I recently started getting into memoirs, can anybody recommend some good ones?
I recently started getting into memoirs, can anybody recommend some good ones?
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I recently started getting into memoirs, can anybody recommend some good ones?
I really liked Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis, though I also know a lot of people who hated it.
Memoirs of a geisha
@Sharmina not a real memoir ? if you’re talking about the one by arthur golden. Still really good though.
The year we disappeared
Three little words
Three more words
Behind closed doors: a daughter’s story
Educated by Tara Westover, Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken.
Beyond Belief is really good if you’re interested in cults, scientology, brainwashing, etc. It’s by the head honcho David Miscavige’s niece!
Experience by Martin Amis
I’m reading Oldest Confederate Widow Tells all
All you can ever know (chung)
An Odyssey (mendelsohn)
Hunger (gay)
Memoirs of a Geisha
@LK This is fiction, but a fun read.
Just kids by Patti Smith
Once Upon A Time in China by Xialou Guo
In Pieces by Sally Field
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
I’ll push you!!!!
Mary Karr! Liars Club, Cherry, and Lit.
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Whart artists you like?
@Katherine anyone honestly, I find everything unique
I have 3 to recommend:1- jesusland by Julia Scheeres (traumatizing childhood overcome)
2- Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood (one of my favorite books that I read last year about having a crazy family)
3- Lab Girl by Hope Jahren (currently reading, a must if you love plants/ botany/ science with some description of managing mental illness)
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. A memoir in graphic novel form – it’s astonishing!
@Yuki I loved this one!!
Also loved The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and recently Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime.
@Yuki I’m about to start reading Born a Crime, I’m glD to hear good things
@Caitlin Angela’s Ashes (1996) by Frank McCourt
@Yuki this was so good, and so awful at the same time, if you know what I mean.
@Bonnie I read it 21 years ago I can still feel the hunger pangs! I ate boiled eggs for two weeks he made them sound so delicious ?
Yuki Shimmyo Dumaresq I read that he was trying to write his memoir for years and couldn’t, because he was just too angry, and then an editor suggested he write it from the point of view of himself as a child. Then he was able to get it out. He wasn’t angry when he was too young to understand how awful his childhood was.
Ghost boy by Martin pistorious
I wish I had read Black Boy (1945) by Richard Wright when I was in HS. Still, never too late..
The princess diarist by Carrie Fisher
Peter O’Toole, Graham Norton, Katherine Hepburn
Hillybilly Elegy! Forgot the author but it’s super good!
Glass castle by Jeanette walls
One of the best I’ve read, Personal History by Katharine Grahmam, owner of the Washington Post (played by Meryl Streep in the movie “The Post”). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95420.Personal_History
A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmell
@Lori oh I loved Zippy
Another one: Poor Little Rich Girl: Life and Legend of Barbara Hutton by C. David Heymann https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20515007-poor-little-rich-girl
Crazy in the Kitchen, by Louise de Salvo
https://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Kitchen-Forgiveness-Italian-American/dp/1422350991
Piece of cake!
Educated
CHANCERS
(Addiction, Prison, Recovery, Love)
A couples Memoir
by Susan Stellin and Graham McIndoe
With the Old Breed
Augusten Burroughs – Dry
the distance between us
On Writing by Stephen King
The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwabe.
Counsel to the President by Clark Clifford has a lot of good info, and connects a lot of missing dots in history (he served under Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter—JFK’s personal attorney) —but it can be laborious.
How to Murder Your Life by Kat Marnell
The Sky Below by Scott Parazynski
Bloodletting by Victoria Leatham
My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber is also one of the funniest books I have ever read.
Running With Scissors
In My Skin by Kate Holden
Milestones by Joseph Ratzinger, written a couple of decades before he became Pope Benedict XVI. Really a remarkable life, not very long, with some insights into Vatican II on top of it.
What Remains: a Memior of fate, Friendship and love by Carole Radziwill
I liked Angela’s Ashes and the one after that by Frank McCourt.
Anna Weyrick that’s one of my favorite books!!
Approaching Eye Level by Vivian Gornick is highly recommended.
Autobiography of a Face. Seriously the book that changed my life!
@Karen forgot about this one! This is the book that sparked my interest in memoir
A Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela. Roughing It, Mark Twain
I just started “The Way Around” by David Goode. Fascinating! https://www.amazon.com/Way-Around-Finding-Mother-Yanomami/dp/0062382136/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+Way+ARound&qid=1551816518&s=gateway&sr=8-1
BECOMING- Michelle Obama
@Carol, glad to hear it. I bought this but haven’t read it yet.
The glass castle
EDUCATED
Barefoot to Avalon
The color of water by James McBride or Romulus my father by Raimond Gaita
@Gloria read the color of water! ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Check out the color of love, same topic.
A Mind Unraveled
The Glass Castle – Jeanette Walls
The Glass Castle – Jeanette Walls
Eat pray love.
Wild by Cheryl strayed.
Maid.
Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Born With Teeth by Kate Mulgrew
Brain on Fire, by Susannah Cahalan
Educated, Becoming
Becoming by Michelle Obama
My next memoir will be I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
This Disney Bio. It’s a beast, I’ve been working on it a few months. It’s fascinating. https://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disney-Triumph-American-Imagination/dp/0679757473/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?keywords=%22Walt+Disney%22+biography&qid=1551818652&s=books&sr=1-2-spons&psc=1
The Orchard !!!
Educated and Not That Kind of Love
Glass castle
Wild Swans by Jung Chang
The Choice by Edith Eger
Jane Fonda, Colin Powell, Katherine Hepburn all wrote great ones!
The Glass Castle
A teary eye book at times but a boy called it there r 2 books but i heard there was a third by is brother?
You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. (For me, 5 stars.) I Am I Am I Am (For me, 4 1/2 stars). Of course, Educated and, of course, Becoming by Michelle Obama. Don’t know your politics but it’s more about her than politics. Also, I saw a woman reading Hillary Clinton’s biography and she was really loving it. I haven’t read that one, though. A good place to look is to goggle Goodreads memoirs (and pick a year). You’ll get a list of what people thought were best that year.
Following
Running with scissors
A long way gone:memoirs of a boy soldier was incredible
Julie Andrews on Audible reading hers was one of the most wonderful experiences I’ve ever had with memoir.
Alan Cumming, Not My Father’s Son
Jon Cryer, So That Happened
More Fool Me – Stephen Fry
Educated
Angela’s ashes by Frank mccourt
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, Becoming by Michelle Obama, Dreams From my Father by Barack Obama, Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Beales, and The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls to name a few compelling and poignant ones.
@Andrea Glass Castle was so good!
Troublemaker by Leah Remini
Bossypants by Tina Fey
The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls!!!
Fantastic book. 🙂
Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? by Steven Tyler
Liar’s Club, All Over But the Shouting, Glass Castle
One of my favorites is The Prizewinner of Defiance Ohio
Yes Please by Amy Poehler
The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton
Then Again by Diane Keaton
A River in Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa
Wild by Cheryl Strayed!
Educated by Tara Westover is a fave, also Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime (audiobook is read by him & very good)
Breaking the Night by Liz Murray.
I enjoyed listening to Failure is Not an Option by Gene Krantz
“Lets pretend this never happened” & “meaty”
A million little pieces
Look Me inThe Eye, Switched On, The Prize Winner of Defiance, In Pieces(but it is a hard read) . That’s all I can think of right now.
Its not YA… But memoirs of a geisha is awesome.
Born a crime – Trevor Noah
Nancy Wake by Peter Fitzsimons. Nancy was a young Australian nurse at the start of WW2, and decided she was going to jump on a boat over to England to learn how to kill Nazis. She trained with British intelligence and parachuted into the French forests to join the resistance
Becoming by Michelle Obama.
“M Train’ -Patti Smith
@Susan or just kids by her
Following
Into the wild
well, Becoming by Michelle Obama is pretty good!
American Childhood by Annie Dillard
Educated was a wonderful read. I couldn’t put it down.
Diary of a hangman – John Ellis, Rochdale execution
Jaycee Lee Dugard is a nice one. Also read the shattered silence by Melissa Jesperson
Call the Nurse- I forget the author, but written by a lady practicing community nursing in the Outer Hebrides in the 70’s. Amusing, inspiring, and occasionally tragic.
@Mo
‘Life’s That Way’ by Jim Beaver.
I am currently reading this and it is a bit…deep.
I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O’Farrell
Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
They are all magnificent. ??
Amanda Ashdown I love Furiously Happy! It’s laugh out loud funny. When Breath Becomes Air is so touching. Another one I loved is A Language Older than Words.
@Lori I was rolling reading Furiously Happy, so hilarious. When Breath Becomes Air is probably in my top five favorite books.. I’ll have to look up A Language Older Than Words!
@Amanda this is my favorite quote from it.
@Amanda have you read any of Jenny Lawson’s blog, The Bloggess? It’s pretty funny too, but sometimes sad.
@Lori I have not! I’m not big into blogs ??♀️
@Amanda I’m not either but hers often has pictures and videos and is really more like a continuation of her book.
Gabrielle Union’s is fantastic. Billy Crystal and Jenny Lawson too.
Kat Ward
Toni Maguire
Frank McCourt
Peter Roche
Dick Van Dyke has two that are excellent
@Mary I love him. ??
Becoming