This is a great but difficult prompt. I can tell you right now, I will not be picking only one book this week! I enjoy memoirs if they’re well written and about an interesting person’s life and experiences. Even if it’s a person I don’t care about that much, if the book is good, I’ll be a fan! Here are some that have stood out to me over the years.
ETA: After seeing several other posts this week where the authors obviously agonized over choosing that one perfect book (in some cases two, but that’s still pretty darn good). So I’m going to try to choose one that is my favourite right now. If I’m just going with the one that gives me the biggest feels when I look at the cover right now, it would be Broken by Jenny Lawson. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me shake my head in disbelief, it made me feel less alone. There are some on this list that will likely have a bigger impact on the world – or even on me through my life (Anne Frank changed my whole world view, as did Malcolm X), but right now, in this particular moment of my life, this is the one that resonates most strongly.
If you want to see the (very) long list of memoirs and biographies I came up with before deciding it made me a complete cop out, feel free to check out as much or as little as you’d like below. I warn you, it is VERY long. What can I say? This is a winning genre for me!
These are some of the historical memoirs and biographies that have had the greatest impact on me. I read Anne Frank as a young girl myself, and it had a huge effect on my view of the world. I then read The Autobiography of Malcolm X in high school, and again, it created something of a paradigm shift for me, one that I’m still exploring to this day, which brings me to Twelve Years A Slave. I read this earlier this year, and while it didn’t shift anything for me (I already knew a lot of the history it covers) it did add a first person voice to some of that history I’ve been absorbing. Ethel & Ernest is a beautifully drawn graphic biography Briggs wrote about his parents, who lived through WWII. I found it particularly touching as it helped me imagine what my own grandparents lived through at that time. And Quentin Crisp’s memoir, though it has faded in memory, was one of the first books of LGBTQIAP+ history I read. I loved Crisp’s writing, but also found it to be an interesting snapshot of what it meant to be gay at that time (I believe he was one of the few outwardly gay men at a time when it was still illegal in England). Brave and flamboyand, hilarious and deeply moving.
These four have been part of the reading I’ve been doing over the past few years to educate myself better on race relations. These focus on the US, Canada and the UK, and all taught me a lot and helped me to understand different aspects of what it means to be Black (and British, Canadian or American) today. I recommend each of these very highly.
These are some of my favourite travel memoirs of all time. Under the Tuscan Sun was the first of the genre I read, and to this day Italy is a magical place in my imagination because of it. A Year in Provence was similar, but for somewhere I’ve actually been, and possibly more humorous. Nothing to Declare and Along the Inca Road were both books that, as a woman, were particularly inspiring. In both women travel, either alone or mostly alone, in areas that are unknown to them. The adventures they have and the freedom I felt while reading were magical to me.
These four are quieter books, but all touched me in particular ways. Wintering showed me the importance of slowing down, being patient with yourself and healing. The Salt Path showed me the power of making a decision and seeing it through, even when all in life seems lost. My Family and Other Animals showed the wonder of the natural world, and the wildness of a family that is at times fraught, but bound by love. Q’s Legacy taught me that sometimes you can be your own professor, that you can find what you need to learn from books and in the library and create your own course of study.
These four are by or about famous people. M Train is the second memoir by Patti Smith – Just Kids being the first. I didn’t love Just Kids, but M Train is written about her life now, which is a quiet one full of small moments of contentment and calm. Tracey Thorn is one of my favourite writers. She writes about her early career as a singer and musician in England’s suburban indie music scene. It was her tone and personality that I loved in this one. Ben Watt is Tracey Thorn’s husband and the other half of her ’90s musical duo, Everything But the Girl. His book is about his time spend suffering from a mysterious illness that had him hospitalized for a long period of time, during which he got sicker and sicker, endured multiple surgeries, and barely came through. The effects of the illness will affect him for the rest of his life. As someone who has spent a fair amount of time in hospitals and has several chronic medical conditions (though not as severe as his), I could relate to a lot of this book. And, similar to his wife, his tone and writing style were charismatic and enjoyable. Outlaw Journalist is a biography of Hunter S. Thompson. His books – both fiction and collections of journalism – are legendary. He is credited with inventing Gonzo journalism (where the journalist becomes part of the story), and his wild ways were known far and wide. His books might have crazy stories, but his life is crazier. I really enjoyed this book, and learning about Thompson’s life.
These four books all deal with mental health issues in one way or another. Jenny Lawson has three books that all deal with her life and her various mental and physical health issues. This is the latest, and probably my favourite so far. She makes me feel like maybe I’m not alone after all. Hyperbole and a Half also deals with topics of anxiety and depression, but in graphic format. There was a lot I related to in this book as well. My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward is written by Mark Lukach about his wife’s severe mental health issues, and what it was like to be the partner of someone going through such extreme crisis. It is a perspective I’ve never seen written before, and one I think has huge import. Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me is the memoir of a Canadian Journalist who suffers from severe depression. This book chronicles her worst episodes, her near-suicides, the failings of the mental health care system and the treatments that do and don’t work and why. It doesn’t sugar coat things, nor does it provide a happily ever after. It shows that for some, mental health issues are a part of their lives, a major part of their mental landscape, and a filter through which they see the world. As someone who has suffered from mental health issues (not as severe, but bad enough) and tried medication that created as many issues as it solved, I know how challenging it can be to find the help that is needed, if that help even exists. Sometimes depression or anxiety just have to exist as a part of life, and be dealt with on a daily basis as they ebb and flow, because the medication isn’t any better. It’s a hard reality to face – much easier to think that if you’re depressed, you pop a pill and it goes away and you’re fine. It’s rarely that simple, and this book does an excellent job of illustrating why.
Love, Nina is the memoir of a young woman working as a nanny for a literary editor. Both the writer and her boss are hilarious, and some of the peripheral characters (like Alan Bennett, who is a neighbour) add some wonderful scenes. Light, entertaining, funny – a great book if you need something to brighten up your mood. Raising Demons is a hilarious account of a mother (yes, that Shirley Jackson), who isn’t the domestic goddess type, trying to raise a large family alone (she has a husband around, but he’s useless) in the 1950s. She’s hilarious, honest and has a way of drawing the scene perfectly. It also shows how little motherhood has changed in the intervening years. Catalogue Baby was a new find for me, but is one of my favourites. It’s a graphic memoir of one woman’s journey through infertility as she tries to have a baby in her 40s without a partner. It’s heart-rending, honest, open and just beautiful. Small Animals isn’t my favourite book, but it does raise some very important issues surrounding the challenges of modern motherhood – lack of resources, expense of childcare, racism, outside judgment, constant guilt and a new expectation that mothers watch their kids at all times, often to the expense of their own agency and mental health. There are issues I had with this book, but nevertheless I think it’s a very important one.
Newjack was an excellent, if sobering, read. Ted Conover wanted to interview guards and prisoners at one of America’s most notorious prisons, but was denied access. So he trained to be a prison guard and got a job working there. He spent a year working as a guard, experiencing first-hand the pressures and inequities of the prison system for both prisoners and guards. He was able to shine a light on the systemic issues that see people of colour and those with mental health issues locked up and forgotten about, denied adequate treatment and often not even given due process. It’s an important indictment of the prison-industrial system, and a courageous feat of journalism. Poverty Safari is a really interesting look at how poverty both causes and is caused by social inequities and issues. McGarvey takes us through his life and shows us the cycles of abuse, addiction and poverty that damage and trap children born into the type of poverty he grew up in, and how it leads to disenfranchisement and hopelessness. Another difficult but very important book.
Definitely more than one favourite memoir/biography here! It’s a genre I very much enjoy when I find the right books, and one I love to share! Have you guys read any of my picks? Which is your favourite memoir or biography?
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Such a lot here to check out!
Haha! Yeah, it’s entirely possible I got a little carried away.
Holy smokes! That is some list… Some of those sound really good (in particular Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me). Thanks for sharing and for the lengthy list. I love suggestions 🙂
Hello was really informative. She’s a journalist, so she did a ton of research and shares a lot of info about depression, its demographics and treatments that I found really interesting. It’s very honest so not for the faint of heart though. And it is very realistic about how hard it is to treat depression and how little we still understand about it. Great, though!
That’s an impressive list! Sounds like a lot of great books on it. It’s impossible to narrow down a favorite genre. I’d be the same with romance and horror.
I mean I could have tried harder, honestly, but I was having too much fun! 😉
Wow, you came up with so many great answers!
I’ve seen the film version of The Autobiography of Malcom X but haven’t read the book yet. That needs to change.
Ethel & Ernest is another fabulous answer. I saw a short film version of it that brought a tear to my eye.
Thanks for stopping by earlier.
Thanks! It’s a powerful book. Not easy, but very powerful. I loved E&E. I haven’t seen the film version, but I’ll need to check it out! The Snowman (introduced by David Bowie) was my favourite film when I was a kid. I’m trying to do better at visiting other blogs – it’s just time. Isn’t that always the thing? Thanks for always stopping by even when I’m not keeping up with it!