Telling: Confessions, Concessions, and Other Flashes of Light - Tapa dura

An NPR commentator offers her observations on her youthful decadence in New Jersey, heroin, family pets, abortion, breast-feeding in public, siblings, AIDS, a lost purse, and a father's death

e insight of Anna Quindlen and the comic storytelling of Garrison Keillor with her own singularly outrageous humor, Marion Winik has captivated thousands of listeners on NPR's All Things Considered. Now, in Telling, she takes us on a journey both personal and universal, a tour of the minefield of chance and circumstance that make up a life. Along the way, she offers razor-sharp takes on everything from adolescence in suburban New Jersey ("Yes, I wanted to be a wild teenage rebel, but I wanted to do it with my parents' blessing") to hellish houseguests and bad-news boyfriends; from the joys of breastfeeding in public to the sometimes-salvation of motherhood.

Candid, passionate, and breathtakingly funny, Marion Winik maintains an unshaken belief that following one's heart is more important than following the rules -- and a conviction that the secrets we try to hide often contain the deepest truths.

"A born iconoclast, an aspiring artiste, a feminist vegetarian pr