Old folks have this skill in telling life stories, holding your attention despite being mundane. Focus on significant and interesting details, from telling a story over, so it is refined past a final draft. It could work for a memoir.
Winning Ugly by Brad Gilbert. It’s a sports memoir, more about his philosophy towards playing tennis than a step-by-step to his life, which made it more interesting IMO.
During this time, I read a memoir I hated so much that I opened a Goodreads account to review it, but bitched out on the review. Bc it was mean, and it's someone's life.
You Don't Have To Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie, Solito by Javier Zamora, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, Air Traffic by Gregory Pardlo, What You Have Heard Is True by Carolyn Forche. Not only my favorite thing to read but also writing, currently.
I liked Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb or Im Glad My Mom Died by Jeannette McCurdy (Better as the audiobook read by her) or It's Not What It Looks Like by Molly Burke (only on audio book)
Canadian author Timothy Findley, who was also a professional actor as a young man, wrote 2 memoirs: "Inside memory; pages from a writer's notebook" and "From Stone Orchard: a collection of memories." He had an interesting life and was a wonderful writer. 💙📚
Two of my all time favorites that I haven’t seen recommended are Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad and I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. To be fair I connected to both because I too was severely ill in my twenties and had a mom who was fucking crazy.
Love Lives Here by Rowan Jette Knox! It’s a gorgeous story about how members of a family coming out as transgender save a marriage. I kept tearing up and reading passages to my wife.
I'm also not a big fan of memoirs, but I recently finished Suzanne Simard's Finding the Mother Tree, which was a nice mix of her life, her research, and BC forestry politics.
I really liked "Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark" by Cassandra Peterson when I read it a couple years ago. "I'm Glad My Mom Died" by Jennette McCurdy which I read that same year was also really good.
It is. I took a chance getting it from the library on the name alone. I was only familiar with her from the big part she had on Malcolm in the Middle but that title really catches your attention especially when you think of what most child/young stars deal with. It was very well written.
I also won't forget the best interview I saw her do for the book. It was on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah and you could tell he actually read the book. It was a great conversation with actual thoughtful questions from the host.
i'm long interested in the dan snyder stuff, so while i'm too old for her shows, i was very familiar with her through that. i hate buying kindle books, but wanted it asap so i bought it there and started the second they released the downloads lol
I hadn't known about any of that stuff so that was my entrypoint into it all. Like I knew some if not all the people running kids shows had to be awful but this was the first time I had names or details.
I'm also into the whole Kindle/ebook thing after being against it for years. Been a foster parent for 6 years so have had a steady stream of kids in the house. A Kindle just makes it easier so books aren't being pulled off shelves & stuff. Also easier to carry. Do miss a real book every now & then.
I don't think anyone's mentioned
-Alexander Chee's How to Write an Autobiographical Novel--a lot of good writing advice in there
-Julia Zarankin's Field Notes of an Unintentional Birder--someone who fell into memoir writing and didn't plan to. Might be relevant!
I love well written memoirs, ones that are reflective, and show humility. Two of the ones that have stuck with me are: The Liars Club, by Mary Carr, and Dance of a Fallen Monk, by George Fowler.
Not a huge fan of the genre, but I quite liked The Liar's Club, by Mary Carr. Difficult subject matter written with an understated tone and strong voice.
Bad Indians by Deborah Miranda (always my answer)
Dog Flowers by Danielle Geller
Carry by Toni Jensen
Growing Up Dead in Texas by @sgj.bsky.social (okay a novel but still)
My favorite of all time is Matthew Perry’s “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing”.
Whatever you write, read it back out loud because it will be an audiobook so it should read like you’re sharing your thoughts to a friend. 😎
I was asked to write a memoir just over four years ago. So I appreciate the task at hand. The hardest part for me was finding the right thread to hold it together, and an appropriate voice. My memoir - Faking it: My life in transition (Penguin) - came out in 2021. Good luck!
"Women We Buried, Women We Burned," by my very own actual sister, Rachel Louise Snyder, is a haunting, mesmerizing account of Rachel's ascent out of trauma, abuse, and the mental chains of Christian fundamentalism.
No. How do you learn how to write for magazines? You read magazines. How do you learn to write a memoir? You read memoirs. Many of them are very bad. In fact, most are quite bad. It helps to read the ones that are good, it’s not so helpful to have read the ones that are bad.
Having a problem starting your own? Start by writing a memory. Then another one. Keep them separate until you have a folder filled with them, then start putting them together. You'll find the right words to piece them into the right places.
The two I’ve read are pretty popular but they properly introduced me to the genre, I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy and The Storyteller by Dave Grohl. They made me like non-fiction. Honorable mention is The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, had to read that for school and enjoyed it
Lucky Man by Michael J Fox
Open by Andre Agassi
Broken Horses by Brandi Carlile
Educated by Tara Westover
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Choosing to Run by Des Linden
On Writing by Stephen King
As You Wish by Cary Elwes
I wonder if Jenny Lawson’s 2012 release: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened would still make me laugh as hard today. Ernest Hemingway’s Movable Feast transported me to 1920’s Paris. Travels With Charlie by Steinbeck. Most recently, I read Women We Buried, Women We Buried by Rachel Louise Snyder.
Matthew Perry - Friends, lovers and the big terrible thing. Such a well written book. He openly talks about his addiction and the pain it brough to his life whilst at the same time being funny and warm. So sad to read it knowing what has happened but a definite read.
I mean it sounds trite to say the ones that are closest to my own book, but it’s true. Educated and without you there is no us too the list. Other than that, a walk in the woods and glass castle. And Persepolis has always been one of my favorite books, if that counts.
My high school seniors are doing memoir Lit Circles right now - they’re reading Born a Crime, Glass Castle, Educated, Everything Sad Is Untrue, Solito, The Distance Between Us, Crying in H Mart, I Am Malala, and Andre Agassi’s Open.
Night, Maus, They Called Us Enemy, and Deafo are great too.
The Man Who Could Move Clouds, What My Bones Know, and Somebody's Daughter are high up there for me. All My Puny Sorrows is not a memoir but it is semi-autobiographical and feels very true
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City is a memoir by playwright and poet Nick Flynn, describing Flynn's reunion with his estranged father, Jonathan, an alcoholic resident of the homeless shelter where Nick was a social worker in the late 1980s. It's a really good book.
KY author Bobbie Ann Mason's "Clear Springs." My parents, raised on farms in KY & IN, both said it accuractely reflected their post-WWII childhoods. #ClearSprings #BobbieAnnMason
Which have you read so far? I’m in same boat; read so many. my Eco system is rock & roll. I can find no better read than Ray Davies’ X Ray, where he’s written an investigative roman a clef about his own life. I worked on a concert version of it. You probably can’t tangent like that though
My favorite is "Yes Man" by Danny Wallace (inspired the movie) it's super funny and such a great read. Not all memoirs are about hardship, some can be fun! 😊
Some people live more in ten years than others do in sixty. I could write a four-hundred page memoir just about the five years I spent in the military. Why even bother making the comment you made?
What does that have anything to do with the other person writing a memoir? Last I checked, there's no age limit on it. It's kinda weird to suggest that they're too young to write a book about stuff. Should one wait until they're done living to talk about it?
Also recommend Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman. He lived an absolutely fascinating life, and made theoretical physics interesting.
A rock star you may have heard of, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones has a great memoir that will make you a fan. Your story is different; Anne Garrels memoir Naked in Baghdad is a really good story of reporting under dangerous circumstances. If you write your book I'll buy it .
Oddly, and I swear to God true, a woman across the aisle from me on the bus back from Pennsylvania today was reading that very book. Is this a sign I should too?
I mostly don't read memoirs, because I don't believe them, at all. If you are interested in food, I recommend, "Tender at the Bone," Ruth Reichl. I suspect that "My Brilliant Friend," Elena Ferrante, is the best memoir ever written, pretending to be a novel, but I have no evidence for that.
"sweet life: adventures on the way to paradise" by Barry Manilow is my favourite traditional memoir, Jeanette McCurdy "I'm glad my mother died" my favourite recent one
My favorites, besides a few mentioned here, have been:
Memorial Drive, by Natasha Tretheway
How We Fight For Our Lives, by Saeed Jones, and
Heavy, by Kiese Laymon.
They've all stayed with me, which is, I think, the mark of a beautiful book.
Not a bot, probably annoying, but if you read the obits before the memoirs it helps to know what the survivors thought. Having said that I’ll gladly drop out and leave you to your life. Good luck.
_Becoming Superman_ (2019), by J Michael Straczynski. Fantastic read. Reminds me of Mark Twain's comment, 'Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.' @straczynski.bsky.social
Memoirs are my jam. Recent faves:
Rebel Girl by Kathleen Hanna (listened to audiobook, her read is excellent)
What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo
While You Were Out by Meg Kissinger
Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult by Maria Bamford (another great read on audio)
Comments
But I'm not that guy anymore. And I have a very different relationship with the media I used to consume back then.
I didn't even know he had a sister.
https://www.amazon.com/Based-on-True-Story-audiobook/dp/B01L0GDSHY?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Miles: The Autobiography
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is sort of a cross between a memoir and biography
-Alexander Chee's How to Write an Autobiographical Novel--a lot of good writing advice in there
-Julia Zarankin's Field Notes of an Unintentional Birder--someone who fell into memoir writing and didn't plan to. Might be relevant!
https://www.biography.com/history-culture/g42619498/best-memoirs
I also really enjoyed “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight. He is much funnier and more of a wise-ass than you'd expect of a billionaire founder.
Dog Flowers by Danielle Geller
Carry by Toni Jensen
Growing Up Dead in Texas by @sgj.bsky.social (okay a novel but still)
Whatever you write, read it back out loud because it will be an audiobook so it should read like you’re sharing your thoughts to a friend. 😎
Life by Keith Richards
A Monk Swimming by Malachy McCourt
A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney - heartbreaking and beautiful, tragic and hopeful (TW: death of a young child)
https://a.co/d/dEjWXWq
Open by Andre Agassi
Broken Horses by Brandi Carlile
Educated by Tara Westover
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Choosing to Run by Des Linden
On Writing by Stephen King
As You Wish by Cary Elwes
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/recommendation
Night, Maus, They Called Us Enemy, and Deafo are great too.
Recs: We're Gonna Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union, Black Widow by Leslie Gray Streeter, The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander.
Just kidding.. I'm just kidding!!!!😅
https://kweliclub.com/products/talib-kweli-vibrate-higher-a-rap-story-hardcover
Quitter -- Erica C. Barnett @ericacbarnett.bsky.social
Bravey -- Alexi Pappas
Its 'sleb stuff from 1972 written by a pianist with low self esteem.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/stay-true-a-memoir-hua-hsu/17806395?ean=9780593315200
The autobiographical parts of Stephen King’s On Writing are conversational.
Ruth Reichl’s Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise was a good read.
Stop-Time by Frank Conroy
https://www.amazon.com/Barbarian-Days-Surfing-William-Finnegan/dp/0143109391/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=23PJYOMABGC2T&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.LyjErP8k0L1ZThIMKknpgdb64n2fFdr2cXOl62Wh9YLuK5VMjclynzf4Kaq3ApbD7PN95rJOzUTfLg2mJzb247pjn_tYjHsoF4O8SNvyBXWU0dex5DEkcMNHUuwYAMW4ONhKlG-MiChTs07S0gJ6dUE8HUWWPC9-8vXby5-mLc-3ztYT2MQ-F1RDRVSANDSty998nY2JjV4rgiCo6-XjBA.vQOGEFNhm7-MOl2wskg9-EeFQgH_wn7HeMGrfYfdgFE&dib_tag=se&keywords=barbarian+days&qid=1733023622&sprefix=barbarian+days%2Caps%2C148&sr=8-1
Born standing up by steve Martin is still a top pick
Memorial Drive, by Natasha Tretheway
How We Fight For Our Lives, by Saeed Jones, and
Heavy, by Kiese Laymon.
They've all stayed with me, which is, I think, the mark of a beautiful book.
It might be time to look at craft rather than other celebrity memoirs, like The Art of Memoir by Miranda Karr or On Writing by Stephen King.
Here’s memoir I liked written by a former colleague of mine: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52529654-what-we-inherit
He chose to write the story of his inner life rather than list its outer details.
Taste by Stanley Tucci!
"Crying In H Mart" by Michelle Zauner is also good.
Come home, Indio by Jim Terry (another in graphic novel format)
Rat girl by Kristin Hersh (not just rock & roll but also schizophrenia)
Redefining realness by Janet Mock
Leslie f*cking Jones, especially the audio book
Go back to where you came from : and other helpful recommendations on how to become American by Wajahat Ali
Solutions and other problems by Allie Brosh
I'm perfect, you're doomed : tales from a Jehovah's upbringing by Kyria Abrahams
Rebel Girl by Kathleen Hanna (listened to audiobook, her read is excellent)
What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo
While You Were Out by Meg Kissinger
Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult by Maria Bamford (another great read on audio)