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Read On…Life Stories: Reading Lists for Every Taste
Scores of appeal-based reading lists cover topics you'll never find in the library catalog―from extraordinary women and overcoming adversity to sports talk, spiritual journeys, and luminous prose.
With the genre of memoirs filled with so many titles and from such a variety of authors, it is hard to grasp what's available and what's worth reading. For all those who love delving into the lives of others, this Read On… volume offers help.
Read On…Life Reading Lists for Every Taste offers brief descriptions of nearly 450 published memoirs, from classics like The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin , to recent bestsellers like John Grogan's Marley and Me and Julie Andrews' Home . Titles are grouped together by their appeal to readers, and there is something for humorous memoirs, thrilling adventure stories, chatty celebrity reminiscences, cathartic dramas of family dysfunction, fascinating career retrospectives, and insightful stories of family and personal lives in many eras and places.
With the genre of memoirs filled with so many titles and from such a variety of authors, it is hard to grasp what's available and what's worth reading. For all those who love delving into the lives of others, this Read On… volume offers help.
Read On…Life Reading Lists for Every Taste offers brief descriptions of nearly 450 published memoirs, from classics like The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin , to recent bestsellers like John Grogan's Marley and Me and Julie Andrews' Home . Titles are grouped together by their appeal to readers, and there is something for humorous memoirs, thrilling adventure stories, chatty celebrity reminiscences, cathartic dramas of family dysfunction, fascinating career retrospectives, and insightful stories of family and personal lives in many eras and places.
196 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
36 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 4, 2010
If you're looking for that next perfect biograhphy or memoir, than this is the book for you. Chock full of reading lists with thoughtful annotations, there are as the substitle claims, reading for every taste. Seperated into five chapters, the lists reflect character, story, setting, language, and mood. Each segment includes a best book to start with if you are not certain where to begin and award books are noted. The index is helpful for finding other like titles of one you've enjoyed. Just look up a favorite and see what else is on the list. My only wish is that there was a seperate list of award winners.
We often get requests for a good biography. This book with its lists of the lives of real people will help answer that question. I interlibrary loaned a copy but found it so valuable I've now purchased a copy for our collection.
We often get requests for a good biography. This book with its lists of the lives of real people will help answer that question. I interlibrary loaned a copy but found it so valuable I've now purchased a copy for our collection.
March 10, 2012
Books! Not only do I love books, themselves: novels, memoirs, mysteries, histories—I love to read books about books!
The latest Must-Buy I picked up is a book about Memoirs—Read On…Life Stories by Rosalind Reisner. Rosalind is heading up a new team I joined (well, I’m really the newbie—the team has existed for years in association with Women’s National Book Association) to select this year’s Great Group Reads in celebration of National Reading Group Month in October. After reading Rosalind’s bio, I can see why she is leading this team—what a resume! She’s been a long-time Reference Librarian, a Book Rep. for Baker and Taylor—working directly with librarians, an author of two book reference books (the subject of this post plus Jewish American Literature), a coveted speaker, and a book blogger on A Reader’s Place. Whew!
But, I digress—back to the book. When I saw it on her bio, I had to order it—and boy, am I glad I did! Roz is truly a resident expert on all-things-Memoir. But her book isn’t just a laundry list of some great ‘Life Stories’ you might enjoy reading—she gives you some specific direction. First, her book is organized by what she calls ‘primary appeal characteristics’ such as character, story, setting, language and mood. Then to further assist us easily-overwhelmed readers, she includes icons alerting us to which book might be the best one to start with in a category, as well as—and of course, this is my favorite—icons indicating which ones lend themselves to good book club discussions. I noticed many of my book club favorites as I perused the pages including The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy (Robert Leleux) The Color of Water(James McBride) and Wild Swans (Jung Chang.)
And after just a quick perusing of her book, its edge is now littered with little blue flags and I’ve added at least a couple dozen new memoirs to my TBR queue, such as Black Boy, by Richard Wright, (from the Coming of Age Character section) My Own Country, by Abraham Verghese (from the Medical World Setting section)—didn’t you just love his novel Cutting for Stone?—and Wait Till Next Year, by Doris Kearns Goodwin (from the Nostalgic Mood section) to name just a few.
You’ll want to add Read On…Life Stories (from the ‘Gotta Have’ section) to your own TBR list!
Cheers!
BCC
The latest Must-Buy I picked up is a book about Memoirs—Read On…Life Stories by Rosalind Reisner. Rosalind is heading up a new team I joined (well, I’m really the newbie—the team has existed for years in association with Women’s National Book Association) to select this year’s Great Group Reads in celebration of National Reading Group Month in October. After reading Rosalind’s bio, I can see why she is leading this team—what a resume! She’s been a long-time Reference Librarian, a Book Rep. for Baker and Taylor—working directly with librarians, an author of two book reference books (the subject of this post plus Jewish American Literature), a coveted speaker, and a book blogger on A Reader’s Place. Whew!
But, I digress—back to the book. When I saw it on her bio, I had to order it—and boy, am I glad I did! Roz is truly a resident expert on all-things-Memoir. But her book isn’t just a laundry list of some great ‘Life Stories’ you might enjoy reading—she gives you some specific direction. First, her book is organized by what she calls ‘primary appeal characteristics’ such as character, story, setting, language and mood. Then to further assist us easily-overwhelmed readers, she includes icons alerting us to which book might be the best one to start with in a category, as well as—and of course, this is my favorite—icons indicating which ones lend themselves to good book club discussions. I noticed many of my book club favorites as I perused the pages including The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy (Robert Leleux) The Color of Water(James McBride) and Wild Swans (Jung Chang.)
And after just a quick perusing of her book, its edge is now littered with little blue flags and I’ve added at least a couple dozen new memoirs to my TBR queue, such as Black Boy, by Richard Wright, (from the Coming of Age Character section) My Own Country, by Abraham Verghese (from the Medical World Setting section)—didn’t you just love his novel Cutting for Stone?—and Wait Till Next Year, by Doris Kearns Goodwin (from the Nostalgic Mood section) to name just a few.
You’ll want to add Read On…Life Stories (from the ‘Gotta Have’ section) to your own TBR list!
Cheers!
BCC
November 20, 2009
One of the best entries I've seen yet in our Read On... series. My only wish is that it had been about 100 pages longer. This is a big portion of the reading market and I'd like to explore more of it than this.
December 11, 2009
Wonderfully detailed and organized. If you enjoy memoirs this is a great book for you because you can browse through each section to find the next book you want to read... I personally think this is a great book and really useful!!
July 11, 2010
This is a book filled with suggested books for many different kinds of biographies and autobiographies. I was disappointed that it contained so few British and Early American Biographies that I am interested in. However, I did highlight about a dozen books I plan to read someday.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews