HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette…
Loading...

The Glass Castle: A Memoir (edition 2006)

by Jeannette Walls

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
20,008788214 (4.15)768
Biography & Autobiography. Nonfiction. HTML:MORE THAN EIGHT YEARS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST

The extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, "nothing short of spectacular" (Entertainment Weekly) memoir from one of the world's most gifted storytellers.
/> The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

The Glass Castle is truly astonishingâ??a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.

The memoir was also made into a major motion picture from Lionsgate in 2017 starring Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, and Naomi Wat… (more)
Member:texastar5
Title:The Glass Castle: A Memoir
Authors:Jeannette Walls
Info:Scribner (2006), Edition: 1, Paperback, 288 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:
Tags:None

Work Information

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

  1. 210
    A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (JGoto)
  2. 134
    Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt (cataylor)
  3. 41
    Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover (bjappleg8)
  4. 30
    Hope's Boy: A Memoir by Andrew Bridge (meggyweg, Sunflower6_Cris)
  5. 30
    Jesus Land: A Memoir by Julia Scheeres (gaialover)
  6. 20
    Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard by Liz Murray (itbgc)
  7. 64
    Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (Monika_L)
  8. 10
    Life at the Bottom : The Worldview that Makes the Underclass by Theodore Dalrymple (chndlrs)
  9. 10
    Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer's Daughter by Melissa G. Moore (dara85)
  10. 21
    My Abandonment by Peter Rock (SugarCreekRanch)
  11. 21
    Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found by Jennifer Lauck (RoxieF)
  12. 10
    My Struggle: Book 1 by Karl Ove Knausgård (julienne_preacher)
  13. 10
    The Liars' Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr (Cecrow)
  14. 00
    A Place Called Home: A Memoir by David Ambroz (Micheller7)
  15. 00
    Hollywood Park: A Memoir by Mikel Jollett (bjappleg8)
  16. 00
    The Fool's Progress: An Honest Novel by Edward Abbey (owen1218)
  17. 00
    North of Normal: A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Unusual Family, and How I Survived Both by Cea Sunrise Person (kristina25)
  18. 00
    Coming Clean: A Memoir by Kimberly Rae Miller (Deesirings)
    Deesirings: Both these memoirs of childhood are about parents with severe limitations, difficulties, mental illnesses, with the authors nonetheless feeling loved by them.
  19. 00
    Tutto si risveglia con un bacio by Gudrún Eva Mínervudóttir (raudakind)
    raudakind: Both of these books are humorous tales about families splintered by the parents' bohemian lifestyle.
  20. 00
    Dandelion: Memoir of a Free Spirit by Catherine James (amyreads)

(see all 22 recommendations)

Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 768 mentions

English (776)  Spanish (3)  German (3)  French (2)  Piratical (1)  Norwegian (1)  All languages (786)
Showing 1-5 of 776 (next | show all)
I didn't find this as interesting as others have. Hard for me to get invested, the only reason I pushed through was the high approvals of others who read it. Don't need it, wouldn't recommend. ( )
  MahanaU | Nov 21, 2023 |
This was a really intriguing read. I liked that Walls wrote without much introspection and focused on writing what actually happened, according to her memory.

There were many parts of her childhood that sounded downright fun, but I just can't get over her parents' irresponsibility and subversive priorities.

The complacency regarding sexual abuse was what horrified me the most. After reporting to her mother that her uncle had groped her while he masturbated, Jeannette's mother has more sympathy for the uncle than her daughter, saying that her uncle is just lonely. She goes on to tell her daughter:

"... sexual assault [is] a crime of perception. If you don't think you're hurt, then you aren't. So many women make such a big deal out of these things. But you're stronger than that." (p.184)

Unfortunately, this was not the only incidence of sexual abuse recorded in the book, but every time, her parents glossed over it and acted like it was not wrong at all. ( )
  RachelRachelRachel | Nov 21, 2023 |
read for school. the pace was really slow for me but it was good nonetheless. ( )
  orderofthephoenix | Oct 22, 2023 |
What a story!! And to come out of that childhood as a functioning adult is a miracle. I was incredibly angry with the parents (especially the mother) as I read Jeannette's story. ( )
  JennyPocknall | Oct 19, 2023 |
Read for a graduate seminar on Story and Memoir at CU Boulder.

Blown away by the simple, clean prose in this memoir, written in the narrative nonfiction style that is quickly making its way up in the nonfiction world! Walls manages to tell the complicated story of her relationship with her father through a series of stories about her unusual upbringing. One of the best memoirs I've read in the last year, I'd absolutely recommend giving it a go! ( )
  BreePye | Oct 6, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 776 (next | show all)
''The Glass Castle'' falls short of being art, but it's a very good memoir. At one point, describing her early literary tastes, Walls mentions that ''my favorite books all involved people dealing with hardships.'' And she has succeeded in doing what most writers set out to do -- to write the kind of book they themselves most want to read.
 

» Add other authors (11 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Walls, Jeannetteprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Gibson, JuliaNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dark is a way and light is a place,
Heaven that never was
Nor will be ever is always true
-Dylan Thomas
"Poem on His Birthday"
Dedication
To John, for convincing me that everyone who is interesting has a past
First words
I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster.
Quotations
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (3)

Biography & Autobiography. Nonfiction. HTML:MORE THAN EIGHT YEARS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST

The extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, "nothing short of spectacular" (Entertainment Weekly) memoir from one of the world's most gifted storytellers.
The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

The Glass Castle is truly astonishingâ??a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.

The memoir was also made into a major motion picture from Lionsgate in 2017 starring Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, and Naomi Wat

No library descriptions found.

Book description
The child of an alcoholic father and an eccentric artist mother discusses her family's nomadic upbringing, during which she and her siblings fended for themselves while their parents outmaneuvered bill collectors and the authorities.
-Novelist
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (4.15)
0.5 4
1 71
1.5 12
2 190
2.5 40
3 742
3.5 202
4 2232
4.5 284
5 2337

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 197,753,157 books! | Top bar: Always visible