Lucky for us we had a pre-publication book launch with award-winning writer Lucette Lagnado the weekend before the storm hit Sag Harbor. Her lucid new memoir The Arrogant Years has just been released. During five long days without electrical power at home, we read Arrogant Years feverishly by the flickering light of an oil lamp. The book charts the course of Lucette’s mother’s early hardships as a young girl in Cairo. Despite many obstacles, Edith is one day given the key to the pasha’s library, something like being handed the key to heaven for one who so loves books and for whom books were a literal means of sustenance.
Lagnado’s first memoir, the riveting Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World, has been a Canio’s bestseller since its release in 2007. And now Arrogant Years: One’s Girl’s Search for Her Lost Youth, from Cairo to Brooklyn, earns its place close to our heart. Written with the drive of an experienced investigative reporter, one whose love of literature shapes every chapter, Lagnado’s Arrogant Years is a courageous look at the struggles both she and her mother faced in navigating a world often treacherous for two particularly gifted women. We have signed copies of both memoirs by Lucette Lagnado and highly recommend them both. Those long days without power would have been much bleaker if it weren’t for Arrogant Years to pull us through.
Enduring Irene with Lucette
Published September 6, 2011 Bookselling in the 21st century , Memoir , Uncategorized , Writing 2 CommentsTags: Arrogant Years, Jewish Family Exodus, Lucette Lagnado, Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, Old Cairo
The Canio's Books Blog 
I loved her first book and wish her much success with this follow up. I met Lucette at the bookshop a few years back. She just happened to drop in the shop while I was visiting. What I recall most from that meeting was her exuberance. I’ll be looking for a copy of her new book in my next Canio’s mail order so thanks for the FB alert and sharing this on the blog.
I’m sure you’ll find this companion book an absorbing read, and as Alana Newhouse wrote in her review in the New York Times (9 Sept. 2011), “a paragon of memoir writing.” Meanwhile, we love your poetry blog and want to direct our readers to: http://joanfarrell.wordpress.com/category/poetry/
Congratulations!