While wandering aimlessly through various bookish periodicals, I came upon this list of "Memoirs That Will Last."
Like all book lists, this one's no more comprehensive and/or definitive than any other: they're all a crap shoot. I just thought it was interesting and thought I'd pass it along:
Douglass: Autobiographies; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography, Poor Richard, and Later Writings; The Autobiography
Ulysses S. Grant: Memoirs and Selected Letters; Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
Mark Twain: Mississippi Writings; Life on the Mississippi
Black Boy by Richard Wright
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I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.
- Richard Wright
I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
Rocket Boys: A Memoir by Homer Hickam
The Liar's Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
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“For me, everything's too much and nothing's enough.”
- Mary Karr
“For me, everything's too much and nothing's enough.”
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Madame Secretary by Madeleine Albright with Bob Woodward
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
The Life and Times of the Thunderbold Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson
Running with Scissors: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs
My Life in France by Julia Child
Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter by Frank Deford
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Townie: A Memoir by Andre Dubus, III
Life Itself: A Memoir by Roger Ebert
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore
Just Kids by Patti Smith
Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War by Anthony Swofford
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For me, everything's too much and nothing's enough.”
- Elisabeth Tova Bailey
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Good, bad, indifferent? Seems like a short list; I could easily add to it. Offhand, Steinbeck's Travels with Charley comes to mind. Nabokov's Speak, Memory. Perhaps Hemingway's A Moveable Feast?
Thoughts?
