please recommend a biography or memoir for my book group

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Katharine Graham's Personal History is one of my favorite books of all time.

Same, but since it seems there might be an affinity for either food or France, Jacques Pepin. Another one of my favorites.

[Anonymous]

I loved Grief is for People

[Anonymous]

My Beloved World by Sonya Sotomayor

[Anonymous]

Like a PP I also loved The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne.

My book club read How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair and it was well-received and lent for plenty of discussion.

I found these two truly moving:
The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton and Laura Love Hardin
The Many Loves of Mama Love by Laura Love Hardin

From Here to the Great Unknown, by Lisa-Marie Presley and Riley Keough was truly fascinating even though I am not a big Elvis admirer and didn't grow up with parents who were either. I am usually pretty anti-audiobook, especially for book clubs, but this one is one where the audio is essential because Lisa-Marie left hours and hours of personal recordings and they are included in the book.

[Anonymous]

Jeremy Renner's new book is doing well on the non-fiction best seller list. I can't personally recommend it yet as I am on the library wait list.

[Anonymous]

I like food memoirs too. Here are 3 recent ones that I think would fit your group:

Ina Garten's Be Ready When the Luck Happens. It's all about how she got started with her Hamptons business and built it up. Inspiring and very readable.

The Third Gilmore Girl, by Kelly Bishop. I had low expectations for this but she's had a surprisingly interesting life. She had a gritty upbringing and was in the original Chorus Line.

For a more literary food memoir (also recent), How to Share an Egg (can't remember author's name). It's about her father's experience surviving the Holocaust and how it affected him, and her, as she was growing up. He went on to own restaurants and she became a food writer.

[Anonymous]

The Glass Castle

[Anonymous]

Just Mercy
Between Two Kingdoms
Maid
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing
Bossypants
The Undocumented Americans
Wild
Lab Girl
Hope
The Many Lives of Mama Love

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah

Yes. The audiobook is best. He reads it himself. Amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I loved Grief is for People

I loved this too!

[Anonymous]

The Many Lives of Mama Love
The Sun Does Shine
The Stranger in the Woods
Tell Me Everything by Minka Kelly
A Most Beautiful Thing by Arshay Cooper

[Anonymous]

So many great suggestions here! Thank you! We decided to read Uncommon Favor by Dawn Staley (University of South Carolina Women's Basketball coach)*, but will keep all your great recommendations on our list for future reads.

Happy Reading, all!

*PS to the poster who noticed we read in themes Thanks for the reminder about the Jacques Pepin memoir. I'll definitely be reading that myself this summer! We chose Uncommon Favor because we loved Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano, which has a basketball theme.

[Anonymous]

Driving with Dead People Monica Halloway

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I loved the Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne. In case you don't know about him, he's a great actor and is the son of Dominick Dunne, who was famous for documenting scandalous court cases, like the OJ trial. It's a moving story about family, and also had lots of juicy gossip. And if you're like me and absolutely HATE Joan Didion, then you'll REALLY like it.

I also just read Graydon Carter's memoir, which covers the Spy Magazine years and then his long tenure at Vanity Fair. REALLY fun.

I just tore through this based on your rec—read vanity fair obsessively as a teen and loved after hours. Man, Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne are absolute garbage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So many great suggestions here! Thank you! We decided to read Uncommon Favor by Dawn Staley (University of South Carolina Women's Basketball coach)*, but will keep all your great recommendations on our list for future reads.

Happy Reading, all!

*PS to the poster who noticed we read in themes Thanks for the reminder about the Jacques Pepin memoir. I'll definitely be reading that myself this summer! We chose Uncommon Favor because we loved Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano, which has a basketball theme.

Great! Thanks for wasting my time!