Literary Nonfiction. California Interest. Memoir. Humor. PRICKLY ROSES: STORIES FROM A LIFE is a collection of high-spirited, often humorous essays spanning the adventurous life of 93- year-old Joyce Abell. Frequently on her own from the age of three, she lived on a dairy farm, a hotel in New Orleans, a transatlantic ocean liner, an Albanian palace, and came of age in a boardinghouse in Berkeley, CA. Among the characters in this book, you'll meet her Communist parents, Paul Robeson, the U.S. ambassador to Albania (her grandfather), and the great loves of her life.

PRICKLY ROSES: STORIES FROM A LIFE may just as well have been called The Unimaginable, Fascinating, and Unspeakably Magical Life of Joyce Abell. Her childhood adventures rival those of Harry Potter, except her stories are better because they're true. The world she recounts is all but lost to us now, and so I am doubly grateful to Joyce Abell for writing her history down.--Ann Patchett