3 Memoirs That Won't Make You Slit Your Wrists

npr.org:

The memoir had a boom in the past couple of decades; now it's facing a backlash. Whatever happened to the "lost art of shutting up," Neil Genzlinger lamented in a recent piece in the New York Times Book Review.

Read the whole story: npr.org

Comments

[sabelmouse]

08:00 AM on 06/04/2011

moab is my washtub and the fry chronicles by stephen fry. also auto da fay by fay weldon.

[doglove]

01:51 AM on 06/04/2011

My favorite memoir is "An American Childhood" by Annie Dillard. She is an inspiration to me.

No one writes like Dillard. Her novel "The Maytrees" is my favorite book, but this memoir is quite exceptional.

I read a lot of Joyce Carol Oates and dark books. Reading Ms. Dillard's memoir leaves me smiling for days every time!

[GraceNotes]

01:18 PM on 06/03/2011

I have just finished Roger Rosenblatt's memoir, Making Toast. He and his wife move in with their son-in-law and three small grandchildren following the sudden death of his daughter. It is a positive and moving account of grandparents becoming parents again, with the attendant joys and struggles. Although brief, it covers the first year of a family's grief. I recommend it.