Biography, Autobiography, Memoir discussion
Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir read in 2017
Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride
Lucy Knisley
4/5 stars
Lucy Knisley, graphic novelist, writes and draws about her engagement and marriage to her on and off boyfriend John. Told through pictures and words, we follow the ups and downs of their relationship and the planning of an unorthodox and unique wedding in modern day. This is another delightful graphic novel for Knisley who has done several travelogues, a web comic series and her wonderful graphic memoir Relish- My Life in the Kitchen. Looking forward to her next project!
Of Long Memory: Mississippi And The Murder Of Medgar Evers, Adam Nossiter3 stars
This was a good one but not absolutely great. I was a little thrown by all the color and life in the portrait of Byron De La Beckwith -- a fanatical, racist murderer -- contrasted against the flat, unfeeling sketch of his victim, Medgar Evers, supposedly the centerpiece of the story. the author treats the many women in this story as almost immaterial to the proceedings. I also found the author's writing style a little roundabout and disinclined at times to get to the point. But I do know a great deal more about this case than I did before. I'll say that.
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3 stars
When this crime happened in 2005 it was international news. An 18 year old girl went to Aruba as a graduation gift to herself and disappeared. This is the story of the search for Natalee as told by her mother. Because it is told by the mother it is lacking on most of the legal details and is mostly about her search for her daughter. If you want a more detailed legal account I would try a different book.
Raw Deal: The Untold Story Of NYPD's "Cannibal Cop", Gil Valle with Brian Whitney4 stars!
You may never read another book like this one. It's a combination sexual-escapades memoir, the history of an interesting and important legal case, a fable about the dangers of trusting the media, an object lesson about knowing who you can really count on in this life, and a 100-page love letter to the author's daughter. All of this is packed into less than 250 pages. Well and believably written. I kept hearing (even from the author!) about how graphic and horrifying this book would be, but it wasn't grisly -- it was straight from the shoulder and to my mind lacking in horrifying details, except the parts about life in prison. The legal issues alone should make this required reading for every American. Read it!
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4 stars!
You may never read another book like this one. It's a combination sexual-escapades memoir..."
That sounds interesting. I may look for this.
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3 stars
Interesting. It was more interesting when it got more into times that I could remember. There is a lot of research here and just a heads up- the last 25% of the book is sources.
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2 stars
At first I thought this was going to be an awesome book. I was really interested in how she became a profiler. After that she talks about individual cases that she has worked on. It was really frustrating because she talks about her opinion of who the suspect is but there are no arrests or facts to back up her theories. Most of the cases remain unsolved. If you are interested in criminal profiling there are a lot better books out there.
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3 stars
Hard to believe there are so many people in Arizona that want to kill each other. This book was very interesting in the beginning but then each story started to sound pretty much the same. I enjoyed the parts about his personal life and finding the love of his life better than the stories about the criminals. There are a lot of typos in this book which I found distracting.
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Koren wrote: "The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths by Pat Brown 2 stars
At first I thought this was going to be an awesome book. I was really interested in how she became..."
In that case may I recommend Micki Pistorius's Catch Me a Killer: Serial Murders: A Profiler's True Story? She talks about cases she has actually helped solve using profiling. Or have you already read all of her books?
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2 stars
At first I thought this was going to be an awesome book. I was really interested in ..."
No. I don't think I've ever heard of her. I will check it out.
Memoirs of Lacenaire, translated by Philip John Stead4 stars
What a wonderful book! This is the memoir written by the man who served as the basis for Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, and it's the first celebrity-criminal memoir that I am aware of. Lacenaire, who lived at the time when the French Revolution was brewing, was an educated and thoughtful man who wanted everyone to know that he had principles and stuck fast to them, even at the moment when he was braining Madame Chardon with an axe. He managed to keep me interested to the last page, even though he brushed off his most famous double murder by saying, in effect, "You all know what happened that day." Beautifully written, well translated, but infuriatingly redacted by the original French publisher, who repeatedly noted where "the next three lines are not included because they are not fit for the public eye;" intriguingly, almost all of those comments were about the Catholic Church. Don't miss this one if you can find it at all; I paid a heart and a kidney for my copy.
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2 stars
I was interested in reading about Andrew Jackson after hearing that he is greatly admired by Donald Trump. After reading about Jackson you can see some similarities between the two. Jackson was kind of a jerk too. Jackson owned slaves and was responsible for the Trail of Tears, where the American Indian was forced to relocate from their own land because Jackson thought American expansion was the most important. Thousands of Indians died. Taken fromhttps://www.usnews.com/opinion/op-ed/... both were considered brash, abrasive, defensive, and quick-tempered and both have been considered vulgar and unfit to govern. Jackson was also described as being thin-skinned and felt the world was against him and the ruling elites looked down on him. Both expressed extreme loyalites to controversial adversaries and elevated them to powerful positions in their administrations with disastrous effects. Both were called tyrants and bullies, and like Trump, Jackson professed to always put American first and inveighed against 'alien enemies'.
This is why President Trump has placed a portrait of Jackson in his office. As Jackson treated the Indians, Trump emulates this by similarly treating Mexicans, Muslims and Immigrants.
Even This I Get to Experience
Norman Lear
4/5 stars
Norman Lear writes about his life and shows how even growing up in the poorest of circumstances that sometimes life gets better with hard work, ambition and talent. Not happy to just get rich, he has not left his life go by without impacting others by becoming a philanthropist and getting involved in political causes. Fascinating read but at times the story got dragged down in the recital of everything he did.
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Just my opinion, but they both thought the Caucasian race was supreme and were extremely bigoted.
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Even This I Get to Experience
Norman Lear
4/5 stars
Norman Lear writes about his life and shows how even growing ..."
Glad you liked this book. I gave it 5 out of 5 stars and it was one of my favorites last year.
Koren wrote: "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham2 stars
I was interested in reading about Andrew Jackson after hearing that he is greatly admired by Donald Trump. Af..."
It would be funny if Trump turned out to be a reincarnation of Jackson. It would be the supreme ego trip to have a portrait of your former self hanging in the office you and he both worked in. And looking to your former self for inspiration suggests that you might not have learned very much in the interim.
I'm REALLY enjoying Runaway Father. It's an excellent biography with a detective-story flavor to it, about a woman determined to get answers about why her husband deserted her in 1968, when men almost always got away with it with the collusion of the court system. (It's really not that much better now.) The main character did a lot of the detective work herself and found out all kinds of interesting stuff, not just about her missing husband but about his background and how he might have gotten this way.
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2 stars
I was interested in reading about Andrew Jackson after hearing that he is greatly admired by Do..."
Hmmm. That's an interesting observation.
Runaway Father, Richard Rashke4 enthusiastic stars!
What a great read. This should have bored me to tears -- it was mostly legal hearings -- but the suspense kept me right on the edge of my seat until the end. And what a blockbuster ending this one has! Hardly any author can handle this kind of material this skillfully, and Rashke does a great, great job. Don't miss this book if you are interested in good biographies, women's empowerment, the law, mental health, or just a good non-fiction read. This book is all of the above.
Fishface wrote: "Koren wrote: "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham2 stars
I was interested in reading about Andrew Jackson after hearing that he is greatly admired by Do..." He got reincarnated as trump? I thought the way reincarnation worked you come back as An animal or something. HE could have come back as a lion who tries to eat people but the people fight back and kill the lion to keep everyone safe or lock it up in a zoo and keep as a tourist attraction.
Selina wrote: "Fishface wrote: " He got reincarnated as trump? I thought the way reincarnation worked you come back as An animal or something. "Only if you were a bad person, and only according, I think, to one school of Buddhist thought. He may have been a long line of cows and ducks after being Andrew Jackson but before working his way back up to being Trump, who knows? I'm no expert.
Killer Show: The Station Nightclub Fire, America's Deadliest Rock Concert, John Barylick4 stars
This was an excellent, at times devastating read. Like Fire in the Grove: The Cocoanut Grove Tragedy and Its Aftermath and The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea, the text effectively tacked back and forth between the science of the disaster, the surrounding circumstances, the experiences of the less-central people involved, and the minute-by-minute personal stories of the people who went through it. You never got that far from the horror of the fire, but the author didn't keep you there for so long at a stretch that you started to get numb. This is his memoir, too, of the case -- he was one of the attorneys involved. I didn't give it a full 5 stars only because at times it did bog down, a just bit, when the author was discussing all the machinations involved in the massive, complex personal-injury suit that followed the Station disaster. If you loved Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, you'll love this one.
Ok I got round to reading Trump: The Art of the DealMr Monopoly man himself.
It's ghostwritten, and the books starts off with a week in the life of Trump with him doing all sorts of deals. He just calls people up and makes deals, giving people money to do this and that. This is in 1987 in NYC and real estate is hot.
Then he writes (talks) about his life growing up, and some family background, which is kind of interesting, because his dad was in real estate, but Trump didn't want to be in the small time landlording/construction business, he wanted glamour with hotels and casinos - that earns the big money.
After he got leverage with his first deal (that his dad helped him with, but the book of course doesn't give him credit) he goes and makes more with the equity, and a property speculator is born.
Then the book talks about several deals he's made, some went bad, and some were good. He had a lot riding on some of them but he took the risk. In one deal, he got an iceskating rink made when NYC govt took six years, he privately took a few months on time and on budget.
But other ones were rather dodgy - like he wanted to own a huge block of NYC real estate and kick out the tenants who had rent control and develop his own block. He got sued but he tried to force the tenants to move, of course they didn't want to.
He owns a lot of casinos and that's where the big money is. He builds huge garages for them to spend their money, buys out hotels, and has lots of buildings named after him - Trump Tower, Trump Castle, Trump Parc. This guy is extravagant, he's playing with billions of dollars. He owns a 118 room private resort in Florida, and his then wife Ivana manages the properties. They have three kids at the time of writing, but he doesn't say how they met - possibly at one of the clubs he pushes his way in to get ahead.
I am a bit exhausted reading about the deals he makes with all the figures and skip a chapter where he boasts about buying a football team. I suppose if you have a lot of money you think you can do anything.
He does make some comments about previous presidents and largely dismisses them for being vacuous. He's all about the brand. I don't know if Trump means good quality and all the properties he owns are worth the expense but certainly he schmoozes a lot of people, and any publicity, even bad, means more for him.
So anyway...americans voted or chose this guy as President? Was Hilary Clinton worse? I don't know. He doesn't seem to have any real friends only people he does deals with. The sad thing is he had an older brother but he didn't follow in his fathers footsteps and became an alcoholic and died young in his 40s.
His wife and his children are kind of incidental in his life like they are for bragging about but I don't get any insight into them. Yes he's obssessive and driven and always goes for what he wants. But that's Trump, do we expect anything else?
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4 stars
What would you do if you were married one month, madly in love with your husband, and go away on a business trip and find out he has been arrested assault, rape and kidnapping of two women. The author is the wife so the book is told from her viewpoint. What follows is a nightmare of red tape for her to go through and amazingly she stands by her man and still loves him. Interesting story that makes you think what you would do if you were in her shoes.
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Mr Monopoly man himself.
It's ghostwritten, and the books starts off with a week in the life of Trump with him doing all sorts of d..."
Thank you for your review, Selina. This book was written in the late 1980's so a lot more has come to light since it was written. I'm sure the book does not mention all the little people he stepped on to get the things he has. He got where he is by bullying people, not paying people for the work they did, not paying taxes. Those casinos he talks about have gone bankrupt.
To answer your question: In my opinion Hillary would have made a wonderful president but she would have been constantly attacked by the Republican congress, just as Trump is constantly attacked by the Democrats, but the Republican congress is in control right now. Trump has made a mess of our government and he does not seem to be in a stable mental state right now.
Sorry for the rant. I try not to voice my political views here but I couldn't help it.
Koren wrote: "Through the Glass by Shannon Moroney4 stars
What would you do if you were married one month, madly in love with your husband, and go away on a business trip and find out he has be..."
What a horrible situation but it does sound like a interesting read.
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4 stars
A few months ago I read Upstairs At The White House, which contains a lot of the same information, and indeed, this book quotes J.B. West frequently. The main difference between West's book and this one is that West's book is chronological and this one goes more by topic. Both are great trivia sources if you are interested in that sort of thing. West's book is from his own perspective and this book is more from research, although he does interview a few sources that are still living. This book was released in 2007, so of course their is nothing of the Obamas and some of the info on Hillary Clinton is outdated, but otherwise I think people that are interested in presidential trivia will like it.
Badd Newz: The Untold Story Of The Michael Vick Dog Fighting Case, Kathy Strouse with Dog Angel4 stars
Wow. Torture devices, bloodstained walls, clandestine graves filled with unnamed dead with more victims waiting their turn, chained up and starved in filthy conditions...You wouldn't believe it if you read it in a suspense novel, but that's the scene of serial puppy murder Animal Control found out back at Michael Vick's country house. The authors -- an Animal Control officer and an undercover foe of dogfighting -- trace the progress of the investigation, mostly through Kathy's eyes. Being a lifelong animal lover she went through some serious changes as a result of this investigation. This book got me to rethink everything from what goes on in my neighbor's backyard to the ethics of "no kill" animal shelters. The book did not spend as much time on the gore and horror of dogfighting as I feared it would, which was a relief.
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4 stars
This book is page after page of horrible things that her mother, grandfather, and to some extent, other people treated her as a child from the age of 3 until she was an adult. The last chapter tells that she married and had a family but doesn't give much info about that so I assume that is addressed in subsequent books. This is a frustrating book because she seems to be such a sweet child but people treat her so horribly. There is a lesson here that even when children are horribly abused they still love their parents and think that it is all their fault and if they were just better behaved everything would be better. There are a lot of typos and grammatical errors in this book, which was distracting.
In a Strange Garden: The Life and Times of Truby King by Lloyd ChapmanA rather biased biography of Truby King, who was the founder of the Plunket movement in New Zealand made up of volunteer nurses that taught mothers how to care and feed their babies. This reduced infant mortality at the time and in the end he was honoured with a state funeral.
I say it's biased because the author seems to dislike King's views on a lot of things just because they aren't in line with feminist or liberal thought. For example he claims King viewed women as inferior when it was not like that, in fact he championed women and just wanted them to be able to look after their babies well so that they wouldn't end up in mental hospitals later. King recognised that neglect of a baby disadvantaged the child and mothercraft was important. I don't think he meant it that women were not to have an education but rather a well rounded education that included important things like basic hygiene and nutrition and exercise, and not just study for the sake of it.
The author was also nonplused about Truby King's gardening hobby which he thought was obsessive. But in fact King's views were that gardening was good for the soul for fresh air, exercise and nutrition. When he was superintendent of the Seacliff mental asylum - he trained as doctor, after a stint at being a banker - he set about making the hospital grounds pleasant by planting gardens and getting patients to help with the gardening.
So I don't think it was strange of him at all. I think the author was rather strange to not understand what King was about and to paint him as eccentric. I don't think he was perfect but he was on a crusade and his efforts did save many lives, nothing to be sniffed at.
A Perversion of Justice, Kathryn Medico and Mollye Barrows4 stars
This is essentially Mollye Barrows' memoir of following the King family case in Pensacola, Florida as a TV journalist. In the course of the story she corresponded with some of the victims in the case, met with the perpetrator and got to know all the principals to some extent. And what a case this was. Rather than let fly with her own sense of outrage and sorrow, she does what journalists do: she lays out the facts as she saw them unfold and lets you draw your own conclusions. The story left me gasping. It will do the same to you, I suspect, if you care at all about right and wrong. This is a Dumpster fire of a case.
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5 stars
Elizabeth is an American congresswoman from the state of Massachusetts.
This book is part memoir and part political commentary. Elizabeth is 'in your face', doesn't hold back about what she thinks is wrong with America. She tells stories of the middle class and how big business is essentially running the country. She is a defender of the underdog. However, the book left me with a sinking feeling that there are too few Elizabeths that are not afraid to stand up to the rich companies that fund campaigns and in doing so basically set policy for the whole country. I was amazed that politicians spend about 80% of their time on the phone trying to raise money for their next campaign and most of those calls are to big companies and rich backers. I hope their are a lot more Ellizabeths looking out for the disadvantaged in our country
The Knave of Boston: & Other Ambiguous Massachusetts Characters, Francis Russell4 stars
A wonderful tapestry of life in old-time Boston from the perspectives of public figures like "Honey Fitz" (JFK's grandfather), Mayor Dan Coakley (the title character for this book), the half-forgotten legislator who may have driven Starr Faithfull to suicide, and so forth. He also thumbnails the Chappaquiddick incident and a truly horrific murder that took place on the street where he grew up. Every story is interesting, and many of the characters in one chapter had dealings with the characters in the others. Wonderfully written. Great for lovers of biography and true-crime buffs.
Fishface wrote: "The Knave of Boston: & Other Ambiguous Massachusetts Characters, Francis Russell4 stars
A wonderful tapestry of life in old-time Boston from the perspectives of public figures lik..."
Sounds very interesting!
Hi,my name is Audrey Gittens and I'm the author of the book "Crossing the Chasms of Life: A Little Bit of Heaven and a Lot of Hell" a memoir and also "A well written account of an inspiring life".
I invite you to enter my giveaway here: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...
Ten copies will be given for free to ten winners. For a review exchange, please contact me in private.
Thanks.
Regards,
Audrey
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my name is Audrey Gittens and I'm the author of the book "Crossing the Chasms of Life: A Little Bit of Heaven and a Lot of Hell" a memoir and also "A well written account of an inspiring life"..."
Done. Thanks Audrey. We have an authors thread here if you would like to tell us a little about your book.
Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History—without the Fairy-Tale Endings
Linda Rodríguez McRobbie
5/5 stars
McRobbie tells the fascinating and factual tales of real life princesses who are far from the fairy tale princesses we all grew up with as children. Many of these women had miserable lives and some caused a lot of misery. The author also deals with the inbreeding of the royals causing their children to be born with genetic defects and there is a section on the dollar princesses who were not royalty but were rich and married into royalty. Hard to put down and a big thanks to the person who recommended this to me.
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5 stars
This is a coming of age memoir of what it was like to grow up as a black person in West Virginia in the 50's and 60's. What I liked best about this book was that it wasnt a story of poverty or 'look how hard my life was'. He does deal a lot with the topic of discrimination, but more than that, the author had a loving family and a close knit community, which made him rich in other ways other than money.
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4 stars
I liked this book as a true crime because it was different. A doctor who commits an ethics violation and pays for it over and over. The first half of the book is about the crime. The second half is about all the hoops he had to go through to stay out of prison. The author of the book is the doctor, himself. I think he did a good job of telling the story from the perspective of all the players. While he has a likeable personality and you want him to come out on top, what he did was wrong and he knew it. It is scary to think that doctors could be doing what he did and getting away with it.
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5 stars
Interesting from beginning to end. This doesnt get bogged down in investigation and court room drama as we are told at the beginning and on the back cover that the husband shoots his wife and then kills himself. The victim was a romance author so that gave it an element of being a little different from the typical husband kills wife true crime book. In this way, I would say it has more biographical information than crime so I am going to include it here.
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4 stars
The author writes about her Jewish grandmother, who is very funny. She is someone you wish you could have known. A short book at a little over 100 pages.
Torn in Two, Michael Schumacher4 stars
This is the story of how the "witch of November" took out another cargo ship on the Great Lakes, a few years before the 'Mighty Fitz' went down in almost identical circumstances. In this case there was a single unlikely survivor and we hear his story along with that of the sister ship, the same size and design, that shipped out with this one but made it home in one piece. A scary, gripping read. Well written, with just a few Spellchecky errors and a very odd subtitle, which includes the phrase "One Man's Survival In The Open Sea." Dude, it happened in a LAKE. Unsalted and shark-free, as we say in these parts.
The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, Jeff Guinn5 stars!
This was an excellent read. The author gives a detailed picture of how Jonestown came to be, and how it came to an end, without once dismissing Jim Jones as a crazyman or his followers as glazey-eyed, fanatical cultists. Neither does he make a single statement to the effect that he agrees or disagrees with anything the Peoples Temple did. He clearly lays out the facts and lets you draw your own conclusions, almost as if he expected you to think for yourself while reading! The book answered some of my questions about how it all happened, how some of the people who survived managed to get away, and so forth -- but he didn't answer every question. I read this book with my copy of Who Died on November 18, 1978 in the Jonestown, Guyana Mass Murder-Suicides open in my lap to connect faces to the names, and I'm deeply troubled to tell you that out of all the people he talked about in satisfying detail, almost every single one was white. That was my "Black Lives Matter" moment for this week.
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5 stars
It was refreshing to read a biography about a man who grew up in the foster care system and didn't have horrific abuse stories to tell. The main character grew up in the early 1900's and I liked reading about how different the times were. He was a bit of a problem child so he had some troubles because of that. He found his niche when he got into boxing in Golden Gloves tournaments. I wish he would have developed more of a relationship with his birth mother. This book reminded me of Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.
The Shoebox Bible4/5 stars
Alan Bradley writes so beautifully and tenderly of his life in Canada with his mother and sisters after his father leaves the family and they struggle day to day to live. The shoebox bible refers to a box kept by his mother of bible verses that Bradley as a young child discovers. After reading this, I am pretty sure that he used his sisters as models for Falvia's sisters in his Flavia de Luce mystery series. I rarely re-read books but this is one I definitely would.
Life: The Man Who Kidnapped Barbara Mackle, Gary Krist4 stars
I wish I had read this much closer to 83 Hours Till Dawn, the victim's perspective on this same case. One always wonders what a criminal could possibly be thinking when setting out on a nutty caper like this; Gary Krist tells you his motives without leaving anything out. He's led a remarkable, interesting life but there is even more than that going on between his ears. This is an incredible portrait of how someone can be super-intelligent at the same time he's as dumb as a whole box of hammers. This book will spirit you away from the false options of "is he crazy or is he sociopathic"? Real life is more complex than that, and so is Gary Krist. Read this one! Not for readers with low vocabularies. Krist likes 25-cent words and compound sentences. He also told me a lot more about his sex life than I felt I needed to know. Even so, this book flew by for me.
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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Another Confessions book by a Police Constable in London, (I seem to be on a run of books set in London) about what it's like working in the police so lots of anecdotes, not necessarily much reflection as the confessions of a nurse/ghostwriter ones but definitely a lot of action packed incidences.
The good thing about it is people that write these books do love their jobs i.e. they haven't left them so it's not all complaining!