Category Archives: memoir

A Long Way Home : a Memoir by Saroo Brierley

21 Monday Dec 2020

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This book is recommended by a Weston library patron.  It was made into the 2016 movie, Lion which received six nominations at the Academy Awards.

“I literally could not put this book down..[Saroo’s] return journey will leave you weeping with joy and the strength of the human spirit.”—Manly Daily (Australia)
 
“We urge you to step behind the headlines and have a read of this absorbing account…With clear recollections and good old-fashioned storytelling, Saroo…recalls the fear of being lost and the anguish of separation.”—Weekly Review (Australia)

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Travel Light, Move fast by Alexandra Fuller

10 Tuesday Dec 2019

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This is her 4th memoir about her eccentric English family growing up in Africa.  I recommend all the earlier ones: Don’t Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, and Leaving Before the Rains Come.  This one is her good-by to her father.  Try them all.  Gutsy, humorous, not a bit sentimental.

“Travel Light, Move Fast is a sensitive, meticulously wrought portrait of one family’s sometimes-challenging dynamics, set against an unforgiving African backdrop. Fuller’s beautiful prose juxtaposes the grieving process with the lessons she learned from the man whose adventures shaped her.” —BookPage

“[Fuller’s] family remains endlessly fascinating and delightful companions for long-time readers and new ones alike. . . A gorgeously written tribute to a life well lived and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable loss and grief.” —  Booklist, starred review

“[Fuller] sifted through a lifetime of memories in order to pen this celebration of the man whose profound influence helped shape her own worldview. [She]writes gracefully about embracing grief as an indelible part of the human experience. Another elegant memoir from a talented storyteller.” — Kirkus Reviews

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The Yellow House: a Memoir by Sarah M. Broom

25 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in 20th century, Biography, memoir, United States

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****Winner of THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION****

A brilliant memoir about place, race, and class, Sarah Broom escaped East New Orleans (often just blank space on early maps) to become a successful journalist yet feels that monstrous pull to return to her home with 11 siblings in the yellow shotgun house that was wiped off the map by Hurricane Katrina.  Meet her vibrant family and breathe in the quirky French Quarter where, as a child, she never knew existed.

“A heartfelt but unflinching recovery project . . . Broom’s lyrical style celebrates her family bonds, but a righteous fury runs throughout the narrative at New Orleans’ injustices, from the foundation on up. A tribute to the multitude of stories one small home can contain, even one bursting with loss.”―Kirkus Reviews

“A great, multigenerational family story . . . Broom is an engaging guide; she has some of David Simon’s effortless reporting style, and her meditations on eroding places recall Jeannette Walls. The house didn’t survive Katrina, but its destruction strengthened Broom’s appreciation of home. Broom’s memoir serves as a touching tribute to family and a unique exploration of the American experience.”―Publishers Weekly

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Know My Name: a Memoir by Chanel Miller

21 Monday Oct 2019

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In 2015, Chanel Miller was sexually assaulted by Brock Turner on Stanford’s campus. She was known as “Emily Doe” during the trial, and her victim impact statement was read by millions of people when it was posted online just after Turner’s controversial sentencing. In Know My Name, she reveals her identity and writes about all of the ways her life — and the lives of her loved ones — changed, and the journey to put herself back together. A powerful, beautifully written memoir.

“She has written a memoir that converts the ongoing experience of sexual assault into literature…Beautiful…“─The Atlantic

“Know My Name is a blistering, beautifully written account of a courageous young woman’s struggle to hold a sexual predator accountable. Stand back, folks: This book is going to give a huge blast of momentum to the #MeToo movement.”─Jon Krakauer

“She writes exquisitely of her pain, makes us feel every fragment of it, but also expounds on the kindness that nourished her spirit…Miller matters. Readers will see every victim matters.” ─USA Today

“In a perfect world, Know My Name would be required reading for every police officer, detective, prosecutor, provost and judge who deals with victims of sexual assault.” ─LA Times

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Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb

12 Wednesday Jun 2019

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In this page-turning memoir, therapist Lori Gottlieb describes her work helping patients, as well as her experience visiting a therapist. Gottlieb writes with humor and empathy about her patients and herself, and I became invested in all of her characters.

Now being developed as a television series with Eva Longoria and ABC!

*An O, The Oprah Magazine’s Best Nonfiction Book of 2019*  

*A People Magazine Book of the Week*
*An Apple Best Books Pick for April*
*An April IndieNext Pick*
*A Book of the Month Club Selection*
*A Publishers Marketplace Buzz Book*
*A Newsday, Apple iBooks, Thrive Global, Refinery29,
and Book Riot Most Anticipated Book of 2019*

“An irresistibly addictive tour of the human condition.”–Kirkus, starred review

“Rarely have I read a book that challenged me to see myself in an entirely new light, and was at the same time laugh-out-loud funny and utterly absorbing.”–Katie Couric

“This is a daring, delightful, and transformative book.”–Arianna Huffington, Founder, Huffington Post and Founder & CEO, Thrive Global

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Small Fry: a Memoir by Lisa Brennan-Jobs

04 Friday Jan 2019

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A tender coming of age story about a young girl trying to reconcile two very different lifestyles between her mother and father….. who just happens to be Steve Jobs.   This is not a celebrity biography.  She is true to her young voice throughout plus you will fall in love with her snapshots of 1970’s-80’s northern California.

“Entrancing… Brennan-Jobs is a deeply gifted writer… Her inner landscape is depicted in such exquisitely granular detail that it feels as if no one else could have possibly written it. Indeed, it has that defining aspect of a literary work: the stamp of a singular sensibility… Beautiful, literary, and devastating.”―New York Times Book Review

“Brennan-Jobs skillfully relays her past without judgement… staying true to her younger self. It is a testament to her fine writing and journalistic approach that her memoir never turns maudlin or gossipy. Rather than a celebrity biography, this is Brennan-Jobs’s authentic story of growing up in two very different environments, neither of which felt quite like home.”―Booklist (starred review)

“Brennan-Jobs’s narrative is tinged with awe, yearning, and disappointment… Bringing the reader into the heart of the child who admired Jobs’s genius, craved his love, and feared his unpredictability.”―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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I Am, I Am, I Am : Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell

23 Saturday Jun 2018

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A writer examines her life through a series of “near death” experiences, including a childhood illness, almost getting attacked, and giving birth. While the premise sounds bleak, the book is ultimately hopeful and beautifully written.

“I Am I Am I Am is a gripping and glorious investigation of death that leaves the reader feeling breathless, grateful, and fully alive. Maggie O’Farrell is a miracle in every sense. I will never forget this book.”—Ann Patchett

“Her stories are harrowing, but the purpose of these essays is not to frighten. It is to affirm. She did not die; she lived through all of these experiences and now recounts each one in vivid, fully alive detail — remembering the feeling of the wind in her hair, the roughness of the grass, the jolt of the plane, the sharpness of the machete.”
—Minneapolis-Star Tribune

“Astounding…awe-inspiring…a tour de force”  —Booklist, starred review

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Educated: a Memoir by Tara Westover

08 Friday Jun 2018

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An unforgettable memoir about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University

I was enthralled and moved by this powerful memoir. The author grew up in a survivalist family in Idaho, the youngest child. She was not homeschooled—instead, she simply didn’t go to school at all, due to her father’s mistrust of public schools. Her family didn’t believe in modern medicine. Instead, her mother was an herbalist and midwife. The memoir becomes a story of her internal struggle—to believe her own version of her life and to have the strength to break away from her past.

“The extremity of Westover’s upbringing emerges gradually through her telling, which only makes the telling more alluring and harrowing.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Incredibly thought-provoking . . . so much more than a memoir about a woman who graduated college without a formal education. It is about a woman who must learn how to learn.”—The Harvard Crimson

“At its heart, her memoir is a family history: not just a tale of overcoming but an uncertain elegy to the life that she ultimately rejected. Westover manages both tenderness and a savage honesty that spares no one, not even herself.”—Booklist

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