2022 ONTD Reading Challenge discussion

This month, learn more about someone by reading a biography or a memoir!

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Recommendations:

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt

If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of A B Movie Actor (Bruce Campbell from the Evil Dead movies)

Hopefully the ONTD post will go up today :) sorry about the delay!

thanks for those recs Jamie!

I have a few recommendations as well:

Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman
Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More
Meaty

I got started a little early and I just read Hunger this week -- it was excellent, but pretty heart breaking. I have a lot of memoirs that I've accumulated on my Kindle over the past few years and haven't read yet. Before June is over, I'd also like to read:

The Year of Magical Thinking
The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
Scrappy Little Nobody

Thanks for the recs! I wanted something light this month so I choseScrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick. Hopefully it is entertaining and least somewhat funny?

Has anyone read the Rachel Dolezal bio? lol

I'm definitely going to read Poirot and Me.

I'm a huge fan of the tv series, yet somehow only found out a couple of months ago that he'd written a book about it!

Here are some "medical memoirs":

Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks - Sacks was a neurologist, he's famous for his books on brain disorders like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and he was known for writing with a lot of humanity. This is the first of his memoirs, he led a fascinating life
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi - a memoir by a neurosurgeon who had cancer. It's very sad but very very beautifully written.
This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay - this is currently a best-seller in the UK. It's by a NHS doctor who ended up quitting and became a comedian
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh - another memoir by a neurosurgeon (there are so many). This is really about the nitty-gritty of brain surgery
The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story by Christie Watson - also currently a bestseller in the UK. Watson was a nurse for 20 years

I'm gonna read Wishful Drinking because everyone else on the planet has and I own it.

Would John Carreyrou's new book about Theranos count? Or does it have to be a person specifically, and not a company built around someone's evil persona?

Thread is up :) https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com...

Undine wrote: "I'm gonna read Wishful Drinking because everyone else on the planet has and I own it.

Would John Carreyrou's new book about Theranos count? Or does it have to be a person specifical..."

hmm.. i would say it doesn't count since it's more about the business than Elizabeth Holmes

I'm angry that I didn't wait to read the David Lynch bio Room to Dream lol i just finished it. Great read.

Does this count Frontier Spirit ?

Ah, there are some in the ONTD post that have my attention!

I was wondering about The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II or Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory too - would those work?

If you fixate on the Osama bin Laden mission like I do (I have fun fixations), The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior is a legitimately enjoyable read. Dude's got a great writing voice and a decent sense of humor.

hmm it seems to me that Frontier Spirit and The Girls of Atomic City are about many different ppl at a particular period of time so they don't really work

looks like Smoke Gets In Your Eyes works though, it's tagged memoir!

Kim wrote: "I'm angry that I didn't wait to read the David Lynch bio Room to Dream lol i just finished it. Great read."

ohh i want to read this!!!!!!

I plan on reading:

Geisha, a Life Mineko Iwasaki tells her life story from early childhood to being a geisha.

Elizabeth I This lady was way ahead of her time. While she chose never to marry, she used the idea of marriage in her politics, like many women today.

The Best We Could Do So this is a graphic novel and memoir depicting one family's journey as refugees from Vietnam to California.

A House in the Sky Honestly, I fell for the beautiful cover at first. But this is a memoir about a woman who wants to travel the world and then is kidnapped and held hostage.

Here are some options from my kindle library:


Miss Ex-Yugoslavia: A Memoir

The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery

Unwifeable: A Memoir

The Wasp and The Orchid: The remarkable life of Australian Naturalist Edith Coleman

The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row

Bernard Shaw: The One-Volume Definitive Edition

Jump Girl: The Initiation and Art of a Spirit Speaker--A Memoir

How Not To Be a Boy

Heart Berries: A Memoir

Washerwoman's Dream


Not sure if these count:

A Life Of One's Own

The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster

Can't Help Myself: Lessons & Confessions from a Modern Advice Columnist

I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death

Some North Korean memoirs:

In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story
Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West

Other "human rights" memoirs:
How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After
The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

For anyone looking for biographies of European royalty, try the following authors: Antonia Fraser, Alison Weir, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Helen Rappaport, Nancy Mitford, Robert K. Massie

Between them, they've covered a lot of interesting people!

World War II/Holocaust memoirs:

Night
Survival in Auschwitz
The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45
The Diary of a Young Girl
In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer
The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust
Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany
All But My Life: A Memoir
Motherland: Growing Up With the Holocaust
Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany

The "100 memoirs by women" post on ONTD fits this challenge:

https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com...

I'm going to try to read just memoirs for the month. So far i know i have:

Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, a Life Reclaimed - A Memoir of the Cleveland Kidnappings

Cherry

and

Never Have I Ever: My Life (So Far) Without a Date

In 2015 I started Alison Weir’s The Life of Elizabeth I but I didn’t finish because in 2015 I ALSO started my Masters and any extracurricular non-fiction reading just about melted my brain. But it was quite good so I just put it back on the self as to-read for another time, when my brain was ready for it. Clearly, June is that time lol.

Edit: Actually, since it's Pride Month, does anyone have good LGBTQ+ biography recommendations? I'd love to read one of those too. I've had a look at the GR list but recs if anyone has them are always more helpful haha

Memoirs or biographies re lgbt people?

For lesbian and bi women’s memoirs:
https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com... tbh

tbh I haven’t read as many biographies on lesbians as I would like to- they’re just not available. There’s a beautiful one on tove jansson called tove jansson: work and love though! I wouldn’t recommend warrior poet on Audre Lorde tbh.

Lea wrote: "Here are some "medical memoirs":

Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks - Sacks was a neurologist, he's famous for his books on brain disorders like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, an..."

Re medical memoirs I’d recommend:

Ask me about my uterus: a woman’s quest to make doctors believe in her pain

If anyone wants graphic memoirs and bios:
Last things - Marisa moss (on her husbands death from als)
Life? or theatre? - Charlotte salomon; her biography as well - to paint her life: Charlotte salomon and the Nazi era
Citizen 13660 - Miné Okubo (Japanese internment)
Katie green - lighter than my shadow (anorexia, sa)
Thi Bui - the best we could do
Una -becoming unbecoming (violence against women)
Maggie thrash - honor girl (lesbian)
Cece Bell - el deafo
Leila abdelrazaq - Baddawi (her fathers story growing up as a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon)
Christine redfern - who is Ana mendieta?
Kate Evans - red Rosa: Rosa Luxemburg

l. wrote: "Memoirs or biographies re lgbt people?

For lesbian and bi women’s memoirs:
https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com... tbh

tbh I haven’t read as many biographies on lesbians as I would ..."

It's not about one specific person but I LOVED The Sewing Circle: Hollywood's Greatest Secret: Female Stars Who Loved Other Women.

I'm back after falling off for the last several months because I am predictable. I have tons of these I'd love to get through, but I think I'm going to start with the newly-released Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" and then move on to The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt if I have time.

Belated thanks, Rachel! I went with Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, and In Order to Live will be next.

I'm currently listening to The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt, it's a wild ride lol, the author describes the incest and diseases in great detail.

I'm waaaay behind with the challenge but I think I'll get myself on track by reading on Carrie Fisher's memoirs.

I'm currently reading Saving Alex: When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, and That's When My Nightmare Began, which is heartbreaking so far. I'm planning on reading Lakota Woman and Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter as well.

Update: I finished Barracoon. My review is here. I would highly, highly recommend it, but only if you read Hurston's text before you read the editor's intro/forward.

I'm going to start Almost a Woman once I get it from the library. Its the second book in her series. I've read the first since it was one of the nominees for New York Reads.

My hold for Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness came in yesterday and read it today. I thought it was an interesting, and quick read.

Still, need to complete May's challenge, but honestly, just finishing a book was a good feeling for this month.

I'm reading Lakota Woman and it's so heartbreaking but very good so far.