Memoirs

Remember blogging? Me neither. I’m going to ease back into it by sharing a list of all the memoirs I’ve ever read. I’m just not ready to get into coronavirus and quarantine, anxiety and fear.

These days, many people are spending quality time with books. I read nonfiction almost exclusively, and memoirs are my favorite sub-genre. I like reading people’s real experiences, especially regular folks who lived through some extraordinary event. I am currently reading Out of the Silence: After the Crash, a book about the Andes plane crash in 1972 that I only vaguely knew about. (I’m also listening to books by Jen Hatmaker and Barbara Brown Taylor.)

A fuzzy line separates some nonfiction books from the memoir category. Some authors illustrate their arguments and essays so heavily with personal anecdotes that after reading two or three of their books, you feel like their next-door neighbor; but any single title of theirs would not count as a memoir. Another blurry category is those “I did something for a year and wrote about it” books. That’s a personal story too, but is it a memoir? (They seem kind of gimmicky, tbh.)

Now that I’m into this project, I also find that some titles are harder to categorize into subject areas than I expected. Is this one faith or health? Health or celebrity? Celebrity or race? Humor/gay/faith/race?? Maybe I should include their MARC subject codes!

Side note: I’ve included a snippet of all the books’ blurbs except the ones by Alan Alda and Carol Burnett. They don’t need my introduction.

Side note two: I guess I read a lot about brains.

Korea

The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story, by Hyeonseo Lee

“As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Aged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea.” 

A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea, by Masaji Ishikawa

“Ishikawa candidly recounts his tumultuous upbringing and the brutal thirty-six years he spent living under a crushing totalitarian regime, as well as the challenges he faced repatriating to Japan after barely escaping North Korea with his life. A River in Darkness is not only a shocking portrait of life inside the country but a testament to the dignity—and indomitable nature—of the human spirit.”

Adoption

No Biking in the House Without a Helmet, by Melissa Fay Greene

“A celebration of parenthood; an ingathering of children, through birth and out of loss and bereavement; a relishing of moments hilarious and enlightening—No Biking in the House Without a Helmet is a loving portrait of a unique twenty first-century family as it wobbles between disaster and joy.” 

All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir, by Nicole Chung

“Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. . . . With warmth, candor, and startling insight, Nicole Chung tells of her search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with the birth of her own child.” 

Ghost of Sangju: A Memoir of Reconciliation, by Soojung Jo

“Soojung vividly paints a portrait of marriage, parenthood (as both a biological and adoptive mother) and the tumultuous emotions of reuniting, rediscovering, and reestablishing lost familial bonds. Ghost of Sangju is a story of one woman's journey to merge her two selves.”

Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited, by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein

"Elyse Schein had always known she was adopted, but it wasn’t until her mid-thirties while living in Paris that she searched for her biological mother. What she found instead was shocking: She had an identical twin sister. What’s more, after being separated as infants, she and her sister had been, for a time, part of a secret study on separated twins."


Medical/Health

Poster Child: A Memoir, by Emily Rapp

“Emily Rapp was born with a congenital defect that required, at the age of four, that her left foot be amputated. By the time she was eight she'd had dozens of operations, had lost most of her leg, from just above the knee, and had become the smiling, indefatigable poster child for the March of Dimes.” 

Stand Beautiful: A Story of Brokenness, Beauty and Embracing It All, by Chloe Howard

“Chloe shares her story of being bullied about a birth defect [club foot] as a freshman and how it helped her not only overcome self-doubt, but it also gave her the courage to rise up and speak out to help others.” 

My Lobotomy: A Memoir, by Howard Dully
[my own summary] A fascinating but disturbing memoir of a man who received an ice-pick lobotomy for no good reason at age 12, was then abandoned by his family, and grew up to investigate why. 

Prognosis: A Memoir of My Brain, by Sarah Vallance

“In this highly intimate account of devastation and renewal, Sarah pulls back the curtain on life with traumatic brain injury, an affliction where the wounds are invisible and the lasting effects are often misunderstood.” 

Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio, by Peg Kehret

“In a riveting story of courage and hope, Peg Kehret writes about months spent in a hospital when she was twelve, first struggling to survive a severe case of polio, then slowly learning to walk again.” 

Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's, by John Elder Robison

Diagnosed with autism at age 40, “that understanding transformed the way he saw himself—and the world. A born storyteller, Robison has written a moving, darkly funny memoir about a life that has taken him from developing exploding guitars for KISS to building a family of his own.” 

 

My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind, by Scott Stossel

“Drawing on his own long-standing battle with anxiety, Stossel presents an astonishing history, at once intimate and authoritative, of the efforts to understand the condition from medical, cultural, philosophical, and experiential perspectives.”

 

When Life Gives You Pears: The Healing Power of Family, Faith, and Funny People, by Jeannie Gaffigan
“The Big Sick meets Dad is Fat in this funny and heartfelt memoir from writer, director, wife, and mother Jeannie Gaffigan, as she reflects on the life-changing impact of battling a pear-sized brain tumor.” 


Celebrity

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned, by Alan Alda 

This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection, by Carol Burnett 

We're Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True, by Gabrielle Union

“In this moving collection of thought-provoking essays infused with her unique wisdom and deep humor, Union uses that same fearlessness to tell astonishingly personal and true stories about power, color, gender, feminism, and fame.” 

A Sick Life: TLC 'n Me: Stories from On and Off the Stage, by Tionne Watkins

“As the lead singer of Grammy-winning supergroup TLC, Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins has seen phenomenal fame, success, and critical acclaim. But backstage, she has lived a dual life. In addition to the balancing act of juggling an all-consuming music career and her family, Tionne has struggled her whole life with sickle-cell disease—a debilitating and incurable condition that can render her unable to perform, walk, or even breathe.”

 

Inside Out: A Memoir, by Demi Moore

 

“Even as Demi was becoming the highest paid actress in Hollywood, however, she was always outrunning her past, just one step ahead of the doubts and insecurities that defined her childhood. Throughout her rise to fame and during some of the most pivotal moments of her life, Demi battled addiction, body image issues, and childhood trauma that would follow her for years.”
 

Faith/Health

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved, by Kate Bowler

“Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God’s disapproval. At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward blessing. She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son. Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.” 

Miracles and Other Reasonable Things: A Story of Unlearning and Relearning God, by Sarah Bessey

“Weaving together theology and memoir in her trademark narrative style, Sarah tells us the story of the moment that changed her body [a serious car crash] and how it ultimately changed her life. She writes about her miraculous healing, learning to live with chronic pain, and the ways God makes us whole in the midst of suffering.” 

Hope Heals: A True Story of Overwhelming Loss and an Overcoming Love, by Katherine and Jay Wolf

“Katherine Wolf is a survivor, communicator, and advocate. Originally from the South, she met her husband, Jay, in college. They married and moved to Los Angeles . . . Their son, James, was born in 2007, and six months later, Katherine’s life nearly ended with a catastrophic stroke. Miraculously, she survived. . . . Katherine and Jay have shared their journey of steadfast hope . . . with hundreds of thousands of people at live events in thirty states, and to millions more online since 2008.” 

More Faith

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint, by Nadia Bolz-Weber

“Now a New York Times bestseller, Nadia Bolz-Weber takes no prisoners as she reclaims the term ‘pastrix,’ a term used by some Christians who refuse to recognize female pastors) in her messy, beautiful, prayer-and-profanity laden narrative about an unconventional life of faith.” 

The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom

“Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker who became a heroine of the Resistance, a survivor of Hitler's concentration camps, and one of the most remarkable evangelists of the twentieth century. In World War II she and her family risked their lives to help Jews and underground workers escape from the Nazis, and for their work they were tested in the infamous Nazi death camps.”

Race (see also: Adoption)

The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute To His White Mother, by James McBride

“McBride shares candid recollections of his experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self-realization and professional success. The Color of Water touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.” 

Waking Up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race, by Debby Irving

“By sharing her sometimes cringe-worthy struggle to understand racism and racial tensions, Irving offers a fresh perspective on bias, stereotypes, manners, and tolerance. As she unpacks her own long-held beliefs about colorblindness, being a good person, and wanting to help people of color, she reveals how each of these well-intentioned mindsets actually perpetuated her ill-conceived ideas about race.” 

 

I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown

“In a time when nearly every institution (schools, churches, universities, businesses) claims to value diversity in its mission statement, Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice. Her stories bear witness to the complexity of America’s social fabric.”


LGBTQ

My Life on the Line: How the NFL Damn Near Killed Me and Ended Up Saving My Life, by Ryan O'Callaghan with Cyd Zeigler

“Football gave Ryan O'Callaghan a scholarship to Cal and the chance to earn millions in the NFL, but it also afforded him something far more important: a place to hide. As a closeted gay man, his helmet and pads became tools of deception...O'Callaghan, who retired in 2011 after four seasons, eventually found the courage to live his truth in retirement.” 

Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America; Essays by R. Eric Thomas

“R. Eric Thomas didn’t know he was different until the world told him so. Everywhere he went—whether it was his rich, mostly white, suburban high school, his conservative black church, or his Ivy League college in a big city—he found himself on the outside looking in. In essays by turns hysterical and heartfelt, Thomas reexamines what it means to be an “other” through the lens of his own life experience.”

 

She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders, by Jennifer Finney Boylan

 

“When she changed genders, she changed the world. It was the groundbreaking publication of She’s Not There in 2003 that jump-started the transgender revolution.” This was my introduction to the concept.