Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
All Tomorrow's Parties - A Memoir - cover

All Tomorrow's Parties - A Memoir

Rob Spillman

Publisher: Grove Press

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

“In this carefully wrought coming-of-age memoir, a young American writer searches for home in an unlikely place: East Berlin immediately after the fall of the wall.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review   Rob Spillman—the award-winning, charismatic cofounding editor of the legendary Tin House magazine—has devoted his life to the rebellious pursuit of artistic authenticity. Born in Germany to two driven musicians, his childhood was spent among the West Berlin cognoscenti, in a city two hundred miles behind the Iron Curtain. There, the Berlin Wall stood as a stark reminder of the split between East and West, between suppressed dreams and freedom of expression.   After an unsettled youth moving between divorced parents in disparate cities, Spillman would eventually find his way into the literary world of New York City, only to abandon it to return to Berlin just months after the Wall came down. Twenty-five and newly married, Spillman and his wife, the writer Elissa Schappell, moved to the anarchic streets of East Berlin in search of the bohemian lifestyle of their idols. But Spillman soon discovered he was chasing the one thing that had always eluded him: a place, or person, to call home. In his intimate, entertaining, and heartfelt memoir, Spillman narrates a colorful, music-filled coming-of-age portrait of an artist’s life that is also a cultural exploration of a shifting Berlin.   “With wry humor and wonder, Spillman beautifully captures the deadpan hedonism of the East Berliners and the city’s sense of infinite possibility.” —The New York Times Book Review   “A thrilling portrait of the artist as intrepid young adventure seeker.” —Vanity Fair   “Convivial, page-turning . . . Spillman’s life is a good one to read.” —The Washington Post
Available since: 04/05/2016.
Print length: 400 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • Confessions of a Paris Party Girl - cover

    Confessions of a Paris Party Girl

    Vicki Lesage

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    When newly-single party girl Vicki moves to Paris, she hopes to indulge in wine, stuff her face with croissants, and fall in love. It proves to be much more difficile than she imagined. In this laugh-out-loud memoir, this cheeky storyteller recounts the highs and lows of her life in the City of Light. Sassy and shamelessly honest, Vicki makes you feel as if you're right there in Paris stumbling along the cobblestones with her. 
    Will she find love? Will she learn to consume reasonable amounts of alcohol? Will French bureaucracy ever cut her a break? 
    Confessions of a Paris Party Girl is a delicious cocktail of the humor of Tina Fey, the candor of Amy Poehler, and the self-deprecating charm of Mindy Kaling. You'll feel as if you're chatting over a bottle of wine with your new best friend, one who drinks as much as Chelsea Handler and makes you laugh as much as Sophie Kinsella.
    Show book
  • The Lost Art of Being Lost - cover

    The Lost Art of Being Lost

    Roger Wheelock

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    "A wonderful ramble across worlds that really don't exist anymore. Filled with enormous charm and rare insight." - Michael Elcock 
    "At once wise, thoughtful, intimate, wistful, and loving...(with) much human goodness, a good helping of miracles, and more than a few luminous moments. It is also a cry for reflection on the state of the natural world, and a call to action. Generous and exuberant." Colin Browne
    Show book
  • The Meaning of Travel - Philosophers Abroad - cover

    The Meaning of Travel -...

    Emily Thomas

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    How can we think more deeply about our travels? 
    This was the question that inspired Emily Thomas's journey into the philosophy of travel. Part philosophical ramble, part travelogue, The Meaning of Travel   begins in the Age of Discovery, when philosophers first started taking travel seriously. It meanders forward to consider Montaigne on otherness, John Locke on cannibals, and Henry Thoreau on wilderness. 
    On our travels with Thomas, we discover the dark side of maps, how the philosophy of space fueled mountain tourism, and why you should wash underwear in woodland cabins . . . We also confront profound issues, such as the ethics of "doom tourism" (travel to "doomed" glaciers and coral reefs), and the effect of space travel on human significance in a leviathan universe. 
    The first ever exploration of the places where history and philosophy meet, this audiobook will reshape your understanding of travel.
    Show book
  • The Barefoot Bingo Caller - A Memoir - cover

    The Barefoot Bingo Caller - A...

    Antanas Sileika

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Witty, wide-ranging stories of one man’s adventures in the world 
    		 
    “Filled with pleasures . . . I enjoyed it immensely.” — Meg Wolitzer, New York Times–bestselling author of The Interestings
    		 
    In The Barefoot Bingo Caller, Antanas Sileika finds what’s funny and touching in the most unlikely places, from a bingo hall to the collapsing Soviet Union. He shares stories of his attempts to shake off his suburban, ethnic, folk-dancing childhood; his divided allegiance as a Lithuanian Canadian father; and such memorable characters as aging beat poets, oblivious college students, and an obdurate porcupine.
    		 
    Passing through places as varied as a prime minister’s office and the streets of Paris, these wry and moving dispatches on work, family, art, and identity are masterpieces of comic memoir and social observation.
    		 
    “The memories have been vividly, deliberately shaped by a master storyteller over a lifetime of telling, to powerful and often hilarious effect.” — Quill & Quire (starred review)
    		 
    “Funny and wistful, always engaging and wholly original, The Barefoot Bingo Caller charts the geography of belonging from the suburbs of Weston to the streets of Vilnius, from iconic Parisian bookstores to secret fishing holes in the backwoods of Ontario.” — Will Ferguson, Giller Prize–winning author
    Show book
  • The People of the Sea - Celtic Tales of the Seal-Folk - cover

    The People of the Sea - Celtic...

    David Thomson

    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
    “Readers will be carried away on successive waves of pleasure [and] irresistible holistic beauty” in this journey to uncover myths of Selchies (Seamus Heaney, from the introduction). When author David Thomson travelled across the coasts of Scotland and Ireland to seek out the legend of the selchies—mythological creatures who transform from seals into humans—a magical world emerged before him. Thomson was enchanted by tales of men rescued by seals in stormy seas, and others who took seal-women for their wives and had their children suckled by seal-mothers. The People of the Sea is Thomson’s poetic record of his journey into this world, and his encounters with people whose connection to the sea and its fertile lore runs deep. Winner of the McVitie Prize for his memoir Nairn in Darkness and Light, David Thomson offers “a splendid resurrection of a life that has almost vanished.” Timeless and haunting, The People of the Sea retains its spellbinding charm and brings to life the enchanting stories of these mysterious creatures of Celtic folklore (Daily Telegraph, UK).“I know of few books which so ably open a window on the Gaelic scene today or which so faithfully reflect the mind, vigour and courtesy of its people…Pounds on the imagination like surf on a reef”—Observer, UK
    Show book
  • The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad - cover

    The Further Adventures of an...

    Karl Pilkington

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    A new book on the travails of travel by “the funniest man on the planet” (Spectator). 
     
    Why on earth would anybody want to run with the bulls in Pamplona? Go “storm chasing” through Tornado Alley? Jump out of a plane? Have lunch with the queen or touch hands with the pope? The Further Adventures of An Idiot Abroad is a fresh take on the bucket-list mentality from television star Karl Pilkington, renowned for his comedic collaborations with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. 
     
    While he’s done some dumb things like putting sausages in a toaster, Karl has never been one for danger. But Ricky and Stephen managed to convince him to take on at least a few challenges, and in this hilarious and strangely inspiring book, Karl recounts brilliant stories of his adventures in Alaska, in Siberia, on a South Sea island, inside a gigantic rubber ball trying not to throw up, and more; states his opinions about what other people aspire to do with their lives; and shares his hard-won certainty that coming back home is the best thing about going away in the first place.
    Show book