My 5 year is having surgery that will require a hospital stay and memoirs are my easy reading comfort books. I’d like one to engross me while he’s in surgery and recovery (and while I sit but can’t sleep at the bedside in the ICU).
Some I’ve like recently include Crying in H Mart and I’m Glad My Mom Died.
by LisaBCan
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Although it a work of fiction, Memiors of a Geisha is one of my favorites. Actually, it’s my #1 favorite.
A few of my favorite memoirs are:
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
The Liars Club by Mary Karr
I found Ranger Confidential by Andrea Lankford to be surprisingly page-turning. It’s about her career as a national parks ranger and it’s full of wild stories!
Educated by Tara Westover
Barbarian Days by William Finnegan
I really liked “West With the Night” by Beyrl Markham.
It’s an amazing book by one of the earliest female aviators and the first person to fly across the Atlantic east-west.
But her life is really remarkable. She lived in Kenya for most of her life, and her stories include her going on traditional hunts with the Kenyan tribesmen, getting attacked by a lion, fighting giant wild boar, etc.
Her writing and storytelling is really quite remarkable. Earnest Hemingway said of her prose that it made him ashamed of himself as a writer.
So it’s very easy to read while being fascinating and unique at the same time.
One of my favorite books EVER was {A House In the Sky}
Two of my favorites that haven’t been mentioned are
Hollywood Park by Mikel Jollett &
Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey
Just Kids- Patti Smith
Michael J. Fox
The Glass Castle
I’m glad my mom died
The Maniac, by Benjamin Labatut. Written about John Von Neumann, world famous mathematician and the “father of artificial intelligence”.
Two that quite grabbed me were
Morrisey, by Morrisey
If you enjoyed The Smiths and their witty flamboyant lead singer, look no further…
This autobiography is exactly as witty, poetic and scathing as you can imagine…
Beautifully written, bitingly sarcastic and absolutely hilarious….
The gathering storm, by sir Winston Churchill
The years after WW1 leading up to WW2… all the planning, mistakes and things that go wrong etc… very thorough and illuminating… I thought I knew quite a bit about ‘why’ WW2 happened… after reading this I realized i didn’t know half of what was really going on
Warriors Don’t Cry. By Melba Patillo Beale
Not memoir: The boys who challenged Hitler.
A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown
The Storyteller by Dave Grohl
For something a little different & light
Do I owe you money by Ian Mosley.
The long time drummer of Marillion looks back on decades in the music business