Reading: Memoirs
I find myself only reading memoirs lately. I suppose I like hearing compelling stories about real life, or real point-of-views, from real people.
Most recently I've read:
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
This book was intense. I've been a vegetarian for 13 years because it never felt natural, to me, to eat meat. I couldn't really care less about what people around me were eating. After reading this book, I started to care and asked Jeremy to read it too. Here is a nice summary of key take-aways from the book, if you're interested.
I'm Down a memoir by Mishna Wolff
This book was a much-needed comic relief after reading Eating Animals. From Publishers Weekly: Wolff details her childhood growing up in an all-black Seattle neighborhood with a white father who wanted to be black in this amusing memoir. Wolff never quite fit in with the neighborhood kids, despite her father's urgings that she make friends with the sisters on the block. Her father was raised in a similar neighborhood and—after a brief stint as a hippie in Vermont—returned to Seattle and settled into life as a self-proclaimed black man. Wolff and her younger, more outgoing sister, Anora, are taught to embrace all things black, just like their father and his string of black girlfriends.
A super enjoyable read. I'd highly recommend it to anyone.
Seven Summits by Dick Bass, Frank Wells and Rick Ridgeway
When one of my spinning instructors at the YMCA caught wind of me and Jeremy's Everest trek he insisted I borrow his copy of Seven Summits. A story of two men that make it their goal to be the first to summit the highest peaks on each continent. I'm in the middle of this book - the narrative isn't as well-written as Eating Animals or I'm Down, but so far it's a good story about a subject I'm obsessed with.
Do you have any memoirs you would recommend I add to my reading list?
oh man at first I forgot you were vegetarian and my first thought was a sort of ALIVE (the movie where they eat eachother) type thing but eating dead animals. Don's ask, im special. I'm glad to see thats not what it is.
It looks like a good read but so depressing at the same time. thanks for the suggestions!
Em - If I were in a situation like Alive I would most certainly eat dead animals. Ha.
I really enjoyed The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard. (You gotta love the cover image, too.) xo.
http://www.amazon.com/Boys-My-Youth-Ann-Beard/dp/0316085251
I'm reading "The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir" by
Josh Kilmer-purcell. So far it's one of my favorite reads this summer.
Thanks for sharing your suggestions- I just added "I'm Down" to my reading list!
Melanie - I love that show - The Fabulous Beekman Boys! I definitely want to check out Josh's book. Thanks for the recommendation.
on a note to commenter em, i didn't find "eating animals" depressing at all. yes, there is horrific content in it, but for me, personally, it was uplifting. i realized that i could make a personal decision to not be a part of something i didn't believe in, and that i could influence those around me to do the same. it helped me follow my heart + become a better person. much recommended!
not memoirs, but some non-fiction i'd recommend: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion and anything by Malcom Gladwell.
xo, jessica
http://jessicafulkerson.blogspot.com/
I was sort of obsessed with memoirs and biographies in my college years. In retrospect, I wonder if I was looking for sort of a how to guide or a relatable perspective?
Jack Welch, Salvador Dali, Frank Lloyd Wright, Eileen Gray, and Donald Trump are the more recognizable names I read about. In recent years, I picked up Into The Wild and Quiet Strength.
The thing is, to be honest, I always get frustrated with some aspect of whoever I'm reading about and usually have to put the book down three quarters of the way through. Like, why did Nancy have to get Sid hooked on drugs? Why did Jack leave his first wife? Why did that idiot venture into the woods with only a bag of rice?!
You know, that sort of thing.
And, yes, I realize it's ridiculous.
Kelly
the glass castle by jeannette walls.
http://rippleeffects.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/the-glass-castle-book-review/
Three Cups of Tea
Oh! I just thought of another, Three Weeks With My Brother. It's by Nicholas Sparks but it's nothing like his novels. His life's story is crazy but weaves in and out of his childhood with every other chapter telling the story of his three week around the world adventure with his brother. Really really good.
Eating Animals is on my list of reads, but to be honest I am terrified of reading it. I know it's going to be sad and depressing and make me never want to eat meat again, and while I was vegan for about 1.5 years, I'm back to eating the occasional meat (maybe 3/4 times a month) and I quite like it.
I know when I read that book it will probably be the end of my occasional meat eating...so I'm stalling.
I'm big into memoirs.
I'd call The Year of Magical Thinking a definite memoir! And a wonderful one! But sad. Heavy. Lovely, though.
Read that for sure. Good call, Jessica.
Certainly anything by David Sedaris, if you want some funny memoirs. August Burroughs is an easy go-to.
Sickened by Julie Gregory is fascinating and interesting.
Swing Low: A Life is woooonderful. Miriam Toews, a lovely Canadian. About her father's bipolar disorder. Oh god, so good. I just re-read the introduction on Amazon and need to dig it out to read again. Read it!
A Homemade Life - by the lovely Molly Wizenberg
This book was so easy to read, with tears and laughter in the plentiful. I just adored it.
On a more playful note, both books by Sloane Crosley. Kinda memoir-y. Absolutely fantastic.
I haven't read many memoirs, but I adored "Yes Man" and "A Walk Across America." I also quite enjoyed "Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words," which you can get for free.
Nicole - I got A Homemade Life for my birthday and devoured it. I've actually made the ginger dark chocolate banana bread a few times. I cried HARD during parts and laughed even harder in others. Beautiful book. I was always a fan of Orangette but even more so now.
Kathleen!
This post reminded me to thank you for your rustoleum chalkboard paint recommendation. I bought it, painted and am so happy with the matte finish--that glossy stuff was nothing like the chalkboard I had pictured!
Also, I feel you on the eating animals. While I can't say I'm a vegetarian, we eat only meat that comes from a local farm that we have visited, and can tell for ourselves that the animals are treated respectfully!
I love memoirs. "The Glass Castle" was amazing.
i LOVED eating animals. i am also vegetarian and you are right - it made me really question other people's morals when eating meat. i think it raises great points and isn't really pushing vegetarianism as much as conscious eating! i was in tears towards the end of the book.
i would suggest "half the sky." it is about how important women are all over the world and how much they are hindered by sexual exploitation, maternal care, and lack of education. it is an incredible read. it was very inspiring and life-changing.
also - if you're looking for a great read and have never read "grapes of wrath" - i would definitely suggest it. i read it for book club recently and was shocked i never had to read it before like a lot of other people. it was so good and shockingly similar to the plight of small farmers today. scary!
You have to read my two favorite Everest books! "High Crimes" by Michael Kodas and "Dead Lucky" by Lincoln Hall. I feel like Dead Lucky is the better of the two, but they are both so good. I've actually met Michael Kodas and his wife. It's kind of bizarre trying to picture them in the scenario that unfolds in his book. She looks like a super model and he's kind of nerdy!
Bobbi - High Crimes is actually next on my list! I will definitely have to check both of those out though.
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