Hi everyone, I am looking for memoirs, biographies, or autobiography recommendations.
Hi everyone, I am looking for memoirs, biographies, or autobiography recommendations. This isn’t my typical wheelhouse but I am trying to branch out. Thanks. ?
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I’m currently reading Julia Child’s My Life in France and really enjoying it!
That’s an excellent choice. I also recommend anything by James Herriot and Beverly Nichols.
Also, Gloria Steinem’s My Life on the Road
I’m having a hard time with the audio version of this one. Maybe I need to read more by her first.
I did it on audio with my teen. I think listening to it with her, put my head in a different place, and I appreciated all the “history” it was giving us.
@Kendra don’t you mean “herstory?” ?
“All Over But the Shoutin’ “ by Rick Bragg
Glass castle by Jeanette Walls ??????
Yes! Love this book.
I have read this one. I wasn’t sure if I would like it but I love it!
The Salt path
In The Company of Heroes by Mike Durant.
Educated by Tara Westover.
If you enjoy educated try the glass castle?
I did and loved it too. Thanks.
Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I’ve loaned it to family and friends and when one friend failed to return it, I bought another copy.
If you like Tina fey, Bossypants is great
I actually read this one last year it was excellent. This and Amy Poehler’s “yes please” are part of why I am have started reading memoirs. ?
Long walk to freedom by Nelson Mandela
Furiously @Happy
Alan Cummings wrote his memoir Not My Father’s Son.
Swimming to Antarctica by Lynne Cox—fascinating memoir of a long distance swimmer
A river in darkness was a free download from amazon last month and I thought it was a really good read.
My two favorites are Howie Mandel and Jodi Sweeten.
More on the sports bio side, but boys in the boat or the 3 year swim club are both good
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
Book by Tom Reiss
No Way Home. Can’t remember the author. A well-reader memoir by a woman whose father was on the run from the FBI for ten years while she was growing up.
My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor
Spitfire Girl by Jackie Moggridge, Boys in the Trees by Carly Simon, Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming, It’s a Long Story: My Life by Willie Nelson, Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Remini, Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill
Thanks so much!
Margaret Bourke White, Carole King
Born A Crime by Trevor Noah
I have this one on my list! I’m a bit afraid to read it because it sounds like it will be devastating.
It is great and told with much humour???
This was my favorite book I read last year! Trevor is an amazing storyteller.
Rosemary by Kate Clifford Larson; Radium Girls by Kate Moore; My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me by Jennifer Teege; The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs; When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi; Enjoy Every Sandwich by Lee Lipsenthal
Joyce Maynard
The Best Of Us
Beautifully written – a reminder to enjoy every moment
“A Personal History” by Katherine Graham is really interesting. I also loved Springsteen’s “Born to Run.”
Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya
Tina Fey’s Bossypants
Caroline Abraham’s Posessing Genius (about Einstein and particularly his actual brain, not mind)
Jim Gaffigan’s Dad is Fat
Samantha Bee’s I Know I Am But What Are You?
I enjoyed Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, it’s controversial but I learned loads. Also Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls.
Wow you are all amazing! Thanks.
Sisters-in-Law about Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Sandra Day O’Connor’s path to the SCOTUS. Radium Girls, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Glass Castle are some of my favorites…
Anything by Alexandra Fuller.
Isaacson’s Leonardo Da Vinci
Hands down glass castles a memoir a very dysfunctional household but the wonderful thing about this book is there is light at the end all the children who are raised in this house grew up to be successful and happy human beings
Leonardo Di Vinci
Wild by Cheryl Strayed, At Home In the World by Joyce Maynard, Talking As Fast As I Can by Lauren Graham, Seaworthy by Linda Greenlaw. I guess I read a lot of female memoirs.
Wild for sure, so good (I haven’t read the others yet).
Educated by Tara Westover.
Autobiography of a yogi by Paramahansa yogananda
Daring to Drive : a Saudi Woman’s Awakening by Manal al-Sharif.
If you like Gilmore Girls/Parenthood, read Lauren Graham’s Talking as Fast as I Can! It was quite comical and real. I could hear the narration in her voice in my head. Was so into it that I was drawing attention to myself at the laundromat. People wandering what I was reading. Either that or dude was trying to hit on me and I was just in my own little world enjoying the book. I can’t always tell ?
Glass Castle
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Then I request you that you Pls read reminiscences of a seeker by Kapil Kumar Bhaskar.. It’s an autobiography.. And is a thriller… You must read it and recommend it to your friends
Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis A Memoir by Frank McCourt
Negroland by Margo Jefferson
Life After Death by Damien Echols.
Jo Brandt -Look back in Hunger. She’s an English Comedienne and used to be a Nurse. It tells the story of her growing up, nursing and getting into comedy. I don’t usually read this type of book but found it honest and funny
Not really a biography, but memoir sort of: To Siri with love. A mother’s memoir of raising a son with ASD. It was really good, realistic and funny too
One of my favorites was The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer Also just read Educated by Tara Westover which was very good.
Lab Girl by Helen Jaran – really goo d – and I don’t read mwmiors or bios – not my thing
All Over But the Shoutin’ – Rick Bragg
Anything by Rick Bragg!
Glad to know there’s another Rick Bragg fan out there!
Based on a true story: a Gentleman In Moscow.
Just reading more of this genre myself… I am finishing A Place to Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca which I have enjoyed! Next up The Tender Bar and then Educated!! Enjoy!
I’ve loved Heaven’s Coast by Mark Doty. It’s very quotable. It made me cry, but also feel like I’ve absorbed a lot of wisdom…
an Autobiography by Agatha Christie is my favourite autobiography, so interesting. Renoir, My Father by Jean Renoir is another one I found enthralling. MEmoirs of Madame de Campan is fascinating, she was a lady in waiting to Marie Antoinette.
A Girl Named Zippy. Running With Scissors.
I highly recommend the memoir “SLIPSTREAM” about the writer Elizabeth Jane Howard (1923-2014). She pulls no punches and is utterly candid about her life and her many loves, including her ex-husband Kingsley Amis. (I LOVED THIS BOOK. ❤️)
Someone just reviewed Amy Schumers book The Girl with the Back Tattoo. Check it out here by searching. Sounds interesting.
In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White
‘THURGOOD MARSHALL: American Revolutionary’ by Juan Williams.
‘NINE CONTINENTS: A Memoir in and Out of China’ by Xiaolu Guo (best-selling writer of the novel “A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers”).
Boys in the Trees; Carly Simon (I listen to her on Audiobook)
Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard is a mini memior. Interesting read from a fresh out of college real world experience.