Hi!
This is my first post in this sub 🙂
Last year I started getting super into reading memoirs. I had read Barack and Michelle Obama’s ones some years ago, but in 2025 I read “I’m Glad My Mum Died” (twice) and “The Third Gilmore”. These two books really changed me, especially the Kelly Bishop’s one.
All of this to say, I’d love to ready more. It doesn’t have to be political (but it can be) or anything like that, any suggestions? 🙂
by Bettysgarden1989
1 Comment
Celebrity memoirs can be fun, but there’s a whole world of writing from “regular people” who led fascinating lives, too. These are two of my recent favorites:
1) It Must Be Beautiful to be Finished by Kate Gies.
Gies was born without a right ear; a plastic surgeon persuaded her parents he could make her an ear (or at least the cosmetic appearance of one), and that this would allow her to grow up “just like everyone else”. The book recounts Gies’ childhood in and out of hospital, and her adulthood coming to terms with the trauma of multiple failed surgeries, missed school, and the relentless medicalization of her body and appearance. It’s a powerful story about our social fears of body difference and who decides what bodies need “fixing”
2) The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
After Contreras and her mother share a dream of her granddather’s ghost demanding to be exhumed, the family returns to Colombia to carry out his wish. What follows is a sprawling, mystical family saga that explores race, colonization, class and spirituality.
Happy reading!