Magical Memoir Moments
100Memoirs Celebrates One Year: So Much Change, So Much to Learn!
My first post to this blog took place August 9, 2008. It was a birthday present from my son Anthony, who has his own blog. Since then, there have been 118 other posts and 398 comments. Thank you, dear readers! I especially want to thank several other bloggers, GutsyWriter, Babsland, OKChelsea, for commenting frequently, both…
Twenty Tips after Forty Years of Marriage: A Mini-Memoir
Marriage does not come with an instruction manual. Wise couples get some kind of counseling, often from the minister who marries them. They hear about marriage being complex and sometimes challenging – and listen without believing– in the same way that people in good health receive stories about dying. If ever a two people qualified…
Eight Tips for a Great "Staycation": A Mini-Memoir
You know that feeling you get at the end of an exotic vacation to Disney World or New York City or Istanbul? Or the feeling in August that summer is slipping through your fingers? A feeling akin to nausea? You wish you had time now to organize your pictures, mow the yard, sit on the…
Boy, Did I Love Lucy: A Mini-Memoir
If a genie had appeared to me when I was ten and offered me anything my heart desired, the answer would have poured out of me. Some girls want ponies. Some want Barbies. Some are generous enough to think of others first, asking for world peace or food for the hungry. Others go straight for…
My First Rock Concert: A Mini-Memoir
Rock music is like a foreign language to me even though I graduated from high school in 1966 and college in 1970. Like many explanations of my most anomalous behaviors, this one goes back to being Mennonite. And a little geeky (meaning bookish–not a math whiz!) on top of that. I like to joke that…
Beach books? Memoirs Recommended by Readers
The CBC Canada Reads Book Club picked these ten memoirs as their top ten: 1. The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls 2. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah 3. Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope by Shirin Ebadi 4. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius…
Top 10 Memoirs: If You Show Me Yours, I'll Show You Mine!
Let me begin with an apology for slacking off on blogging this past week. I probably will continue a low profile until June 30th, after an important board meeting, and after I have finished a book review to send to Christian Century. But how lovely it would be if we together could make some progress…
Top 100 Memoirs: Which Ones are Essential?
Embarrassing story: When I was a newbie grad student at the University of Texas at Austin, I turned in a review of a book that my professor did not recognize. He asked me why I chose this book to review. I responded, “Because it was on my shelf.” He looked horrified. As Paul Newman might…