A review by bloodravenlib
Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir by Natalie Goldberg

4.0

I liked this book, but as I was reading it through, it was not easy to handle. The reason is that this is a book meant to be read, and for people to do the writing exercises. I constantly wanted to stop and do some writing, but since I was borrowing the book (from my library), I could not stop. I would definitely buy a copy of this book for myself at some point. I remarked in one of the updates that I still liked Writing Down the Bones better, and I can say that statement is still accurate. That other book seemed more primal; this one is good, but it seems a bit more refined, which is not necessarily a bad thing. For aspiring writers, and I think even for veteran writers, there are a lot of good writing exercises and ideas. The book's focus is on writing memoir, but it is still applicable to other forms of writing. I think the only reason I did not give it five stars is that some of the illustrative passages (like an excerpt from this or that) seemed either a bit long or not as engaging (to me at least), but that is a minor thing. Overall, if you want to get writing, and you want to do so with minimal nonsense or fluff, then this is a good book for that. If you have read the author before, you know what you are getting. If not, this is a good place to start. Now, go read it, and then go grab pen and paper (or your keyboard), and write.