The Best of Adair Lara: Prize Winning Columns from the San Francisco Chronicle

My favorite part of the paper has always been the op-ed page, followed closely by the lifestyles pages, where I will quickly turn to read the latest offerings by my favorite columnists.I have fantasies of being a syndicated columnist like my heroes of the op-ed page, and so when I discover a book like this, with the collected works of someone who writes for a living and does it well, I am quick to buy it.I am not a subscriber to the San Francisco Chronicle, and so this book is my first exposure to Adair Lara's work. I am delighted to make her acquaintance.Lara's work offers a very intimate glimpse into one woman's life, as she writes about things that nearly everyone can relate to." 'Write about your life,' " she says she was told by a hard-of-hearing editor who didn't seem to sure about what to do with a female columnist, and that is what she did.She tells us her first column, about getting a newspaper job, was personal. "The next thousand or so columns were also personal."Reading this anthology is like leafing through a scrap book of memories. At times touching, humorous, and always intimate, I can highly recommend this collection on two levels - as an aspiring writer looking for examples of the craft done well, and as a woman whose everyday experiences, while small in scope, are validated by seeing another woman's personal life in print.