Two books I just read that would be great for OBC (and what memoirs should I read?)

[Karma]

I just posted about these two books in the thread asking for what to read next, but I realized there were thousands of posts so it would get buried. So I thought I'd paste my comment here as a new post! I just finished Under Water by Rachel Callaghan and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and both would be great for OBC!

Under Water is about a woman who moves into an old house and finds (spoiler) in the pond in her yard. She gets obsessed with finding out the history of that thing, and the book jumps back in time to show you the POV of the characters who left the thing behind. So it's dual-timeline with present vs Civil War era. A few things I liked: the character dialogue is sometimes witty, and each character feels different enough to be real. So even though the book deals with trauma, I would still consider it a "light" read. I also felt like the author understands people and the way that "hurt people hurt people" as the saying goes. I also liked that the parts in the past about the stubborn Irish girl trying to run the farm while her hubby is at war. Civil War battles don't really interest me, but this is different as the historical parts are set in the North. Interesting how the social norms of the time got in the way.

Braiding Sweetgrass was amazing too. That's written by an indigenous botanist but it reads like poetry. Which sounds dreadfully dull but was actually fascinating. It's like she uses the way plants interact as metaphors for how people should live in community. As a follow up to Graeber's Debt: The First Five Hundred Years it was perfect.

Currently I'm writing a memoir so I'm trying to read more of that next, and I'd love to hear what memoirs people have read! But in particular NOT celebrity memoirs. I don't want to gawk at famous lives, I want books that are literary and beautifully written but happen to be true.

(PS I could not find the welcome thread so I didn't post there)