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.

My father was a native of San Francisco. While a very young woman, he gave me "the best book every written about San Francisco." He'd had it for many years, and wanted to share it with me. It was called, "This Is San Francisco." The description of the City, wonderful accounts of famous streets and how their names originated, facinated me. I married, and cherished the book for years. Six months ago, my book was lost. Where, when, I do not know. However; it is gone. Yesterday, upon visiting the San Mateo Library on another matter, I ran the information about "This Is San Francisco" through the coumputer. I believed it to be out of print. To my delight, it had been reissued. I located the book; but did not check it out. I wish to order this book, so that I once again, own, as Dad said: " The best book every written about San Francisco.

Reading this book made me realize that when my own mother hummed and stared out the window while hand washing a sinkful of dishes, that she was de-stressing. Likewise, even after we got a dryer, most times she would still hang the laundry out. My Dad also had a little ritual of detailing his car on Saturday mornings, hand washing, whisking out the carpets, cleaning the windows.

When I first ordered this book, I thought.."Oh, it's a cutesy book." I tossed it on the console table and there is sat for some time. On a whim, I tucked it in my carry on bag for a trip to Florida. Lying on the beach, I pulled it out and started reading it. It is a little jewel of a book. I came away feeling a new respect for doing things manually when we have machines to do the same job.

You will enjoy this book.

I never meant to read this book. Though I am a big fan of Adair's column, I often got irritated when she wrote about her daughter, Morgan. What an infuriating girl! No way did I want to read about her antics. However, after reading a few pages just out of curiosity, I was hooked. Without being saccharine, the book pays a sturdy tribute to the redemptive power of persistent love and offers a valuable lesson in faith in the human spirit. While Adair captures the sense of parental powerlessness endemic to living with a wildly rebellious teen-ager, she does so with humor and a passion that pulls the reader in (even when she doesn't intend to be sucked in!). She also deftly draws a picture of her relationship with an errant father, paralleling her own struggles to guide an unwilling child with being the daughter of--and eventually reverse-parenting--an unwilling father. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever been tempted to give up on another human being, relative or not.

They say to write a good memoir, you must write as if everyone is already dead. Man, Adair Lara knows how to follow that advice - and apparently is still on good terms with everyone in this book. Stupidly shelvedin parenting sections, bookstores should better market this as memoir. No one, having read it, would take it for a parenting manual. It's one woman's story of her difficulties, triumphs, and failures, challenges and sacrifices, doubts and agonies of blundering her way through parenting one of god's most difficult and brilliant (always a dangerous combination) teenage girls.
Also, as Lara is primarily a humor writer, it's screamingly funny, and laugh you will, when you're not holding your breath to see what new devilment Morgan (the daughter) will get up to next. I think the most profound lesson a parent would get from this book is that if you love your kids and let them know it, you'll all probably survive those difficult transitional years.

Hold Me Close, Let Me Go by Adair Lara is a wonderful, terrible, funny, devastating book that took me by surprise and held me in thrall from the first page. I didn't mean to read it. As a 63 year old childless gay man, I had little investment in a book (regretfully) being marketed as a mother-daughter self-help manual. But since I read only nonfiction, when browsing I'll pick up books on any subject, just to see how well the author writes, and so it was with Lara's book. Also, I was struck by the photo on the cover. Anyway I picked it up, began to read, then found I had to buy it. Gay, straight, childless, parent, this book is a staggering read for anyone who loves stories and admires those who can get out of the way and tell them true, even when artful lies are used. Though teenage/family dysfunction is at the center of Hold Me Close, Lara writes of universal experience--one of family, friends, and wrestling demons to the ground to find grace. Suddenly, I am in love with Adair Lara, though my partner of 26 years is not threatened. Read this book. You will be better for it.