Book Review: The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer

The Tender Bar is J.R. Moehringer's memoir about growing up on Long Island, much of it centered around a bar. After his father attacked his mother when he was an infant, he grew up never knowing his father and living in his grandfather's house with eleven other relatives. His Uncle Charlie was a bartender and J.R. often accompanied him to work. There he learned the culture of drinking and hanging out in bars, and was mentored by a couple regulars who loved to read. He was always taking notes and scribbling down jokes and comments he heard, and even as his life moved away from the bar and he had to face his own drinking problem, the bar always felt like home to him. He lived his mother's dream for him to go to Yale and eventually became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. The Tender Bar has received positive reviews with the Rocky Mountain News saying, "Funny, frank, sad and bursting with life, The Tender Bar is irresistible."

I never really like memoirs of any sorts. I mean, far as i can remember,
the last "memoir" i read before The Tender Bar was Marianne Pearl's A Mighty Heart.
But something in me just...snapped when i flip open the book. I'm not a picky person when
it comes to books, but i do emphasis on how the first few page i read affects me.
That's the kind of sensation (sensation? haha!!!) The Tender Bar gave me.

Anyway, i like how J.R. describe the bar, as his home, spiritually.
It hit me as i remember how i love to hang out in a tiny used bookstore
managed by an old guy back in Macalister Street, Penang. Half my books
which consist of rare, out of print, first editions books were given to me by him.
I guess that's the main reason why i'm so crazy on books. Ha-ha...

Anyway, great book. Glad i found this book when i was browsing mindlessly through
Borders.