The Tender Bar: A Reflection on Home, Community, and Identity

Swotr: The book was exactly as described and arrived on time.

United States on Oct 21, 2023

Amazon Customer: I'm still reading the book

United States on Oct 20, 2023

Rob Murphy: Captivating from beginning to end. Easy read especially if you lived through the same time period or grew up in New York.

United States on Sep 06, 2023

Emily Stone: My book is exactly as described, and it arrived quickly. I am very happy! Due to time constraints, I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I know it will be great and I'm very much looking forward to it!

Canada on Jun 17, 2023

javier: Primer libro que me leo en inglés y me ha gustado tanto por la trama como por el vocabulario. Lo recomiemdo

Spain on Nov 20, 2022

C Orr: JR Moehringer’s memoir reads like a novel, a Bildungsroman (do you mind if I say Bildungsroman? There’s an inside joke for you that you will get after you read the book.) that gives the reader an intimate glimpse into the life of a boy who grows up in Manhasset, New York. More specifically, the book tells of his relationship with the bar that plays an integral part in his formative years. I watched the film based on the book before I read it, and, of course, the film is just a small slice of the story, and has been subjected to artistic interpretation. The film is good, but the book is SO good. The people and settings from Moehringer’s life come alive on the pages. There are parts that are incredibly funny and parts that are incredibly sad. The epilogue is especially sad and something I can relate to as I am getting older. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good memoir or who loved the movie and wants to find out more.

United States on Jun 05, 2022

Senthil Kumar S: J.R. Moehringer’ s ‘The Tender Bar’ is one of the best memoirs ever. Two of my other favorite memoirs were also helped written by J.R., ‘Open’ by Andre Agassi and ‘Shoe Dog’ by Phil Knight. I bought this book because in Open, Agassi tells “During my final US open, in 2006, I spent all my free time reading J.R.’s staggering memoir, ‘the Tender Bar’. The book spoke to my heart. I loved it so much, in fact, that I found myself rationing it, limiting myself to a number of pages each night. At first, ‘The Tender Bar’ was a crucial distraction from the difficult emotions at the end of my career, but gradually it added to the overall anxiety, because I feared the book would run out before the career did.” Agassi pretty much sums up my feelings for the book too. I found ‘Open’ hard to put down and also for the first time in my life I feared that a book is going to run out. I experienced the same feeling with ‘The Tender Bar’ too.
The book is slow to start with. It starts with an eight-page prologue which is basically a monologue of the ‘Dickens’ Bar and its owner Steve. He tells about the history of bars and how people in Manhasset always go to...

India on Sep 17, 2018

Nina Cornelsen: Despite the seeming oxymoron, The Tender Bar is perfectly titled. J.R. Moehringer’s coming-of-age memoir is soft and tough, and so gorgeously written that even the primary setting of Publicans, a raucous New York pub, is a piece of poetry. The story moves along a strong, cohesive chronology, with each chapter descriptive of a formative person, element, or event in J.R.’s development. Like a psychological puzzle, the big picture takes shape as you fit each new piece, gradually adding color or dimension in places you didn’t initially imagine.

Even before Publicans becomes a fixture in his own life, young, anxiety-ridden J.R. lives in the ramshackle world that results from his family’s lifestyle of libations. He and his mother repeatedly move in and out of his grandparents’ overpopulated, chaotic house, which is decaying from abject neglect. In fact, neglect is a recurring characteristic of the men in J.R.’s family. His father is a deadbeat disk-jockey, whom J.R. knows only by his on-air voice. His grandfather is an emotional batterer, and his uncle is an alcoholic and gambling addict. But as a strange counterpart to the abuses, the family is also proficient in...

United States on Jun 25, 2014

Swantje: J.R. Moehringer schreibt seine eigene Lebensgeschichte spannend und humorvoll wie einen guten Roman und kehrt dabei sein Innerstes nach außen. Vermutlich wurde er mehr als einmal gefragt: „Willst du wirklich, dass tausende Menschen das lesen?“ Und vermutlich hat er darauf geantwortet: „Das liest doch eh keiner.“ So kann man sich irren!
J.R. Moehringer ist zurückhaltend, bescheiden bis hin zur Schüchternheit. Zwischen den Zeilen liest man, wie wenig er von sich selber hält: Mein Leben ist langweilig, mein Schreibstil ebenfalls, und ich bin ein Versager unter Versagern. Zugegeben, die Menschen um ihn herum schaffen (fast) allesamt den Absprung nicht, die gesamte Verwandtschaft wohnt bei den Großeltern, zieht gelegentlich in eine eigene kleine Wohnung und kehrt früher oder später notgedrungen zurück. Wie Lachse, die versuchen, einen Wasserfall hinauf zu springen, der eine kommt etwas höher als die anderen, aber jeder fällt früher oder später wieder runter.
Man möchte ihn an den Schultern packen und ihn anschreien: „Dein Leben ist spannend, dein Schreibstil voller feinsinnigem Humor und Tragik, und du bist ein hervorragender Schriftsteller!“ Immerhin...

Germany on Sep 26, 2013

Lady Fancifull: I had never heard of J.R. Moehringer until a couple of weeks ago when a library blog recommended his novel  Sutton , a fictionalised biography of American bank robber Willie Sutton. And an excellent read it proved to be.

Moehringer, a Pulitzer prize winning journalist, had previously written the autobiography of his first 25 years, The Tender Bar. It's an account of a clearly dysfunctional family. Moehringer's mother had walked away from his volatile, violent father, when J.R. was a baby, returning to live with her own apparently impoverished parents, in a chaotic shabby house. The young Moehringer yearns for his father, whom he knew only as 'the Voice' as a radio broadcaster.

In search of male role models he lights on his uncle Charlie, who works as a bartender in a legendary Manhasset bar, Dickens, later Publicans.

And so begins a beautifully written (but to this reader) ultimately depressing paean to the erudite, witty, wasted lushes of the bar, and to Moehringer's own battles with his insecurity, his fecklessness, and a sort of pervading 'I could a been a contender', which surely is a fairly universal anthem of 'in your cupsness'

Moehringer is...

United Kingdom on May 26, 2013