The well educated mind autobiography list

[Selina]

Has anyone read any of the autobiographies on this list?
According to the Well-Educated Mind, these are some of the best/most representative of the history of the genre. They are in chronological order. Feel free to discuss if you've read any or challenge yourself to read one or all!

The Confessions of Saint Augustine: Books I-X
The Book of Margery Kempe
Montaigne: Essays
The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself
Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners by John Bunyan
Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
Up from Slavery by Booker T Washington
Ecco Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche
Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
The Story Of My Experiments With Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by CS Lewis
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton
The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Born Again by Charles W Colson
Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez
The Road from Coorain by Jil Ker Conway
All Rivers Run to the Sea by Elie Weisel

[Selina]

hmm any list that has Mein Kampf on it I don't know, think I will give that one a miss lol

The only one I've read -or did I just read a photocopied reading at uni? is Montaigne's essays

I can't recall if I read Maya Angelou, but I've come across it mentioned many times as was CS Lewis and Charles W Colson. Otherwise...I'm not sure any of these appeal to me. Seems very American-centric. No NZ autobiographies of course. NZers just don't exist in the realms of Western literature, or even on some maps, though an Australian made the list. So I might check out The Road from Coorain. Of course she then ends up in the US...naturally it being the centre of the known universe!

[Karin]

Here is a link to a series of discussions on the WEM beigraphies https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group.... The group hasn't been active for some years, but some of my GR friends were in this. I was for a while but it was tapering off by the time I joined GR.

Yes, I've read some of these since I own two editions of The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, the first and the third. However, I didn't bother reading most of them since I think there are many choices on what makes a Well Trained Mind. Plus I'm not a fan of some of these people or I've read alternative books. I've read six of these, and a number of those were before I even heard of Susan Wise Bauer.

The purpose of reading Mein Kampf--I haven't read it, but I did read The Communist Manifesto (not on her list here) is to know what was actually written for history and to set it in its historical context. As a hard core historian she is very big on not whitewashing history and reading the original writers.

[Koren]

I think you are right, Selina. When i go into a large book store or even my library I don't see many books by authors outside of the U.S. I don't know why that is.

I have only read one book on that list and that is the Maya Angelou one. I've read all of her books. I love her and miss her dearly.

[Karin]

Koren wrote: "I think you are right, Selina. When i go into a large book store or even my library I don't see many books by authors outside of the U.S. I don't know why that is.

I have only read one book on th..."

My library has a mix of American and international authors, but leans more to American because that has the greatest local reader demand. Many times I borrow foreign authors from my interlibrary loan system, though, so they do show up. Many smaller libraries in the system try to buy books not seen everywhere thanks to the fact that people can borrow from other libraries in the network. However, I think it also is where I live; when I used to visit the Boston library I did better (don't live there but anyone in the state can get a card; no longer using it since I have no reason to go there regularly now.) There is less where I live.

[Selina]

I was at the public library browsing and there were heaps of titles about Education in America, malls in America, business in America till I felt like I was living in America and the library was in the 51st state.

Despite the fact that hardly any Americans actually live in New Zealand.

What they must have done was separated out all the NZ titles into a local section, leaving all the American published books behind on the shelves. Or the supplier for the public libraries must have gotten a good deal on unwanted American titles..?

[Koren]

Selina wrote: "I was at the public library browsing and there were heaps of titles about Education in America, malls in America, business in America till I felt like I was living in America and the library was in..."

I wonder if America just publishes a lot more books than other countries.

[Selina]

Koren wrote: "Selina wrote: "I was at the public library browsing and there were heaps of titles about Education in America, malls in America, business in America till I felt like I was living in America and the..."

Probably, population wise, it's the biggest English language market.

[Karin]

Selina wrote: "Koren wrote: "Selina wrote: "I was at the public library browsing and there were heaps of titles about Education in America, malls in America, business in America till I felt like I was living in A..."

It is the largest single market, of those who read English, but is also by far the country with the largest number of people where English is the primary language.

[Selina]

I've read biographies/books about Mahatma Ghandi, CS Lewis but not their autobiographies.

Maybe I should make my own list, of top tens.

[Karin]

Selina wrote: "I've read biographies/books about Mahatma Ghandi, CS Lewis but not their autobiographies.

Maybe I should make my own list, of top tens."

Yes, why not?

[Koren]

Selina wrote: "I've read biographies/books about Mahatma Ghandi, CS Lewis but not their autobiographies.

Maybe I should make my own list, of top tens."

I will try to do that when I get time but don't think I could keep it to 10.

[Karin]

Koren wrote: "Selina wrote: "I've read biographies/books about Mahatma Ghandi, CS Lewis but not their autobiographies.

Maybe I should make my own list, of top tens."

I will try to do that when I get time but ..."

I agree--10 is far too short, IMO, and even 100 can be too short :)

[Selina]

Haven't had time to formulate a top 10 or 25 list but will get round to it...

A friend of mine said I should write my autobiography and I'm like what, who wants to read about me???? My life isn't all that interesting...

[Karin]

Selina wrote: "Haven't had time to formulate a top 10 or 25 list but will get round to it...

A friend of mine said I should write my autobiography and I'm like what, who wants to read about me???? My life isn't ..."

Sometimes writing an autobiography that is never published can be a great way to reflect on your life, etc.

People who are good at writing humour sometimes make interesting memoirs even about ordinary lives.

[Koren]

Karin wrote: "Selina wrote: "Haven't had time to formulate a top 10 or 25 list but will get round to it...

A friend of mine said I should write my autobiography and I'm like what, who wants to read about me????..."

Even if it doesn't seem interesting to you, if you have children I'll bet they will treasure your story. Now that my parents and grandparents are all gone I think of things I wish I had asked them. Just the other day I was thinking that I've never heard how my parents met. My parents divorced when I was 12 and I don't remember a time when they acted like they loved each other. Things like that would be interesting things to document for the next generation or the next.

[Selina]

I don't have children, only school children.

[Koren]

Selina wrote: "I don't have children, only school children."

No one that would be interested in your story?

[Koren]

Selina wrote: "I don't have children, only school children."

You started the discussion Weird Things People Say In Libraries. I'll bet that would make an interesting book!

[Selina]

Koren wrote: "Selina wrote: "I don't have children, only school children."

You started the discussion Weird Things People Say In Libraries. I'll bet that would make an interesting book!"

It's already a book! I'm just adding the library part to it Weird Things People Say In Bookstores

[Karin]

Selina wrote: "Koren wrote: "Selina wrote: "I don't have children, only school children."

You started the discussion Weird Things People Say In Libraries. I'll bet that would make an interesting book!"

It's alr..."


It's a fun book--actually, there are two of them now.

In my opinion, even though we all have stories there should be no pressure to write them down. I have no desire to write mine and once I was given that as an assignment (long story and I was only 24 or 25.) The idea was good, but it's just not my thing to do that, and having a father like mine we've done some out of the ordinary things (not the most extraordinary ones I've ever read.) How many kids have slept at logging camps--closed at the time--taken ships to Europe (in our generations on this group) as small children, and various and sundry things? But to make those things interesting I'd have to also make them funny or do something else to get a reader interested, and this is far easier said than done.