By Rifqa Bary, 2015 True story about a young Muslim girl who converts to Christianity and has to run away from home for her life and safety. This book demonstrates many things but to me, it mainly shows how we Americans take for granted our religious freedom; we are free to worship who we want, […]
Category: Memoir
Boys in The Trees, A Memoir
by Carly Simon, 2015 Carly started out life as a rich girl in NYC. Her dad was Dick Simon, founder of publishing giant Simon & Schuster. She was their third daughter and they were hoping for a boy to name “Carl” so they added a “y” and that’s how she became Carly. Music was a […]
Fortunate Son
The Autobiography of Lewis B. Puller, Jr., 1991 In-depth memoir by a Vietnam veteran who lost both legs and most of his hands after tripping a booby trap running from enemy soldiers after his gun jammed. He is the son of a decorated Marine General, a good father but such a decorated war hero that […]
Birds, Beasts, and Relatives
by Gerald Durrell, 1969 A second beautiful book about his time in Corfu in the late 1930’s. What a treasure his books are! His writing brings me to a place and time and among people I love. This book covered stories about a wedding party, Gerry’s surprise birthday present of a goat, Gerry witnessing the […]
Grateful American : a journey from self to service
by Gary Sinise with Marcus Brotherton, 2019 After reading this fantastic memoir, I wish Gary Sinise would run for president. I’d vote for him! What a beautiful American he is, and his book is a beautiful message for us all. He thanks God he was in the right place at the right time during high […]
The Unwinding of the Miracle
by Julie Yip-Williams, 2019 Brutally honest book written by young wife and mother, Julie Yip-Williams, who was born blind in Vietnam, almost euthanized at the age of 2 months, escaped Vietnam with her family on a boat at age 3 or 4, ends up a Harvard-educated lawyer, world-traveler, married with 2 daughters, and diagnosed with […]
Small Fry
A Memoir, by Lisa Brennan-Jobs, 2018 Memoir by the first-born daughter of Steve Jobs. He never married her mother. and he denied he was Lisa’s father even after a DNA test proved she was. What a mean, stingy man. How painful her childhood was, trying to earn her father’s love. He would not give her […]
Shade, A Tale of Two Presidents
Shade, A Tale of Two Presidents, by Pete Souza, 2018 Scanned 12/9/18 Pete Souza was the White House photographer for Obama and Reagan. He contrasts his photos of Obama with tweets of Donald Trump and “throws shade” at Trump, which means “a subtle, sneering expression of contempt for or disgust with someone–sometimes verbal, and sometimes […]
Daring to Drive
by Manal al-Sharif, 2017 Very informative and educational memoir about her life and her quest to legalize driving for Saudi women. It took 27 years – the first demonstration, not hers, was in 1990, and those women’s lives were ruined forever because they dared to drive.
A Higher Loyalty
by James Comey, 2018 Fascinating personal account of the Director of the FBI, James Comey, and his work under Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump. Starts out with horrifying account of the Ramsey Rapist breaking into his home when he was a teenager and he and his brother barely living through it, a chapter about being […]
Educated, A Memoir
by Tara Westover, 2018 Tara Westover grew up in a wacko survivalist Mormon home in Idaho. Her dad believed the end times were coming and they buried fuel, guns, ammo, and canned goods all over their mountain junkyard home. He wouldn’t let them go to school, to a doctor or hospital. Tara didn’t even know […]
Cross Creek
by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, 1942 This is the memoir by the author of The Yearling. She tells about her 13 years living in Florida on 72 acres in the northeastern part of the state near the St. John’s River between Jacksonville and St. Augustine.
Roughing It
By Mark Twain, 1872 (I own this book) Hilarious account, especially in the beginning, about Mark Twain’s trip out West in the 1860’s. The stage coach trip took 20 days from St. Joseph, MO, to Carsono City, NV. It’s mostly hilarious! He talks about the Mormons and includes a history in the appendix – they’d […]
Wallace: The Underdog Who Conquered a Sport, Saved a Marriage and Championed Pit Bulls – One Flying Disc at a Time
by Jim Gorant, 2012 About a young Minnesota couple, Roo and Clara Yoris, who adopt a pit bull from a no-kill shelter, who was probably going to be killed, and turn him into a world champion frisbee dog. Mostly about Roo and Clara, not enough about Wallace.
Under the Tuscan Sun
by Frances Mayes, 1996 Frances and her husband, Ed, buy an old villa in Tuscany (Cortona, Italy) and rejuvenate it inside and out. They have terraces and have olive trees. Re-doing the house took years since they only live in Italy in summer (professors in San Francisco). Fun book – love her descriptions of the […]
The Glass Castle
by Jeannette Walls (author of Half Broke Horses), 2005 This is a memoir of Jeannette Walls’ childhood, born one of 4 children (3 girls, one boy) to Rex and Rose Mary Walls, married in 1956. Rosemary was an artist, Rex was a genius drunk. It starts out when Jeannette is 3 yrs. old, standing on […]
Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion
by Sara Miles, 2007 “The spiritual memoir of a twenty-first century Christian” Written by Sara Miles, a lesbian raised by atheists who wanders into St. Gregory’s Episcopalian Church (in S.F.) one day and is served communion and cries and cries and can’t stop thinking about Jesus. She becomes a believer and eventually opens up a […]
Heaven is for Real
by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent, 2010 True story about 4 year-old Colton Burpo from Imperial, Nebraska, who almost died of a ruptured appendix but gets a trip to heaven and relates what he heard and saw over the course of 6 years to his mom and dad, Sonja and Todd Burpo. Todd is a […]
My Forbidden Face
by Latifa, 2001 Sept. 27, 1996, Taliban take over Kabul, Afghanistan. No longer can women go to school or work – must cover themselves entirely. Also, no music, etc. No whistling, no TV, no pets, no kites, no weddings, not allowed to laugh in streets, no photos. “One thing and one thing only, unites Afghans […]
Quiet Strength
by Tony Dungy, 2007 Insider’s look at the NFL and Coach Tony Dungy, a very Christian man. He put God first and his faith never waivered, despite getting fired by the Bucs in 2002 after he turned the team around over years starting in 1996. And his oldest son’s suicide on Dec. 22, 2005. He […]