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Leah Odze Epstein

Caren Osten Gerszberg

Drinking Diaries: Women Serve Their Stories Straight Up Paperback – August 28, 2012

by Caren Osten Gerszberg (Editor), Leah Odze Epstein (Editor)

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Whether you drink it or not, alcohol is likely a potent part of your life: our culture is saturated in it. Ask any woman you know to tell you a drinking story, and she’ll come up with one—in fact, she may even come up with five. With friends and with coworkers, at date night and at ladies' night, and on special occasions ranging from Valentine’s Day to the Super Bowl, we encounter alcohol—yet when it comes to discussing the nature of our relationship with drinking, few of us do so honestly and openly.

In Drinking Diaries, editors Leah Odze Epstein and Caren Osten Gerszberg take women's drinking stories out of the closet and into the light. Whether it’s shame, sober sex, and relapsing, or college drinking, bonding, and comparing the benefits of pot vs. booze, no topic related to alcohol is off limits in this illuminating anthology. With contributions from celebrated writers including Jacquelyn Mitchard, Daphne Merkin, Kathryn Harrison, Ann Hood, Ann Leary, Pam Houston, Jane Friedman, Elissa Schappell, Asra Nomani, Priscilla Warner, Rita Williams, and Joyce Maynard, Drinking Diaries is a candid look at the pleasures and pains of drinking, and the many ways in which it touches women’s lives.

Print length

268 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Seal Press
Publication date

August 28, 2012
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.75 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10

1580054110
ISBN-13

978-1580054119
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Caren Osten Gerszberg is a freelance writer and co-founder of the blog Drinking Diaries. Gerszberg’s articles have appeared in The New York Times, Travel & Leisure, National Geographic Traveler, Parents, and other national magazines and websites. She has also had a regular column, “Mom U,” about her daughter’s college admission experience, at NYTimes.com.

Born and raised in New York, Gerszberg graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, going on to earn a dual master's degree in French and journalism at New York University. Her career in publishing began with a summer job at French Vogue in Paris, which paved the way for a full-time position at Mademoiselle magazine in New York. After four years as a research editor at Rolling Stone, Gerszberg launched her freelance career, and also became the New York correspondent for French Glamour, writing a monthly column in French.

Gerszberg has taught feature writing as an adjunct professor at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. A passionate traveler, she lives in Westchester County, New York, with her husband, three children, and two dogs.

Leah Odze Epstein, co-founder of the blog Drinking Diaries, is a young adult and adult fiction writer. She has worked as a news assistant at The New York Times, an adjunct professor of writing at Baruch College, and an assistant editor at One World/Ballantine Books.

Epstein has written book and movie reviews for publications including Publisher’s Weekly and Bookpage, and has worked as a freelance editor. She currently blogs about women and drinking for The Huffington Post, and some of her poems can be found on the website Literary Mama.

Born and raised in Bethesda, Maryland, Epstein now lives in Westchester County, New York, with her husband and three children.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Seal Press (August 28, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 268 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1580054110
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1580054119
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #800,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,222 in Alcoholism Recovery
- #2,294 in General Gender Studies
- #8,516 in Women's Studies (Books)

Customer Reviews:
43 ratings

About the authors

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Leah Odze Epstein
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I co-edit The Drinking Diaries blog, and write for the Huffington Post. I also write young adult fiction. I live in the New York area with my husband and three kids.
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Caren Osten Gerszberg
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Caren Osten Gerszberg is a journalist and co-founder of the Drinking Diaries. Caren's articles have appeared in The New York Times, Travel & Leisure, National Geographic Traveler, Parents and other national magazines and websites, and she currently blogs for The Huffington Post and Psychology Today. Her column, "Mom U", about her daughter's college admission experience, appeared bi-weekly on nytimes.com for nearly two years.
After attending the University of Pennsylvania, Caren came back to New York where she got a dual masters degree in French and Journalism from New York University. During her years in magazine publishing, she worked at French Vogue, Mademoiselle, Mirabella and Rolling Stone. Caren later returned to NYU as an adjunct professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She lives with her husband and children in Westchester Country, New York.
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Customer reviews

5 star		41%
4 star		31%
3 star		14%
2 star		5%
1 star		9%

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Top reviews from the United States

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kb from la

Good but somewhat repetitive stories

Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2012

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All of these stories are heartfelt and effectively written, but I was disappointed in their repetitive quality. Many are structured around the substance abuse recovery narrative that's such a ubiquitous part of contemporary culture. Maybe it's a good thing that we (especially women) no longer pretend there's anything romantic or glamorous about drinking and drugging, or that getting high is a path to enlightenment.

A couple of the pieces argue that alcohol can ease social anxiety and brighten the end of the day. At least one complains about the guilt imposed by censorious teenage offspring who are being scared straight at school. But (other than an odd piece by Jane Friedman) no one puts much passion into the pro-indulgence viewpoint. From my perspective, only the essay by Asra Nomani had something genuinely new to say. She's an American Muslim trying to find a path through what she perceives as the intolerance and hypocrisy of current Muslim attitudes towards alcohol. Really worth reading.

7 people found this helpful

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Theresa K. Read

A Great Commentary on Creativity and Alcohol

Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2012

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From Whitman and his early temperance novel to Hemingway and Steinbeck's shilling of Ballantine Beer, a lot has been said and written about male authors and their perverse affair with liquor. With Drinking Diaries, women writers give us their side of the story. This is simply a fascinating read. It is refreshing to review the struggle for moderation written about such utter honesty. It is impossible not to recognize yourself in these pages. Thanks Leah and Caren and contributors for this candid look at how drinking affects creative women.

15 people found this helpful

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emrep

Feeling Critical!

Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2013

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A warning if you haven't read the book: this review gives some things away. It is difficult to avoid the fact that, because these essays are about the respective authors' personal experiences, a lot of them seem self-indulgent. There are definitely different degrees of that demonstrated in this collection. Some of the writers are able to tell their stories without seemingly trying to evoke sympathy, which goes a long way towards evoking sympathy! I was annoyed by a couple of the essays; namely "The Days of Wine and Seltzer" and "It.Must.Be". My criticisms have nothing to do with the writing but with certain aspects of the stories. "The Days of Wine and Seltzer" really turned my stomach. It seemed to me to be more about the pretentious life the author and her husband led (and perhaps still lead) than anything else: "There were hundreds of cold beers and cheap bottles of wine drunk on the roofs of apartment buildings while we watched the sunset with our friends, discussing the role of art in society and why Sebadoh would never make a better record than Pavement". Nauseating!

"It.Must.Be", other than the fact that one-word sentences are ridiculous and annoying, is the most judgmental "tribute" to a friend I've ever encountered. The first thing I found unsettling was when the author said that she "had to move on" from her mentally ill friend. What kind of friend is that? You gain the knowledge that this person who was kind, supportive, protective and loyal to you has bi-polar disorder so you abandon her? It gets better! The author writes, "I had two cars and a mortgage. She lived in a homeless shelter. I had two cell phones and a landline. She couldn't afford a working telephone". How about trying to help your friend rather than pointing out the material, i.e., meaningless, differences in your lives? Her friend ends up dead and of course she wishes she'd taken that last phone call. I may have appreciated this essay if the author had expressed any sense of reflection regarding her own behavior but she just seems to be pointing out that although both she and her friend started out as drunks, she persevered while her friend just spiraled downward. The essay has a creepy, elitist tone; what was I do to? I had a cell phone and a mortgage! Yuck.

6 people found this helpful

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Yogamissy

So insightful, well edited, great writing.

Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2012

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This book hits the spot! Drinking as a metaphor? Drinking as a relationship impediment or stimulator? Drinking as escape? Drinking as entertainment? Drinking as a habit? Not drinking as a response to family experiences? I loved this book because it made me think, was entertaining, had stories I could relate to and made me tearful at others. As a grown woman with three kids, who has had many and varied experiences as a drinker and abstainer, as well as a lover of literature and writing of all I kinds, I found this book easy to read and poignant. A great hostess gift INSTEAD of a bottle of wine for those who don't partake, and a book to have around the house when daughters (in particular) are reaching that age when drinking becomes a part of their lives. I highly recommend it!

14 people found this helpful

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Karenlovestoread

Very well done

Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2012

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I first read an excerpt from this book through More magazine. Jaqueline Michard wrote honestly about her humiliation with being given a field sobriety test one night after dinner with friends. Her mistake? (Besides a little to much vino.)Speeding. Drinking Diaries is a collection of essays written by authors who have had some kind of love/hate relationship with alcohol, whether childhood or adulthood. Many of the authors I related to as if they were writing a story similar to my own. Others who grew up with alocholic parents, that I didn't relate to, I empathized with their plights and understood how it altered their views on alcohol. I would recommend this book to anyone who has that "dance with drinking" that we just can't shake. The editors should be congratulated on their grouping of these essays. Great job!

4 people found this helpful

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Book Lover

Very entertaining slice of life

Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2012

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I really enjoyed this book. The stories were so true-to-life. It was great to hear about drinking from a woman's perspective. Each story was different, and while I couldn't identify with all of them, I could certainly empathize with each woman's story. I highly recommend this book.

2 people found this helpful

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LD in LA

A bit tamer than I had hoped for

Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2012

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This seemed like a pretty safe collection of stories from known authors. I was hoping for more introspection from the authors. I need more words apparently and here they are: Vote and Happy Halloween.

5 people found this helpful

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pearl

Good read

Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2013

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Very interesting look into womens lives and their relationship with drinking in a very non critical way. If you have ever wondered what is the norm, or where do I fall within the norm, these honest stories will enlighten and also entertain.

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Drinking Diaries: Women Serve Their Stories Straight Up Paperback – August 28, 2012

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Leah Odze Epstein

Caren Osten Gerszberg

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