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Can you recommend great memoirs?
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amother
Tan


 

Post Wed, Jan 17 2024, 3:55 pm
amother SandyBrown wrote:
How “readable” is it?


The style is a little old but still easy to understand. It's a memoir, not a novel, but absolutely fascinating. I think the translator really helped modernize the language.

Not a Jewish publisher, so you'll find it in a public library.
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meyerlemon44




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 17 2024, 3:59 pm
amother SandyBrown wrote:
How “readable” is it?


Very readable. She wrote it as a memoir to her children, and it contains all kinds of interesting details about her life.
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amother
Feverfew


 

Post Wed, Jan 17 2024, 4:27 pm
IDK if any of these will be in your local library anymore, but James Herriot, a British country veterinarian, wrote a series of books about his life and experiences working with the farmers and animals of his beloved Yorkshire. I read and enjoyed the italicized ones (Best sellers all) despite having less than zero interest in animals.

If Only They Could Talk
All Creatures Great and Small
It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet
Let Sleeping Vets Lie
Vet in Harness
All Things Bright and Beautiful
Vets Might Fly
All Things Wise and Wonderful(
The L-rd G-d Made Them All
Vet in a Spin
Every Living Thing
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amother
Poppy


 

Post Wed, Jan 17 2024, 4:44 pm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik.....onald
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amother
Gold


 

Post Wed, Jan 17 2024, 4:51 pm
Girl Interrupted
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Highstrung




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 17 2024, 4:56 pm
The Girl With No Name by Marina Chapman
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naomi2




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 17 2024, 5:23 pm
I recently read Gone to the Woods, a memoir by author Gary Paulson (Hatchet) it was absolutely fascinating and so well written.
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Cheshire cat




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 17 2024, 6:08 pm
I really enjoyed Beverly Cleary's memoirs. It was recommended here on ima.

My own two feet
A girl from Yamhill
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zigi




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 17 2024, 6:34 pm
Maid, born a crime, two pence to cross the mersey, call the midwife- 3 books
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amother
Azalea


 

Post Wed, Jan 17 2024, 6:38 pm
Cathy glass books
She’s a foster carer who wrote about each child she fostered.
Not all are clean but written very well
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BH Yom Yom




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 17 2024, 6:41 pm
Highstrung wrote:
The Girl With No Name by Marina Chapman


Another vote for this one!
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amother
Gold


 

Post Wed, Jan 17 2024, 7:56 pm
BH Yom Yom wrote:
Another vote for this one!


This was so good!
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Comptroller




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jan 18 2024, 3:57 am
I loved the memoir trilogy by Judith Kerr. She was an assimilated Jew from Germany and had to flee Germany as a small child in 1933. Her father was the famous author and theater critic Alfred Kerr, that's why they fled as soon as the Nazis came to power. They first moved to Switzerland, then to France and then to England. Her mother suffered from the social demotion emigration brought.

The books are not in first person, but they really are auto-biographic. I specially liked the first volume "When Hitler stole pink rabbit".

Then I loved Primo Levi's memoirs. The most famous volume is "If this is a man", where he tells about his captivity in Auschwitz, but there are also "The truce" about the time right after the liberation and "The periodic system" about his biography in general.

Then I would recommend Rav Israel Meir Lau's Memoirs "Don't touch the boy". His brother, Naftali Lau-Lavie gave a long interview, which can be found on youtube (in Ivrit), which shows his perspective of things.

Josef Joffo from Paris also wrote extensive memoirs, "A bag of marbles" about his childhood where he escaped the Nazis with his brother, but also the story of his mother "Anna and her orchestra", and he also wrote books about his later life.
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amother
Pearl


 

Post Thu, Jan 18 2024, 8:34 am
I liked Educated, though it was a bit disturbing

A similar book, but I liked it much better is Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper about leaving Westboro

And I also really liked Roald Dahl's memoirs, Boy is the first one and then Going Solo is the second one
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amother
Pearl


 

Post Thu, Jan 18 2024, 8:37 am
And also the books by Marie Killilea about raising her daughter Karen who had cerebral palsy in the 1940s-50s, a time when most kids with CP were sent to asylum. Two book, the first is called Karen, and the second is called With Love from Karen.
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Librarian




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jan 18 2024, 9:13 am
It's Always Something by Gilda Radner
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bgr8ful




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jan 18 2024, 9:41 am
yachnabobba wrote:
The premise of educated is that the only kind of education that’s worth pursuing is a university education. This is the furthest from truth . As Dr. John Foster says I know a lot of idiots with PHDs and as I say I know many brilliant and knowledgeable ppl with almost no formal education


I read it a while ago so I dont remember all the details but I dont think thats the premise at all.

she came from nothing, living off the grid with no education, no medical care, no nothing, and managed to get out and build herself a life, part of which included going to university and getting an education.
thats the point of the book. not whether university is great or not.
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amother
Hyssop


 

Post Thu, Jan 18 2024, 9:43 am
Here's a couple-sorry if they were already listed!

Angela's ashes
Between 2 kingdoms
the girl with 7 names
Group (not vouching for appropriateness here)
running with scissors (or here)
when breath becomes air
Shoe Dog
Into the wild
born a crime
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BH Yom Yom




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jan 18 2024, 10:03 am
Free Spirit by Joshua Safran
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ectomorph




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jan 18 2024, 10:26 am
Natan Sharansky
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