Biography, Autobiography, Memoir discussion
Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir read in 2017
Regina wrote: "
by Kate MooreIF YOU ONLY READ ONE NON-FICTION BOOK THIS YEAR MAKE IT THIS ONE!
A couple of yea..."
Added to my reading list-thanks for the info!
Koren wrote: "Fishface, I hope this isn't a spoiler, but in the book she says it is a myth that he was freebasing when that happened and the true story is that he set himself on fire after a suicide attempt while being strung out on drugs. "Criminy Jenkins, who does he think he is, Mohamed Bouazizi?
Fishface wrote: "Criminy Jenkins, who does he think he is, Mohamed Bouazizi?"I've heard many accounts of what "really happened".
Mod
3 stars
Jennifer started her singing career on season 3 of American Idol, being eliminated in 7th place and went on to win an Oscar for her role in Dreamgirls
I guess I shouldn't have been disappointed but I was. The title says 'how I changed my ways and lost what weighed me down' and that is exactly what this is about. I thought this would be more about her life and it is at the beginning but about half way through it gets to be a commericial for Weight Watchers. She does talk quite a bit about her journey to fame but very little about her personal life. I was surprised no mention was made about her mother and brother being murdered.
Koren wrote: "I Got This: How I Changed My Ways and Lost What Weighed Me Down by Jennifer Hudson3 stars
Jennifer started her singing career on season 3 of American Idol, being eliminated in 7th..."
Was this written before they got killed?
I think Janet Jackson wrote a similar memoir to do with her weight loss but she enlisted the help of a personal trainer. Of course.
The Biscuit Girls by Hunter DaviesI seem to be fascinated by factories. This time its girls working in the Carr's Biscuit Factory in the 1940s. The book chronicles six women's working lives and the history of biscuit factories in England.
From 'Cracker Packers' to 'Barrow Boys'. The interesting thing is reading about all the different biscuits manufactured and working conditions in the factory. I do eat Carr's Water Crackers but then I also eat their rival Huntley and Palmers Cream Crackers as well.
Selina wrote: "The Biscuit Girls by Hunter DaviesI seem to be fascinated by factories. This time its girls working in the Carr's Biscuit Factory in the 1940s. The book chronicles six women's wor..."
Added to my list-sounds like something I would like!
Mod
3 stars
This book wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be. The author investigates the murder of his brother as a child and the author was 4 years old. He didn't remember much about it because of his age and wanted to know more. I thought it would be about solving the murder but it was solved right away. I would have liked to know more about how the case was solved, but this was more about the author and his emotions following the death of his brother and how it effected his entire life. The book itself was ok as a memoir of living with the death of a brother, but as a case study it is sadly lacking.
Now listening to ....Carrie Fisher's The Princess Diarist. Apparently she was still holding a torch for Harrison Ford after making out with him in the back of a car after getting kinda drunk at George Lucas' birthday party when they were filming Star Wars. Uh...
And other gory details.
Mod
4 stars
Written by the son of Dean Martin. It is clear that the author loves his father. I was sad that the author passed away about a year ago. I read another book by the daughter of Dean Martin, Deana, and it was similar. He was well-loved by his family and it is clear they had a close-knit family and was not at all disfuntional. That might make for a dull book but if you are looking for juicy gossip this would not be the book for you.
Mod
1 star
I started this thinking it was a 'love gone wrong' book to read for the challenge so I am going to post my review here:
On the surface this looks like a True Crime book, but really its not. At times it reads more like erotica. There is some pretty graphic stuff here. There isn't really any crime committed here. The husband is pretty basically a jerk, but otherwise he didn't really commit a crime. I wish the book didn't start at the end. I might have liked it better if there was some suspense. We learn right away in the first pages how the story ends.
So, basically what happens is that this American girl is caught up in a romance with a baron from Belgium and they marry. Before the honeymoon is even over he becomes an overbearing jackass.
I'm glad she didn't get the plastic surgery that he insisted she should have. This book is mostly about her. I would have liked to have explored if the way he and his family acted was part of his culture or if that is really the way nobility in Belgium behave.
by Shrabani Basu - 5 stars and <3If you following my reading you know I have a slight obsession with the women of the SOE. All of my reading to date has been an overall examination of the program and its contribution to the war, particularly its role in preparing for the D-Day invasion. I’ve never done a reading on a specific member of the program. If you are going to read on one particular figure of the extraordinary program Noor Inayat Khan is definitely the one to start with. An Indian princess on her father’s side with an American mother, Noor was born in Moscow and raised in Paris. She was an accomplished musician whose brother studied the violin under Stravinsky and was an author of children’s books. Her stories were broadcast on the Children’s Hour of Radio Paris. She was working on the concept of publishing a children’s newspaper when she was forced to flee with her family to London as Hitler’s army was advancing towards Paris. Her father was a Sufi, a Muslim mystic, who also adhered to the teachings of Gandhi. Noor was raised with a sense of religious tolerance and was a Muslim who fell in love with a Jew. Although raised as a pacifist she came to the conclusion that not actively resisting Hitler was tantamount to an accomplice to murder.
She volunteered for Women’s Auxiliary Air Force where she learned radio transmission. This combined with language skills attracted the attention of the newly created program of training women for espionage behind enemy lines of the SOE. She was detached to the French section, whose main aim was to prepare the ground for the invasion of France. She was attached to the Prosper circuit, who had become one of the largest, busiest, and most hazardous forces around Paris and of the SOE networks. Noor was the first woman operator to be flown into occupied France and of the thirty-nine women sent to France thirteen, including Noor, never returned.
The average survival time for a radio operator in the field was approximately six weeks. Of the more than 200 captured agents of the two sections of the SOE, only twenty-six lived to tell their tale. Within ten day of Noor’s arrival the network had been infiltrated and fallen into complete disarray with sweeping arrests of up to 1500 people. London wanted to extract her but she refused because she was the last radio operator left in Paris. She wanted to remain until a replacement could be sent. London accepted her response as an “offer of sacrifice of a soldier and allowed her to remain.” She eluded capture for three months and continued the dangerous work. She accomplished a great deal including managing to facilitate the escape of thirty Allied airmen shot down in France. A replacement was found and plans were to extract her on October 15, 1943. She was arrested the day before and was eventually executed at Dachau on September 13, 1944 with three other SOE female agents. Her contributions were recognized by both the UK and France, awarded the George Cross from UK and Coix de Guerre from France. She was one of only three women SOE agents to receive the George Cross.
Fantastic book! There is a great deal of debate around whether these women were trained properly, whether they should have been sent behind enemy lines, and what their accomplishments really were. Many books are heavily skewered either in lionizing the women or tampering down their involvement. Basu strikes a very good balance in her work. It is obvious she has a great deal of admiration for Noor, but she doesn’t hesitate to show her mistakes and weaknesses. I have my own biases and feel they were incredibly important and am happy to be in Eisenhower’s camp on this one who credits the women’s activity by shortening the war by six month. I like Ike!
Regina wrote: " by Shrabani Basu - 5 stars and <3If you following my reading you know I have a slight obsession with the women of th..."
Added to my list!
Born Bright: A Young Girl's Journey from Nothing to Something in America
C. Nicole Mason
3.5/5 stars
This is the true story of C. Nicole Mason who as an African American experienced life in poverty in Los Angeles, California during the 60s and 70s. She discusses what it was like to live in poverty, going to schools who did not encourage the academic growth of her race, struggling with moving from home to home and when she was determined to go to college, not knowing how to go through the ropes of applying for college since no one in her family or neighborhood went. She was able to beat the odds and got into Howard University and has made a success of her life. Very eye opening!
Someone recommended this to me on Good Reads but I don't remember who! Thanks!
Regina wrote: " by Shrabani Basu - 5 stars and <3If you following my reading you know I have a slight obsession with the women of th..."
Thank you for the recommendation! It looks fascinating. I wonder if you might like "An Interrupted Life" by Etty Hillesum One of the best books I've ever read - not about the SEO but about a young jewish woman living through Nazi occupied Holland during WWII. She records both her religious awakening and the ever increasing jewish persecution, which are happening at the same time. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Koren wrote: "A new year, a new discussion."Hello All,
Recently I read a really marvellous book called "Desert Queen" about Gertrude Belll. It was so fascinating and captivating about this very courageous, bold and intelligent British woman who took it upon herself to buy a camel, and hire a team to explore the Arabian Desert decades before Lawrence of Arabia. The book is both interesting and very touching, very human on what drove this incredible woman to do this unusual work.
Elaine wrote: "Koren wrote: "A new year, a new discussion."Hello All,
Recently I read a really marvellous book called "Desert Queen" about Gertrude Belll. It was so fascinating and captivating about this very ..."
Sounds interesting!
Desert Queen is a favorite of mine!
Mariah wrote: "Regina wrote: " by Shrabani Basu - 5 stars and <3If you following my reading you know I have a slight obsession with ..."
Thanks! I will check it out.
by Mikhail Krivich - 3 Stars Andrei Chikatilo was accused and convicted over fifty-three savage and sadistic murders young boy and girls as well as women ages eight to twenty-four throughout Russian territory over a twelve year period beginning in 1978. He was almost caught after the first murder, but there was a previously convicted man, Aleksandr Kravchenko, in the area who had a prior rape and murder conviction. Even though he had obviously turned his life around it was just easier for authorities to pin the murder on him rather than follow the clues leading to Chikatilo. Sadly, Kavchenko was wrongly executed and Chikatilo was emboldened and learned from his mistakes. Securing jobs that allowed for an unusual mobility in Soviet Union at the time further aided his ability to elude capture, as he often committed the atrocities while traveling on business.
Chikatilo came to my attention when I read Child 44, a fiction work loosely based on Chikatilo. Loosely is correct because the only thing the two have in common is that the main characters of both books were Russian serial killers. In Tom Rob Smith fiction account the Soviet culture of promoting a Utopian society created the atmosphere for which the killer went undetected. That was not the reality. While authorities definitely made mistakes, they aggressively pursued the case, subject half a million people to questioning and testing. As a result 1,000 unrelated cases were solved.
The book is difficult to read. The murders are disgusting. I'm used to reading difficult subject matter as it relates to war studies, but this was even hard for me to get through. It is also a bit unsatisfying because of the time of publication Chikatilo is convicted but awaiting appeals. I had to look up the conclusion of the story. I don't know that I can recommend it, but it was interesting to see how Soviet police investigation worked and how the case was solved.
I met Robert Ressler the day he was getting on a plane to interview Chikatilo just before his execution. Much later I read The Killer Department: Detective Viktor Burakov's Eight-Year Hunt for the Most Savage Serial Killer in Russian History which told more about the difficulties of investigating serial murder in a country where the government believed that such things only go on among decadent Westerners. I wonder if the title you read might fill in some of the gaps. I have always felt terrible for Kravchenko!
Mod
3 stars
If you are not familiar with this gal, she is best known as Cookie on Empire. She is smart, outspoken, and sassy. This moves along at a fast pace. I think you would like this book if you are familiar with her but if you're not you might not get too excited about it. There's nothing here that is really earth-shattering.
Now, along with the autobiography Escape from Evil: Married at 17 to a Serial Killer, She's One Victim Who Escaped, I've started Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel, which is sort of a Victorian-era biography very similar in a lot of ways to Thing of Beauty.
Fishface wrote: "I met Robert Ressler the day he was getting on a plane to interview Chikatilo just before his execution. Much later I read [book:The Killer Department: Detective Viktor Burakov's Eight-Year Hunt fo..."That's really cool! Did you enjoy the book because it sounds like an interesting perspective. This book definitely did not take the "it only happens in Western countries" stance. But, the author was Russian. I don't know if that had anything to do with it. He made is seem that the police were aggressively pursuing the case and the Kravchenko was blamed on one lazy investigator.
St. Patrick of Ireland 2 stars What a disappointment! But, it really isn't the author's fault. It's just that with the exception of two letters written by Patrick himself - Confession and Letter to the Soldiers of Croticus (both of which are at least fully included in this work) - apparently very little historical information remains on Patrick. Unfortunately, Confession reliability is suspect; it seems more of a modern-day retelling of several Old Testament stories in the shape of Patrick's life as if further emphasizing God's direct selection and approval of Patrick and his work in Ireland.
All we know is that Patrick was from a Roman family in Britain. They were a land-owning family and served the church for two generations. At the age of fifteen Patrick was kidnapped and sold into slavery into Ireland. Patrick claims to have received a vision commanding him to return home. After a one month journey across Ireland he finds a ship willing to take him aboard and back to Britain. Reunited with his family, he claims to have another vision to return to Ireland and convert its people. He eventually became a Deacon then a Bishop and faced opposition with the British church, which used a sin of some kind (we don't even know what it is) from his teenage years as a pretext to investigate Patrick. That's ALL we know. We don't even have the benefit of knowing what towns he was born in, lived in slavery, found a return ship to return home, where he preached, where he died, or where he's buried. We don't know how long he stayed in Britain before returning to England. We don't know the outcome of the investigation.
The book was frustrating for its lack facts and it continuous use of phrases like "you can imagine", "might have", "likely", "probably," "possibly", etc. But, the lack of documents is understandable taking into account Irish culture at the time. It was heavily reliant on oral tradition and writing religious texts was forbidden in Celtic religion. But, it is a shame because the conviction and genuine care of the Irish Christians displayed in the letter to Croticus gives you a glimpse into his heart. It would have been nice to know more. Patrick is probably a subject that should be left to historical fiction writers rather than non-fiction unless more evidence is ever uncovered.
Regina wrote: "Fishface wrote: "I met Robert Ressler the day he was getting on a plane to interview Chikatilo just before his execution. Much later I read [book:The Killer Department: Detective Viktor Burakov's E..."I loved this book, frankly. It was written by an American who lived for many years in the USSR and had kind of a bird's-eye view of Communist Russia thinking.
Fishface wrote: "Regina wrote: "Fishface wrote: "I met Robert Ressler the day he was getting on a plane to interview Chikatilo just before his execution. Much later I read [book:The Killer Department: Detective Vik..."Thanks! I will add it to my TBR because the description of that perspective was what I was expecting in my read.
Sepp Holzer: The Rebel FarmerSepp Holzer is an a=Austrian permaculture farmer who's now world famous, especially for defying conventional farming methods and public authorities for having a flourishing farm, complete with fish (in a landlocked country like Austria, a good trade), having pick your own fruit trees, and having all sorts of plants and animals live and grow on his farm.
I liked reading about his childhood and his insatiable curiousity of how nature works that never left him and his experiments with creating habitats that also yield abundance. Some of his battles with the authorities show his tenacity and how crazy legislation can be for people that just want to make a living off their land.
Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel, Lucinda Hawksley4 stars
If you liked Thing of Beauty, you'll like this one too. There are a lot of parallels between the two stories. The author does a good job of capturing the temper of the times Lizzie Siddall lived in and the group personality of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, who made her a star. While this was basically a blow-by-blow, undramatic recitation of the facts of Lizzie's life, her story was quite moving. I recommend this one.
Just started Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde. I was afraid it would bore me to tears but it's utterly absorbing. Imagine being so poor and hardscrabble that when the Great Depression hit, you didn't even notice. No wonder they turned to bank robbery!!!
by Micheál Ó Siochrú -3.5 Rounded to 4 StarsCromwell, a committed Puritan, is an incredibly controversial figure in British history. On the one hand BBC viewers proclaimed him one of the greatest Britons of all time. Conversely, he evokes viscerally strong emotions from the Irish. Having only spent nine months in Ireland between 1649-1650, he is considered by the Irish a war criminal, a religious persecutor, and ethnic cleanser as he continued to carry out the work of the British crown bringing natives and Catholics into subjection.
Cromwell was one of the signatories that brought about Charles I's execution, inflaming the Irish situation. Having little military experience he was tapped to lead troops into Ireland. In the summer of 1649, Cromwell was sent to Ireland with two objectives: to place it firmly under English control; to superintend the confiscation the land of all 'rebels' - as a result almost forty per cent of the land of Ireland was redistributed from Catholics born in Ireland to Protestants born in Britain. His first target was the town of Drogheda north of Dublin which he stormed and captured. Perhaps 2,500 men, mainly in arms, were killed during the storm and several hundred more - all the officers, all Catholic priests and friars, every tenth common soldier - were killed, many clubbed to death. It was in accordance with the laws of war, but it went far beyond what any General had done in England. Cromwell then perpetrated a messier massacre at Wexford. Thereafter most towns surrendered on his approach, and he scrupulously observed surrender articles and spared the lives of soldiers and civilians. It was and is a controversial conquest. But, from the English point of view, it worked. In the summer of 1650, he returned to England and was sent off to Scotland, where Charles II had been proclaimed and crowned as King of Britain and Ireland. In a campaign as unrelenting but less brutal, he wiped out the royal armies and established a military occupation of the lowlands and west that was to last until 1660. In September 1651 he returned to a roman-style triumphant entry in London.
As I go through this study of Irish history I'm amazed at the profound effect Henry VII's separation from the Catholic church impacted the Irish. Readers, both fiction and historical non-fiction, are often attracted to the Tudor period for a number of reasons. Often it is the salacious nature of his relationship with his wives that receive the most focus. But, so far at least in my study, actions approximately 600 years ago are still felt on the island that now stands divided between north and south.
The Dating Game Killer: The True Story of a TV Dating Show, a Violent Sociopath, and a Series of Brutal Murders, Stella Sands4 stars
This was a grisly read, not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. The author spares no detail in telling us what the killer -- diagnosed over and over as a sexual sadist with a Narcissus complex the size of Alaska -- did to his unlucky victims, but she does spare us the deadly details of the never-ending legal proceedings this guy seems to generate, maybe continuing to this day. I like the way the story was broken down into small bites, because otherwise reading about this more-than-thirty-year-long story would have been very difficult to get through. I also like the way the author tells us so much about the known victims, making the tragedy of their loss far easier to grasp. I also like the way she leaves the door open for any new information that may arise -- because this guy may have done far more than kill these few women and girls. I look forward, grimly, to the sequel...
Pee Wee Gaskins America's No. 1 Serial Killer4 stars
Where Slaughter in Carolina just gives the basic outline of Pee Wee Gaskins' crimes and Final Truth: The Autobiography of Mass Murderer/Serial Killer Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins seeks to fills in the gaps about crimes Pee Wee claims to have committed and wants credit for (without proof), this one is mostly biography -- the story of how Gaskins grew up to be so extraordinarily cruel. Again, this information comes primarily from a man on Death Row who wants you to know that he's the victim here, so a lot of it is suspect, but a lot of it is also very believable. I'm disturbed that the author apparently sees serial murder as some sort of competition, and he writes as if he really respected Gaskins for what's he "achieved" over the years as a thief, swindler, polygamist, hit man, cannibal, and sex killer -- as if he were a gold medalist rather than a horrible example of a human being. I am also astounded that this book was written by an English professor. At first only the punctuation was eccentric, but as the story continued I started to see wild misspellings like "juggler vein" and "terrorfied." I can't decide whether the author is trying to give us the flavor of Pee Wee's dialect or if he himself really writes this way. Surely a professor of English would know when to use quotation marks and [sic] to show that it's Pee Wee, not himself...but it never happened once.
Fishface wrote: "The Dating Game Killer: The True Story of a TV Dating Show, a Violent Sociopath, and a Series of Brutal Murders, Stella Sands4 stars
This was a grisly read, not for the faint of h..."
A amazing and gruesome tale! Good read!
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
5/5 stars
This is the first autobiography of Maya Angelou in which she tells the story of her life from birth to young adulthood and the birth of her son Guy in the early 40's. I was blown away with her writing and her recollection of a severe and difficult life growing up in America as an African American child and young woman. She is an amazing writer and am looking forward to reading more of her books.
by Patrick M. Geoghegan - 4 StarsBorn at the start of the American Revolution, Daniel O'Connell, known as "counselor," "agitator," "liberator," and "king of Ireland," liked to say this inspired his love of freedom. He was a colorful lawyer that became known as the first great 19th-century Irish nationalist leader. He used his great oratory skills and legal knowledge to focus on galvanizing the average Catholic citizen throughout Ireland to his pet cause - Catholic emancipation without veto power over church appointments by the Crown.
Ironically, O'Connell, although born Catholic, was not devoutly religious when he took up the cause. He considered himself a deist early on but had a conversion later in life. Yet, he believed earnestly in the cause and did a great deal to advance the rights of Catholics in a tumultuous time.
He is a fun character for a biography (reminds me a bit of Benjamin Franklin) and a man of contradictions. Miserably lacking in managing his own finances he successfully started Catholic organization, even though illegal at the time, and secured adequate funding to advance their causes. His courtroom antics made for some delightful reading. However, his theatrics could get him in trouble and he found himself in two duels. After his conversion and the death of D’Esterre he vowed, and successfully so, never to participate again.
He was a flawed man and Geoghegan seems to portray him in his full light. But, he did seem to learn from his mistakes (with the exception of finances) and grow from them. After sacrificing a great deal for the cause he ultimately won an election but was ineligible to sit take his seat in parliament since the oath of allegiance was incompatible with Catholicism. The Emancipation Act was passed to allow people of all faith to be seated but it was not retroactive and O'Connell had to win a subsequent election to take his seat.
It was disappointing for the book to conclude as O'Connell took his seat. I would have liked to have read more about the rest of his life. Some of the terms can be a bit confusing. Winston Churchill once referred to the U.S. and Great Britain as "two countries divided by a common language." That is the case here. I had the luxury of emailing my colleague in Scotland at the Press and Journal for clarification. Otherwise, I may have been left a bit confused.
Still, it was a good read and actually a bit fun at times.
Mod
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
5/5 stars
This is the first autobiography of Maya Angelou in which she tell..."
Love her.
Mod
1 star
I saw Alan Arkin on TCM being interviewed by Robert Osborne and thought it sounded like he led a very interesting life. I had this book on my shelf so I grabbed it and began reading. The beginning of the book was interesting when he talks about his childhood. After that it is all downhill. There is almost no biographical information after his first marriage. He apparently had two marriages after that but each wife is mentioned by name once and you're left thinking "Oh, he must have gotten married again". He mentions a few of the movies he's been in but I was disappointed that my favorite movie" The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" didn't even get a mention. Most of the book is (taken from the back cover) " reflecting on the acting process and the life lessons that can be gleaned from improvisational theater". If this is what you are looking for than it is a very good book. For me it was a yawner. It is a short book and I read it in one day. Otherwise, I don't think I would have finished it.
Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation
Adam Resnick
4/5 stars
Comedy writer Adam Resnick who has written for David Letterman and Saturday Night Live now writes about his life in a series of essays that are fabulously funny and yet disturbing. I could not help but laugh through these stories and some hit very close to home. Recommended to those not afraid of dark humor.
Maude
Donna Mabry
3.5/5 stars
This is the story of Maude, a woman born in the late 1800s and written by her granddaughter. The reader is taken on a nonstop journey that was Maude's life-from losing her parents early and then her first husband, marrying her second husband because of the social mores at the time and dealing with the major events in her life time from WWI, the flu epidemic, the depression and WWII. Life was hard for Maude but she kept her spirits up and kept going. A fast read and a very interesting look back at a woman's life in the 1900s.
Would anyone be interested in taking a peek at this one? It was a labor of love and I need help spreading the word...Ranked number 6 right now on Amazon in memoirs...https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Laundry-...
Mod
3 stars
I was very interested to learn the history of why the Irish came to America. I mean, we already know about the potato famine but really there was so much more, including the abuse by the English. This guy, Thomas Meagher came to America as an immigrant and went on the contribute a lot to the history of our country. The part where he went to war during the Civil War wasn't real interesting to me but probably would be to some that like to read about the Civil War.
Mod
I think if you are a fan you will like this book. Personally, I found it boring for the most part. The first almost half of the book was about her childhood and that was ok. After that it is mostly about her career with little personal detail. I dont know why the book ends at 1962 so there is zilch about The Sound Music. I had to google to find out that she and her first husband, who she was madly in love with at the end of the book, were divorced just a few years later and she later married and had two more children. Perhaps there is a second book but I don't think I will look for it.
Just started Denial: A Memoir of Terror by Jessica Stern. We are reading crime victims' memoirs over at the True Crime group this month and this is starting out excellent, about a woman who only gradually realized, after becoming an international authority on terrorism and going to a therapist with the goal of "feeling less," that both of those facts might possibly have something to do with the fact that she and her sister were raped at gunpoint in their teens.
Mod
5 stars
The author is a well-known country music star who has battled severe depression and anxiety. I think this book would be very helpful to those who want to learn more about depression and anxiety and also for those suffering from these disorders. It doesn't just relate a story but also offers helpful ideas to those with these disorders.
For those interested in true crime from the victim's point of view and more about the impact of that crime then one book I have read before was written by Alice Sebold titled "Lucky". The book is about her brutal rape whilst a campus freshman. It does get rather depressing obviously due to the subject matter but it really does enlighten you to how "Lovely Bones" could have been written with such heavy subject matter.
Suzanne wrote: "For those interested in true crime from the victim's point of view and more about the impact of that crime then one book I have read before was written by Alice Sebold titled "Lucky". The book is a..."Thanks for the recommendation! I have read a couple of her books.
Suzanne wrote: "For those interested in true crime from the victim's point of view and more about the impact of that crime then one book I have read before was written by Alice Sebold titled "Lucky". The book is a..."I keep meaning to get to this one.
Chernobyl: Confessions of a Reporter by Igor Kostin came in for me at the library and I started on it immediately even though I am in the middle of another book. It is a kind of devastating read -- mostly photos taken by the author, starting on the day he was waked up by a phone call, asking him if he was available to fly out to Chernobyl to take photos at the scene of a fire. The fire turned out to be the explosion of reactor 4 at the power plant. He was the only one to get a photo of the wreckage -- a single exposure came out usable before the radiation rendered the rest of the film useless. He went back again and again despite worsening symptoms of radiation sickness, to document the bravery of the firemen, "liquidators" (men sent in to minimize the spread of radioactive dust and fumes) and engineers who built the reactor's "sarcophagus," fearlessly and without complaint. This one is every bit as moving as Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, but Kostin's photos let us see the story as he did, up close and personal, as he and the other men raced in and out of the wreckage to straighten out a small piece of the destruction before their exposure got too severe, then got sicker and sicker. I was born square in the middle of the Cold War and radiation sickness has always sounded to me like one of the worst things that can happen to you. Igor Kostin is proving it to me, one photo at a time.
Biography, Autobiography, Memoir
Books mentioned in this topic
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League (other topics)Gladys Aylward: The Little Woman (other topics)
Gladys Aylward: The Adventure of a Lifetime (other topics)
Stolen Lives: The Untold Stories of the Lawson Quins (other topics)
Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Kate Summerscale (other topics)Laura Ingalls Wilder (other topics)
Laura Ingalls Wilder (other topics)
Margot Lee Shetterly (other topics)
Richard Sandomir (other topics)
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3 stars
I don't usually read books about war. I read this because I needed a book about war for a challenge and I had picked this one up at a yard sale, not really knowing much about the author. I had heard after all he had been through in war he was killed after his service, but didn't really know what happened to him and had to google it. I will say that this book has the most reviews and comments to reviews of any book I have seen on this site. It seems that people either love it or hate it. I'm on the fence so will give it a three star rating. I will say I didn't really come to understand how someone can kill so many people without remorse, not caring if they are soldiers, women or children. It is foreign to me and something the author didn't really dwell on or make clear. I have to hand it to his wife. I don't think I would have been able to stand by a man who made it clear that family did not come first in his book. I think I can understand how people could either love this book or hate it. If books about war are not your thing I would recommend to skip it.