What memoir are you reading?

jerrywaxler · Apr 11, 2009

I thought I'd start a thread to ask readers their favorite or current memoir. This question comes up a lot in workshops, and I think it's really valuable for memoir writers to read lots of them. So please feel add memoirs you've read or are currently reading, to help inform and inspire the rest of us.

Jerry

jerrywaxler · Apr 11, 2009

House at Sugar Beach, history of Liberian girl

Here's one I just finished. I'm trying to develop a rhythm with book reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, so here's one I just posted.

[FONT=&quot]"The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood" by Helene Cooper [/FONT]

Helene Cooper grew up in Liberia, the African country founded by freed American slaves in the early 19th century. The founders established themselves as a privileged class, into which Helene Cooper was born, a wealthy internationally-sophisticated little girl in an impoverished nation. When she was 13, her world was torn apart by violent, tribal anarchy. After her education in the U.S. she became a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and then after traveling the world, returned to her homeland. The book ends with a poignant scene of homecoming, one of the best I've seen in any memoir. The story is driven by the hopes of the protagonist, and the dynamic tension between nations and races. It offers insights into human dynamics and world history I didn't even know I didn't know. I'm glad I came across it and read it. It's a wonderful book that I highly recommend. I "read" the audio book which includes some lovely oral language arts, as Helene offers colorful samples of Liberian English.

michelle25 · Apr 12, 2009

I haven't started it yet, but one I just put on my list - 'Happens Everyday' by Isabel Gillies.

"A" Is For "Agent" · Apr 16, 2009

michelle25 said:
I haven't started it yet, but one I just put on my list - 'Happens Every Day' by Isabel Gillies.

Yes yes yes! This is one of the best memoirs I've read in a long time!

Author website--> http://www.isabelgillies.com/index.html

Read the first chapter! (first 15 pages)-->http://books.simonandschuster.com/Happens-Every-Day/Isabel-Gillies/9781439110072/excerpt

(And for those of us who love gossip, the husband's name in the book is Josiah Robinson but this is who he is in real life--> http://www.oberlin.edu/english/faculty/harrison.html )

michelle25 · Apr 18, 2009

Thanks for the links, A. I actually picked up a copy today and saw another memoir on the same table with it that I have to read now too - 'Crazy Love' by Leslie Morgan Steiner. The story of an abusive relationship. I can already tell that these books are ones I might be able to compare my own to!

Little Earthquake · Apr 26, 2009

I recently read Expecting Adam by Martha Beck. AWESOME.

And I'm sure everyone's heard of this one - Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I've read that one a half dozen times, and have given it as a gift to several people. It's just magical

And funny! I love funny.

Wayne K · May 3, 2009

I'm going to check all of those out.

I just finished The Cocain Romance, and it sounded more like a memoir than a novel to me.

brutus · May 3, 2009

jerrywaxler · May 27, 2009

Falsely accused makes a great story

I just finished an amazing memoir with a dual point of view. One was a woman who had been raped, and the other her accused rapist. After 11 years in prison, he was freed on DNA evidence, and they together tell the story.

Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption, by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, Ronald Cotton, Erin Torneo

Jerry

michelle25 · Jun 26, 2009

New one for my list I just found out about - Melissa Gilbert's Prairie Tale. I know there are lots of celeb memoirs out there and I don't read all of them, but hers for some reason sounds interesting.

Also, I'm reading a non-fiction book now called What Should I Do with My Life? by Po Bronson. Not a memoir really, but interesting because the author wrote a few novels prior to it and he intersperses a lot of his own experiences / thoughts / opinions in the book. It features about fifty interviews with people across the country who were struggling to find their calling in life. Sometimes writers can claim that writing is their calling even though they have to have day jobs more often than not. I've been one of those people, but have never found the ultimate day job. One might think it doesn't matter if you have another calling anyway, but I don't know - sometimes I ponder it and have found Bronson's book interesting so far.

Kathleen42 · Jun 26, 2009

I just picked up I'm Perfect You're Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah's Witness Upbringing

VeggieChick · Jun 27, 2009

Little Earthquake said:
And I'm sure everyone's heard of this one - Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I've read that one a half dozen times, and have given it as a gift to several people. It's just magical And funny! I love funny.

Really? I'm reading it now and finding it incredibly boring. I'm beginning to skip passages because I can't deal with all the talk about food and Rome and why eating in Italy is so fascinating. It's just annoying at this point. I'm hoping the India part is better, because I'm getting really close to throwing the book across the room.

Wayne K · Jun 27, 2009

I just started Running With Scissors again to get an idea of what he did that I should be doing--obviously not a lot.

I'm starting to like my own writing. How cool is that?

Wayne K · Jun 30, 2009

I got Eat pray Love yesterday. So far I like it.

jerrywaxler · Jul 1, 2009

Wrote an essay about Joan Rivers' Enter Talking

I recently read Joan Rivers' memoir Enter Talking in which she describes her long road to making it to her first break - it took six years to go from nobody to that first appearance on Johnny Carson, and it was an interesting, and even an inspiring ride.

I just posted an essay about it on my blog.

Jerry

SherryTex · Jul 2, 2009

The Liar's Club by Mary Karr

BigWords · Jul 2, 2009

I keep returning to The Kid Stays In The Picture by Bobby Evans*. The book is filled with the kind of details that only someone in the middle of such an insane business could get away with revealing.

*Though I like Hollywood Babylon better, it doesn't exactly fit the thread - which is why Evans gets the recommendation.

caitlin_constantine · Jul 19, 2009

My favorite memoirs are The Liar's Club by Mary Karr, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I have other ones that I've read and loved, but these three are consistent favorites that I can always return to.

Right now I am reading Bill Bryson's In A Sunburned Country. I think some might categorize this more as a travelogue than a memoir, but I think there is a lot of overlap between the two genres. I'm really enjoying Bryson's writing style, which is charming and warm and so hilarious. Every sentence he writes is a gem, with either some witty observation or a strange bit of information that tells you as much about himself as it does about the thing he's writing about. In that way he reminds me of another of my favorite writers, Susan Orlean.

Billingsgate · Aug 6, 2009

Whether you call it a memoir (I do) or travelogue, I'm savoring Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon, about his solo driving trip around the USA. It's both very evocative of place and deeply contemplative. It's one of those rare books that I read slowly and put down after each chapter to savor it.

Wayne K · Aug 6, 2009

I loved Girl Interrupted, and am now reading A River Runs Through it.

jerrywaxler · Sep 12, 2009

Matthew Polly, American Shaolin

I just finished a book about a Princeton University student who moved to China for 2 years to study Kung Fu at the Shao Lin temple. That's the monastery made famous by David Carridine's character in the old television show Kung Fu.

I liked the book. It was a neat exploraton of an American traveler, an inside look at rural China, at the dawn of the current capitalist system. And it was a good fighting story, if you like that sort of thing. I didn't think I did but it was quite well written and enjoyable.

Jerry

sommemi · Sep 14, 2009

jerrywaxler said:
I just finished an amazing memoir with a dual point of view. One was a woman who had been raped, and the other her accused rapist. After 11 years in prison, he was freed on DNA evidence, and they together tell the story.

Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption, by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, Ronald Cotton, Erin Torneo

Jerry

Now this sounds extremely interesting! And I think might be a good book for me to research considering my own project. Thanks for the suggestion! And I guess I never realized before that to WRITE a good memoir, one must also READ some too. hmm. Seems obvious in hindsight. :tongue

jerrywaxler · Sep 17, 2009

Crazy Love, intense memoir of love and abuse

I'm listening to a well written memoir about a young woman, Leslie Morgan Steiner, who fell in love with a guy who becomes violent. It is a deep look at a tragic problem that typically stays hidden behind impenetrable walls of secrecy and shame.

[FONT=&quot]Crazy Love by Leslie Morgan Steiner[/FONT]

Jerry

lightstar · Sep 24, 2009

I'm listening to Eat, Pray, Love on audio.

Veggiechick, I hear you. While I can relate to a lot of Liz Gilbert's experiences, having also traveled to those countries myself, what I don't understand is how a book can become such a huge best seller, and yet have so many bad reviews!

sommemi · Sep 24, 2009

BTW Jerry, just wanted to let you know, I am looking for a library copy of "Picking Cotton"... can only afford to BUY so many books right now, but this one sounded so interesting so I'm hunting down any libraries in the area that might have it... THANKS!

I really need to be better at reading the same genre/style that I'm writing. Might help me fix some of the problems my own writing has!

What memoir are you reading?

jerrywaxler

jerrywaxler

michelle25

"A" Is For "Agent"

Big Meanie Head

michelle25

Little Earthquake

I'm melting!

Wayne K

brutus

jerrywaxler

michelle25

Kathleen42

crushing on fictional characters

VeggieChick

Wayne K

Wayne K

jerrywaxler

SherryTex

Working on 2nd WIP

BigWords

Geekzilla

caitlin_constantine

Billingsgate

Disappointment to my mother

Wayne K

jerrywaxler

sommemi

Uses loquacious in sentences

jerrywaxler

lightstar

Tub-thumping!

sommemi

Uses loquacious in sentences

What memoir are you reading?

Big Meanie Head

I'm melting!

crushing on fictional characters

Working on 2nd WIP

Geekzilla

Disappointment to my mother

Uses loquacious&#8194;in sentences

Tub-thumping!

Uses loquacious&#8194;in sentences

Uses loquacious in sentences

Uses loquacious in sentences