MEMOIRS

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his novel, Things Fall Apart, the Nigerian-born Chinua Achebe reflects upon his life in The Education Of A British-Protected Child (Knopf, $24.95), a collection of 16 autobiographical essays. Few authors manifest such diverse influences as does Achebe. An African passionately embracing his Igbo tribal heritage, but also the product of a colonial education who praises the colonizer, he speaks eloquently for the complexities of postcolonial Africa. Nothing more symbolizes the tensions of such a diverse heritage than Achebe’s need to justify writing in the English language. Since 1990 he has been living in exile from his country’s civil war, and the cauldron of emotions stirred up by his inability to be proud of his country permeates these intelligent, ambivalent essays. Barbara Meade

In Cheerful Money (Little, Brown, $24.99), his sweet, loving, but sad memoir of his Wasp family, Tad Friend, a New Yorker staff writer, confides that Wasp parents treat the essence of Waspishness as they do sex, never revealing its secrets to their offspring. As a result, Friend has spent a lifetime learning from others what it means to be a White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant. “Wasps name their dogs after liquor, their cars after dogs, and their children after their ancestors,” Friend discovers. Wasps wear Shetland sweaters and Docksiders; Preppies are often confused with Wasps, but “Preppies are infantile, stuck at age 17, while Wasps emerge from the womb wrinkly and cautious, already vice presidents, already fifty-two.” Friend’s father, a Swarthmore College president, like all good Wasps, was bound by duty, a chronic disposition learned in childhood from “cheerful money, coins deposited in a kitchen jar as a reward for smiling through grim occasions.” By the end of this affectionate family history, the reader will well understand why Wasps are a dying breed. Barbara Meade

Michael Chabon’s second foray into non-fiction has all the grace and wit of his best novels. These pieces are carefully plotted stories that illuminate our own lives and make us look at where we’re headed. Manhood For Amateurs (HarperCollins, $25.99) chronicles not only what it means to recognize yourself as a man, but, perhaps most important, how it feels to look back on the journey to adulthood. Writing in short, easily digestible essays, Chabon brings healthy doses of humor, nostalgia, and frankness to his exploration of growing up. Whether he is discussing the ineffable charms of ’70s super-heroines or remembering a father-figure who took him wholly into his life, Chabon creates a self-portrait of a man every bit as compelling as any of his characters. Conor Moran