Category Archives: Memoir

Narrative of Sojourner Truth

Posted on June 18, 2018 by

Sojourner Truth was born a slave named Isabella in — or around, there weren’t records kept — 1797, in Ulster County, New York. She was owned by a Dutch family until she was nine, and when she was sold to … Continue reading →

Posted in Memoir, Nonfiction | 9 Comments

Just Mercy

Posted on May 2, 2018 by

I read Just Mercy with my book group, but I’ve been wanting to read it for quite a while. This is Bryan Stevenson’s memoir about how he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, which struggles against racial injustice in the criminal … Continue reading →

Posted in Memoir, Nonfiction | 5 Comments

Brown Girl Dreaming

Posted on September 23, 2017 by

Brown Girl Dreaming is only the second book I’ve read by Jacqueline Woodson. (The first, her spectacular picture book Show Way, is about seven generations of the women of an African-American family, from slavery through civil rights, and the instructions … Continue reading →

Posted in Children's / YA Lit, Memoir, Nonfiction, Poetry | 11 Comments

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

Posted on July 24, 2017 by

In 2009, Susannah Cahalan was 24 years old and well into an exciting and successful career as a journalist at the New York Post. And then she noticed what looked like a bug bite on her arm. That was followed by a … Continue reading →

Posted in Memoir, Nonfiction | 12 Comments

You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me

Posted on July 3, 2017 by

Sherman Alexie’s new memoir is a combination of prose and poetry reflecting on his relationship with his parents, especially his mother; his childhood on the Spokane Indian Reservation; and his adult life away from the reservation. The emotions he expresses … Continue reading →

Posted in Memoir, Nonfiction | 6 Comments

To the Is-Land

Posted on June 15, 2017 by

The first volume of Janet Frame’s autobiography begins with a chapter called In the Second Place: From the first place of liquid darkness, within the second place of air and light, I set down the following record with its mixture … Continue reading →

Posted in Memoir, Nonfiction | 2 Comments

Dimestore: A Writer’s Life

Posted on June 7, 2017 by

When I was in college and away from my rural southwest Virginia home, I discovered the novels of Lee Smith. Although her hometown of Grundy was a couple hundred miles west of my hometown, her writing felt culturally close to … Continue reading →

Posted in Memoir, Nonfiction, Short Stories/Essays | 6 Comments

March: Book 3

Posted on February 19, 2017 by

The third volume of John Lewis’s memoir in comic-book form picks up with the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that killed four girls. As the head of the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), Lewis, along with fellow … Continue reading →

Posted in Graphic Novels / Comics, Memoir, Nonfiction | 7 Comments

The Way to Rainy Mountain

Posted on January 10, 2017 by

In 2012, I read N. Scott Momaday’s groundbreaking novel House Made of Dawn, which is the story of a young Native man who has returned to the reservation from the second World War in order to face his demons. The … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Memoir | 4 Comments

Birds, Art, Life

Posted on January 3, 2017 by

When writer Kyo Maclear began taking care of her ailing father, she found herself adrift and unable to write. Constant worry and the changing patterns of her day became difficult to manage.She writes that A mind narrows when it has … Continue reading →

Posted in Memoir, Nonfiction | 4 Comments