Category Archives: Books and Reading

You Say “MEM-war”, I Say “mem-WAH”: People Stories

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Whichever way you prefer to pronounce memoir, this particular type of autobiography was relatively unknown when I started working in the library waaaay back in the early 1970s. Sure, we had the “biography/autobiography” titles cataloged for the 921 shelves, but an entire book based on a regular person’s memories was pretty much unheard of. Then back in the early 1990s, the genre exploded and now it’s as if any “Tom, Dick, or Harriett” can dredge up memories of their formative years and write a mesmerizing book. My favorites are celebrity memoirs, especially if they sprinkle a little dirt on the pages, but I also enjoy a well-done story filled with strife and struggle. Now whether they are all truth-driven is a topic for another post.

The First Memoir: ‘Ok…it’s a pretty good story Noah. But I think it needs to punched up a little to make it marketable.’

The most recent memoir I read and loved is the harrowing and inspirational Educated by Tara Westover. It’s the perfect book for those who loved The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, and it also reminded me of Ruth Wariner’s heartbreaking story of growing up in a polygamous Mormon household, The Sound of Gravel. Another similar “readalike” is Cea Person’s North of Normal.

educatedsound gravelnorth normalI am

Another “life story” (of sorts) that had me enthralled from the start was I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death. I believe there are a large number of people who have had at least one experience of their “lives flashing before their eyes,” and if so this book is sure to generate a lot of discussions. This is another title sure to end up on my best list.

Other recent worthy titles include Katey Sagal’s Grace Notes (even though I’m not a fan I still enjoyed this), Gabrielle Union’s We’re Going to Need More Wine (ditto), Flor Edwards’ Apocalypse Child (for anyone interested in the Children of God cult), and, even though it’s not technically a memoir, Caroline Fraser’s Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Waiting in the wings on my TBR pile is Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Unmasked, Kari Byron’s (from Mythbusters) Crash Test Girl, and Robert Hilburn’s Paul Simon: The Life.

Coming Soon

Here are a few more new titles around the bend that may tantalize. They are:

September – Sarah Weinman, The Real Lolita (Nabokov’s inspiration for Lolita), (and interestingly enough, a new novel about the same event is coming, Rust and Stardust by T. Greenwood)hood

July – Allie Rowbottom, The Jell-O Girls

November – Christine O’Brien, Crave: A Memoir of Food and Longing

December – Ann Hood – Kitchen Yarns (I adored her previous “memoir” about important books in her life, Morningstar, and it has tempted me to re-read The Harrad Experiment)

Discuss

So what is your favorite memoir?

Watch for my next post for a report of the gripping psychological suspense novel I’m in the middle of reading. 

 

A Few Good Books

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I promised that when I reached 50 followers, I would post an actual blog about books. There’s no particular reason why I chose that arbitrary figure, it just sounded like a nice round number of readers who I’m sure would wait with bated breaths to hear the profound pearls of literary wisdom that would fall from my mouth, or in the case, from my fingertips.

LibraryReads June List  library_reads_logo_website

And this was the perfect day for a post as the LibraryReads list was released. I could tell you more about the librarian supported program but it’s easier if you read about it here.

Check out the June list of books to be published in June here. My favorites from this list are Anthony Horowitz’s THE WORD IS MURDER and B. A. Paris’ BRING ME BACK (you can read my GoodReads reviews by clicking on the titles). For other titles on the list, librarian colleagues have been raving about the heart-pounding thriller, JAR OF HEARTS, and “all the good feels” romance, THE KISS QUOTIENT, which has received huge thumbs up from those who don’t even like romance novels (but be forewarned, apparently it’s quite steamy). Heck, I might even read it and as a general rule don’t read romances–not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’m just more of a thriller/mystery and psychological/suspense fan.

 

 

If you want to explore the past lists from LibraryReads (and perhaps hunt for my annotation–hint: it’s for SOMETIMES I LIE), you can find them in the archive.

A Short Survey

I will soon be tweaking this site and adding more information (such as more “About Me”) and helpful links, but first I would like to know your formatting preference.

When you click on a link, do you prefer the site to open in a new window, or in the same tab and then use the “back” arrow to return to the blog post? Right now I have it set to open in a new tab but will gladly change it if the majority prefers it in the same window. Please comment below.

Thanks for reading and in the next day or two I’ll be reporting on what I’ve been reading over the past few weeks. Preview: Last night finished a new memoir that is harrowing and terrific.