises aspiring actors to stay busy and go the extra mile to secure and inhabit a role, noting that he took rock-climbing lessons to score a candy commercial and clothed himself in live bees for an episode of “Malcolm.” He also explains how he adopted a mindset that turns even unsuccessful auditions into personal victories and presents a numerical scale by which to judge whether or not a part is worth taking. More subtle tips abound.

While there may have been bees on Cranston, there are assuredly no flies. “I never want to limit myself,” he writes. “I want to experience everything. When I die, I want to be exhausted.”

This article was originally published in the November 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Tara Clancy is only 36, but she manages to make her 1980s childhood feel like a long-lost era. In The Clancys of Queens, she gives us a coming-of-age memoir defined by the distinctive neighborhoods she grew up in: Broad Channel, Queens, a “bread crumb of an island” where her Irish-cop dad lived; Bellerose, her grandparents’ Italian-American enclave; and tony Bridgehampton, Long Island, where Clancy spent half her weekends with her mom and Mark, her mom’s well-to-do boyfriend.

A frequent contributor to “The Moth Radio Hour,” Clancy expanded her Moth stories for this memoir. She offers colorful character studies of the people who filled her young life, like cursing Grandma Rosalie (“Fahngool” was Rosalie’s “go-to, catchall punctuation”) and the barflies at Gregory’s bar—English Billy, Joey O’Dirt—where young Clancy and her dad were regulars, and where she had her first Communion party, with her large Irish clan that includes 21 first cousins in attendance.

An always-in-motion tomboy, Clancy loved her scrappy St. Gregory’s softball team and her best friend Esther, but not school. Unable to sit still in elementary school, she’d wander out of class to chat up any grown-ups she could find. The memoir follows her through her more difficult teen years, where she went from drinking and smoking pot daily to finding herself obsessed with Shakespeare and scraping together the money for college.

The oddities of Clancy’s upbringing make for some hilarious passages, but each chapter also forms a love letter—to her parents, Grandma Rosalie, Mark, her friends and lovers. Although she sometimes skates over darker material, like her dad’s drunk driving, her own teenage partying and a close friend’s abandoning her baby while in the grip of drugs, that’s a small complaint. Clancy has written a breezy, funny memoir with a wonderful cast of characters and a terrific sense of place.

When World War II ended in Europe, American, British and Soviet military units rolled into communities throughout Germany to establish order. Within a short time the country was officially divided into East and West zones, as was the city of Berlin. The Soviet Union occupied the East sector, and with the beginning of the Cold War and the establishment of a Communist-led government, the residents there would have their lives changed for decades to come.

In East Germany, one small, seemingly innocuous act judged, by a person in authority, as a challenge against the police state could lead to a reprimand, imprisonment or worse. Many were able to escape but many others were killed or captured during their attempts. A brave young woman named Hanna from the rural village of Schwaneberg was able to escape and eventually lead a free and happy life as a U.S. citizen. But her close German family, which included her parents and eight siblings, had been the center of her life, and she missed them terribly.

Nina Willner, Hanna’s daughter, tells the true story of what life was like for her mother and her East German family during this period in her compelling Forty Autumns: A Family’s Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall. Drawing on a wide range of sources including interviews with family members, memoirs, letters, archives, trips to relevant locations and historical records, this is a moving account of one family’s life under tyranny. In a fascinating twist, the author was the first woman to lead U.S. Army intelligence operations in East Berlin during the Cold War in the 1980s, and she relates some of her experiences.

At the heart is the story is Oma, the author’s grandmother, to whom the book is dedicated. Throughout the many devastating changes in their lives, she was able to keep up the morale of her children and her husband by word and deed, demonstrating the central importance of love and family.

After the war, as West Germany began to rebuild, people in the East went in the other direction, depriving many of basic items. The government’s propaganda, however, painted the West zone as much worse off.

Perhaps the most distressing aspect in the East was the establishment of the secret police, the Ministry for State Security, or Stasi, for short. Eventually it became responsible for the wholesale manipulation and control of all citizens. The Stasi used clandestine operations, fear tactics and intimidation, attempting to get everyone to spy on everyone else as a way of life.

Forty Autumns includes a family and historical chronology that helps the reader put events in context. Willner’s sensitive and well-written account causes us to reflect on what is really important to us and how we would react in a similar situation.