Tag: memoir

The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama

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The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama. 4.25 stars. Memoir/Self-help, 319 pages, 2022

Michelle Obama offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress. Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and First Lady, she shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles–the earned wisdom that helps her continue to “become.” She details her most valuable practices, like “starting kind,” “going high,” and assembling a “kitchen table” of trusted friends and mentors. With trademark humor, candor, and compassion, she also explores issues connected to race, gender, and visibility, encouraging readers to work through fear, find strength in community, and live with boldness. (from Goodreads)

Michelle’s memoir Becoming is one of my favorites. If you haven’t read it, you should. This book shares new stories, offers advice, and addresses the ‘go high’ vision and what it means. 

It didn’t pack the same emotional punch of her first book, but there were parts I really loved. I loved the section on her relationship with Barack, especially that first trip to Hawaii to meet his family. I love her honesty and the way that she never puts him on a pedestal. Through her we see the real him. I love this quote, “Any long-term partnership really is an act of stubborn faith.” This spoke to me because I often speak of my own marriage this way.

The last few sections about how she was portrayed in right wing press and her now famous call to ‘Go High” were my favorites. We are so lucky to have had her as First Lady and to have her now encouraging us all to do the work. As many like to say, freedom isn’t free, and if we want a better country we have to be better citizens. I’m going to leave you with a few of the quotes I write in my journal. 

“If you keep your children from feeling fear, you’re essentially keeping them from feeling competence.”

“We’re alone, each of us. That’s the ache of being human.”

“Any time we grip hands with another soul and recognize some piece of the story they’re trying to tell, we are acknowledging and affirming two truths at once: We’re lonely and yet we’re not alone.”

“Going high is not just about what happens on a single day, or a month, or inside one election cycle either. It happens over the course of a lifetime, the course of a generation, Going high is demonstrative, a commitment to showing your children, your friends, your colleagues, and your community what it takes to live with love and decency. Because in the end, at least in my experience, what you put out for others- whether it’s hope or hatred- will only create more of the same.”

Up From Slavery by Booker T Washington

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IMG_5708Up From Slavery. Finished 1-13-16, rating 3.5.5, memoir, pub. serially 1900-01

Unabridged audio read by Andrew L Barnes. 7 hours, 30 minutes.

Booker T. Washington, the most recognized national leader, orator and educator, emerged from slavery in the deep south, to work for the betterment of African Americans in the post Reconstruction period.

“Up From Slavery” is an autobiography of Booker T. Washington’s life and work, which has been the source of inspiration for all Americans. Washington reveals his inner most thoughts as he transitions from ex-slave to teacher and founder of one of the most important schools for African Americans in the south, The Tuskegee Industrial Institute.

Booker T. Washington’s words are profound. Washington includes the address he gave at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895, which made him a national figure. He imparts `gems of wisdom’ throughout the book, which are relevant to Americans who aspire to achieve great attainments in life.     from Goodreads

I picked up this 1968 paperback with a very retro cover years ago and added it to my Classics Club reading list last year.  I both read and listened to this one and was both inspired and somewhat bored by it.  Let’s break it down a bit.

Washington was born a Virginia slave.  His childhood as a slave wasn’t as awful as some I’ve seen portrayed in the movies, but impressive because he harbored no real resentment towards the whites.  He was still a kid when Lincoln freed the slaves and life changed drastically for his family.  They were now on their own and still together.  Booker, from a young age, was determined to become educated.  His desire and struggle for education was something, I think, that is inherent in all great men and women, and he was a role model.  Through his dedication he was able to start teaching others.  He somehow got himself to the Hampton Institute and enrolled even though he didn’t have enough money for tuition.  It is a true testament to valuing hard work that he was able to accomplish what he did.

When the time came that he was chosen to head the Tuskegee Institute, Washington had to build it from the ground up.  He became a spokesman for the college, and for African-Americans everywhere, by placing as much emphasis on labor as book learning.  I loved his ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ and black empowerment through education and hard work message.  This part of the book, once he became more national speaker than day-to-day director of the school, dragged.  And it was half the book, so you see the problem.  It was a rehash of his speaking engagements and travel and some of the press clipping about these speaking engagements.

I thought his insights into the African-American experience during and after the Civil War were engaging and wish the book had been more about that.  That being said, I am so glad I read it and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it, especially now that I’ve taken your expectations down a notch 🙂

This was my 9th selection for the Classics Club.  I need to get busy!

 

This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection by Carol Burnett

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This Time Together by Carol Burnett: CD Audiobook CoverFinished unabridged audio 9-1-10, rating 4.5/5, memoir, pub. 2010

Narrated by Carol Burnett

I love Carol Burnett.  I loved her variety show, The Carol Burnett Show.  The woman is funny and sincere and real.  This memoir covers the time she was getting started in show business.  She talks about meeting Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant, two of my faves, and how starstruck she was.  She had an elevator encounter with John Steinbeck which I loved. 

She talks about her time in New York, living with other girls and working on Broadway.  I loved hearing about how she got her own show started, personal stories about castmates, and the honest confessions, like when she got her chin.  She touches on her three marriages and the death of her daughter, Carrie, which give this memoir depth.  Moving from Los Angeles to New York and back again showcase the fortunate life of this comedienne.

These stories of her life are fun to listen to and I must recommend the audio version since she reads the book herself.  It made me want to buy her old shows from the infomercials I always see on tv.  If you are a fan this is a must read.

I checked this audio book out of the library.

Book Giveaway – Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974-2001) by Don Felder

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HB 7

Today’s FREE book is a BRAND NEW hardcover.  Published in 2008, 332 pages.  Here’s the B&N synopsis–

The Eagles are the bestselling, and arguably the tightest-lipped, American group ever. Now band member and guitarist Don Felder finally breaks the Eagles’ years of public silence to take fans behind the scenes. He shares every part of the band’s wild ride, from the pressure-packed recording studios and trashed hotel rooms to the tension-filled courtrooms, and from the joy of writing powerful new songs to the magic of performing in huge arenas packed with roaring fans.

To enter to win leave a comment with your email address. 

To earn one extra entry you can post this on Twitter or post it on your blog.  Leave me a separate comment telling me you did.

Open internationally.  Winner will be picked on October 11th.

700 Sundays, by Billy Crystal

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Cover ImageFinished 8-18-09, rating 4/5, memoir, pub. 2005

Now you can’t pick the family that you’re born into.  That’s just the roll of the dice.  It’s just luck.  But if I could pick these people, I would pick them over and over again because they were lunatics.  Fun lunatics.  What a crazy group of people, and great characters too.  It was like the Star Wars bar, but everybody had accents.

Chapter 2

Actor and comedian Billy Crystals writes a touching memoir of the 700 Sundays that he had with his father before before his death when Billy was 15.  Although this is a tribute to his parents, it is also a celebration of his family.  He has an impressive and accomplished extended family and his love for them is evident on every page. 

His family owned Commodore Music Shop in midtown Manhattan and because of the connections made there Billy grew up surrounded by artists.  He included snapshots of these meetings and relationships.  My favorite may have been when the great Billie Holiday took him to see his first movie and he watched Shane sitting on her lap.  These stories added to the book, but were not the focus. 

One page I was laughing out loud as he discovered his newfound manhood and on the next I was in tears as I read about the last time Billy saw his father.  There was humor (most of it successful), but it really reached out and touched my heart as I raced to the end. 

I will admit that there were several chapters at the beginning that I found boring, but the second half of the book made up for it.  A man who loves and appreciates his family, like Billy, is one to admire.

It is relatively short and includes photos of the people he’s writing about.  He also performed this book on Broadway in a one man show and I wish I’d had the chance to see it.  I highly recommend this memoir of his memories with his father and mother.

Stitches, by David Small

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Stitches by David Small: Book CoverFinished 6-30-09, rating 4/5, graphic memoir, pub. 2009

David Small is an award winning children’s book illustrator and he shows the horror of his youth in this graphic novel.  His childhood was full of lies, secrets, emotionally distant parents, and illness.  How would you feel if you were told you were taking a routine trip to the hospital only to overhear much later that it had really been cancer surgery?  The story is told with few words, but page after page of stark black and white illustrations perfectly express the sadness of his Detroit upbringing. 

This was my first graphic novel and while I loved the story and artwork, I found that I outread the pictures.  I tried to make myself slow down and take everything in, but it wasn’t easy, it was too easy to keep the pages turning.  But the images stuck with me after the book was done.   The ugliness of his grandmother (inside and out) and the indifferent attitude of both of his parents was shocking and sad.

I really enjoyed this fast read and although I’m not sure when I’ll read  another graphic novel I am happy that I read this one. I want to thank my friend Golda for giving me this book on my trip to New York in June.  I’m giving this dramatic memoir with its haunting artwork a thumbs up.   

This will be released in September 2009.