Are memoirs fact, fiction or a combination of both? It depends on how seriously you want to take them. Considering I can't always remember my exact words in a conversation I had yesterday, I find memoirs written with extensive dialogue that supposedly happened a decade ago a work of faux-fact, but it doesn't stop me from enjoying the tale.
Some might say my taste in memoirs and autobiographies range from the intense and demented (serial killers) to the cosmically abstract (reincarnation/spirit bodies). Regardless of what element I am experiencing in this voyeuristic way, I love memoirs. Why? Because they offer a rare opportunity to have an intimate look into the lives of interesting people and their experiences.
As documented in Ben Yagoda's book, Memoir: A History, published memoirs have increased 400 percent over the last four years and this statistic is what motivated Yagoda to trace autobiographies and memoirs back to the fifteenth century. What he found was fabulous facts intertwined with exaggerated selective memories. What makes them walk such a fine line depends on their purpose.
Why we love our memoirs:
One of my favorite memoir is Laura Munson's New York Times best-seller, This Is Not The Story You Think It is...A Season of Unlikely Happiness. This book is quite simply fabulous. Laura's noble quest to become the source of her own happiness takes you by the hand and heart as it guides you through the steps to living a life without suffering. Her story pulls back the curtain on the only magic we ever need to know: how to make the shift from fear to love.
Other favorites include:
Shirley Maclaine's I'm Over All That and Other Confessions which shares her current point of view on everything from money, love and fame to what's going to happen on December 21, 2012. For me, reading it was like having an intimate dinner with a longtime friend.
Nancy Cooke DeHerrera's All You Need Is Love: An Eyewitness Account of When Spirituality Spread from the East to the West in which she tells the intimate details of her life, which include her friendship with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founding father of Transcendental Meditation, and their time together in the Valley of the Saints with the Beatles, Mia Farrow, Mike Love, Donovan, and Paul Horn.
Rampuri's Autobiography of a Sadhu: A Journey into Mystic India, is Rampuri's true story of moving to India at age 18, meeting his Guru and having many spiritual adventures. Today he is a highly esteemed holy man who is head of the Naga Baba sadhu's. This autobiography is filled with true accounts of magic, miracles, ghosts, and lessons on Hindu gods, a real E-ticket ride through the holy land of India.
What have been your favorite memoirs? What autobiographies have you related to or learned the most from? I'd love to add yours to my reading list!
"Read this book; your life will never be the same." - Storycircle Network Review
"Staggering." - Hudson Reporter
"A gift to the world. I laughed and cried and couldn't put it down. It is so truthful, so real and has such complete integrity." - Miriam Greenspan, author of Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear and Despair
www.sixtyfiverosesthebook.com
It's the story of a family's medical crisis when their 13-year-old son suffers a massive brain hemorrhage. Keep the tissue box handy and prepare for the inspiring miracle that will touch your soul.
also Loren Eisely's on what it took just to survive the Great Depression again, hardly sentimental but neither hiding the rough spots nor exaggerating them.
Will love to see the suggestions of your readers, also.
http://www.nancypeske.com