Good summer reading? Especially looking for memoirs or New Journalism books

April 16, 2009 9:22 AM

Some good memoirs, or other non fictions books that you really love?

I'm looking for some good memoirs to read this spring and summer, and/or some journalistic biographies. Stuff I've read lately that I really enjoyed The Center Cannot Hold, Random Family, and Into The Wild

I'm looking for other suggestions, especially memoirs or New Journalism type books, although I like novels too, especially stuff like She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb, or anything you can stay up reading all night. Anything more contemporary I can usually get into. I'm over my Jane Austen phase at this point.

Or just any books you've read lately that kind of blew you away!

posted by Rocket26 to media & arts (55 comments total)

Into thin air (Jon Krakauer)
Newjack (Ted Connover)
The Last Cowboy (Jane Kramer)
Doctor Dealer (Mark Bowden)
The Years of Lyndon Johnson (Robert A. Caro)
The Power Broker (Robert A. Caro)
Friday Night Lights (Bissinger)
Paper Lion (George Plimpton)
First in his Class (David Maraniss)
posted by NekulturnY at 9:26 AM on April 16

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey.
posted by sleevener at 9:26 AM on April 16 [1 favorite has favorites]

Hunter Thompson's Best 3: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, and The Proud Highway. Great, hilarious prose in all 3, coupled with (respectively) cultural criticism, political insight, and a weird ringside seat to a great writer's will to power.

I'm also a big, big fan of Wolfe's The Right Stuff, but I'm a sucker for good writing and space.
posted by COBRA! at 9:31 AM on April 16

Blue Boy by Jean Giono
posted by OmieWise at 9:32 AM on April 16

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
posted by hellboundforcheddar at 9:32 AM on April 16

The Tender Bar by J R Moehringer
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:33 AM on April 16 [1 favorite has favorites]

I just reread Prisoner of Trebekistan by Bob Harris, which is more memoir than anything else.

Set This House in Order, by Matt Ruff, was one of my favorite novels of recent years.
posted by Zed at 9:34 AM on April 16 [1 favorite has favorites]

The best 2 non-fiction books I've read recently are:

• Manhunt by James Swanson
• Kindom of Fear by Hunter S. Thompson

posted by askmehow at 9:36 AM on April 16

Oh, yeah, I forgot: 'Hell's Angels' by Hunter S. Thompson. Great book. Less literary than his other endeavours, more factual, and therefore more palatable in my opinion.
posted by NekulturnY at 9:37 AM on April 16

The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombies, and Magic by Wade Davis
posted by juliplease at 9:41 AM on April 16

Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman! Richard Feynman This is a great read.
The Glory and the Dream - William Manchester This is a wonderful anecdotal and personal history of the United States from the Depression through Watergate by a historian. It's pretty big, but reads like a novel. I read this when I was in my early 20's, and it really shaped my thoughts about 20th century America.
posted by Carmody'sPrize at 9:42 AM on April 16

I never pass up a chance to recommend Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
posted by ODiV at 9:44 AM on April 16

Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill

My boss had the opportunity to publish this book and didn't and I was so unhappy. I LOVE THIS BOOK.
posted by ocherdraco at 9:56 AM on April 16

The Glass Castle: A Memior by Jeannette Walls was a compelling, but not overly challenging read. Perfect for summer.

And I adored all of Ruth Reichl's books. Start with Tender At the Bone.
posted by kimdog at 9:59 AM on April 16 [1 favorite has favorites]

One more: All Over but the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg
posted by kimdog at 10:03 AM on April 16

The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson. Also by Larson is Thunderstruck. Both have a similar formula, combining a true-crime story with a technological/artistic development story (Devil In The White City combines it with architecture and the Chicago World's Fair, and Thunderstruck combines it with the development of radio broadcast), which I kind of dig; Larson is also an engaging writer.

A longtime big favorite of mine - just for the sheer fun -- is Tim Cahill's Road Fever. Cahill was part of a two-man team that set the Guinness World Record for driving the Pan-American highway (Argentina straight up to Alaska) in the shortest amount of time, and this is the story of that drive. When I need a giggle I've also often turned to the handful of pages where Cahill talks about how both their minds just sort of snap in the middle of Panama somewhere and they go off on this bizarre gigglefit over the word "Roto."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:06 AM on April 16

Okay, now I've thought of more in the vein of New Journalism non-fiction:

Confederates in the Attic, by Tony Horwitz

Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America By Steve Almond

The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank by David Plotz
posted by kimdog at 10:13 AM on April 16

My favorite nonfiction book is probably Steinbeck's Travels with Charley. It perfectly evokes a certain time in America's history and, every time I read it, I want to drive across the country.

Also, Cash by Johnny Cash. If you're not a fan now, you will be when you're done.
posted by Kafkaesque at 10:13 AM on April 16

I just read two interesting books about homelessness -- one was the memoir "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City," by Nick Flynn, and the other was not a memoir, exactly, but was nonfiction: "Stuart, A Life Backwards," by Alexander Masters.

Both were great reads and helped me understand the spiral of addictions, mental illness, mistakes and plain bad luck that can lead to homelessness, something which I had previously not really grokked.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 10:22 AM on April 16

Personal History by Katharine Graham

Taking on the World by Robert Merry (on the Alsop family)

A Good Life by Ben Bradlee

Moving Violations by John Hockenberry

Katharine Graham's Washington (she was the editor)

Closest Companion by Geoffrey Ward

First Class Temperament by Geoffrey Ward

Before the Trumpet by Geoffrey Ward -- fabulous!!!

Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough

1776 by David McCullough

John Adams by David McCullough

The Great Bridge by David McCullough

Europe's Last Summer by David Fromkin -- this is my perennial recommendation. Three people at work are reading it because of this.

President Kennedy: Profile of Power by Richard Reeves

Have not read, but want to:

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire by David Fromkin

The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough

Mothers of Invention by Drew Gilpin Faust

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret Macmillan

There is a book on the tick-tock of Armistice Day that will be my next purchase, but I can't find it right now.
posted by jgirl at 10:24 AM on April 16

Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China by Jen Lin-Liu is a really good memoir by a Chinese-American expat in China who resolves to learn to cook.

The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson is a look at the crazy "psychic research" projects funded by the US military and intelligence communities over the past few decades.

Lopsided by Meredith Norton is a surprisingly funny memoir about breast cancer.

I love J. Maarten Troost's writing, especially Getting Stoned With Savages, his book about living in Vanuatu.

Two great memoirs by people who are real-life friends of mine, so you may take or leave my recommendations as biased:

Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever, and What Happened Instead, by Joel Derfner (paperback edition will be out in June). Title says it all.

Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun by Faith Adiele. The author looks back at her journals of a year spent at an isolated monastery in Thailand.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:25 AM on April 16

Wickedly funny memoir: Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady by Florence King
posted by applemeat at 10:25 AM on April 16

For those who loved Devil in the White City and have been looking for something equally good in a similar vein, let me recommend American Lightning by Howard Blum and Sin in the Second City by Karen Abbott.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:27 AM on April 16

Favorites of mine in the same "getting deeply inside the lives of people who are not much like me" vein as Random Family:

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
Generation Kill
Absolutely American

Homicide is pretty spectacular, in fact, if you haven't read it already; it's sufficiently rich with inside detail and life that in a recent thread, one Mefite referred to it (mistakenly) as a novel. The followup, The Corner, is also good, but difficult to get through because the subject matter is so unbelievably grim.

And seconding the Caro books on Johnson. They're giant, and Caro recycles some of the material from the earlier books in the later, but irresistably compelling. And Master of the Senate is nevertheless one of the great achievements in American letters of the past, oh, say, thirty years. A journalism prof of mine told us that Caro was so deeply committed to getting the details right that when he wanted to write about the effect/perspective that LBJ would've had in the well of the Senate, he had Bill Bradley go and stand there.

Caro also has a superb book on Robert Moses that shows just how powerful anecdote can be when it's employed properly.
posted by joyceanmachine at 10:30 AM on April 16

Harpo Speaks! by Harpo Marx is my favorite autobiography of all time. Fascinating and fun. The man has a very strong voice, for someone who never spoke in public.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 10:30 AM on April 16

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon.

One of the most disturbing books (non-fiction or fiction) I've ever read though, so maybe a bit heavy for summer reading, especially if you live or are traveling in the South.
posted by elder18 at 10:33 AM on April 16

Gertrude Stein considered US Grant's Memoirs to be the greatest autobiography in the English Language. It is amazingly well-written. His rags-to-riches-to-rags story is amazing. He was a clerk in his dad's shop when the Civil War broke out. Within 3 years he was commanding the largest army known to man up to that time. His prose is both dense and laconic at the same time.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:33 AM on April 16 [1 favorite has favorites]

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama is a good story, independent of the author's future after that book was written
posted by ignignokt at 10:35 AM on April 16

The New Kings of Nonfiction -- more on the journalism side, a collection of short non-fiction pieces.
Under the Banner of Heaven, another by Krakauer.
109 East Palace, American Prometheus, and A Nuclear Family Vacation if you are a big WWII era science nerd like me.
Assasination Vacation and others by Sarah Vowell, I personally love her deadpan jokes and sarcasm, but YMMV. I listened to the (abridged) audiobook, it was really entertaining on a road trip.
posted by sararah at 10:40 AM on April 16

I loved Shot in the Heart by Mikal Gilmore. Not an easy read, but a compelling one.
posted by essexjan at 10:50 AM on April 16

I'm not a big memoir guy, but upon reading other answers, I can wholeheartedly recommend these:

Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman!
The Glory and the Dream - William Manchester (I buy this at library sales all the time to give to people)
Also Manchester's Goodbye Darkness is an excellent memoir of his service in the Pacific during WWII.

Loved Harpo Speaks (although it has been almost 30 years since I read it) and Travels With Charlie (ditto)

As I have said in other non-fiction book threads, you cannot go wrong with a John McPhee book. Each book is a personal investigation into a subject that the author has, for whatever reason, become interested in. So, they are a hybrid of memoir and more "traditional" non-fiction. His interests vary so much (from, say, how oranges are grown to how iceland battles volcanic eruptions to plate techtonics to dirigibles) that there's probably something in his work that would interest you. He is also a fantastic writer.
posted by qldaddy at 10:54 AM on April 16

Robert Sapolsky's A Primate's Memoir is great, and Sapolsky has been discussed a lot on the blue, most recently here.

Sarah Vowell's Assasination Vacation and The Wordy Shipmates are two great books that mix American history and memoir. Reading Vowell, I learned how to understand patriotism in a completely different way, plus she's pretty funny.
posted by gladly at 11:01 AM on April 16 [1 favorite has favorites]

Judith Thurman's bio of Isak Dinesen, a well-researched and extraordinary biography of fascinating woman and incomparable writer. Forget that silly movie, this is the real story.
posted by nikitabot at 11:01 AM on April 16

David Sedaris.
posted by easy_being_green at 11:04 AM on April 16

I just read and enjoyed "The Lost City of Z," and a novel that reads like a bit of a memoir, "The 19th Wife." I would also recommend "A Sense of the World: How A Blind Man Became the World's Greatest Traveler," a truly compelling account of sightless adventurer James Holman and his travels in the early to mid 19th century. AJ Jacobs' "The Know-It-All" and "The Year of Living Biblically" are also great.
posted by mothershock at 11:07 AM on April 16 [1 favorite has favorites]

A Pirate Looks At 50 by Jimmy Buffett
posted by te1contar at 11:07 AM on April 16

I thought Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates was fantastic. I've got plenty more, but that was the first one to leap to mind.
posted by Caravantea at 11:14 AM on April 16

As far as a novel, I urge "...And Ladies of the Club", by Helen Hooven Santmyer.

Best ever. Incredible.

It is loonnnggg, covering 1868 to about 1933. It has a huge amount of social, economic, and political history.

It is much, much more than chick lit!!!
posted by jgirl at 11:16 AM on April 16

Fictional and fabulous: These Is My Words.
posted by Sassyfras at 11:38 AM on April 16

Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. is a great read; a Harvard scholar signs up as a lowly sailor and recaps his trip in the form of a diary. Fascinating stuff if you're even remotely interested in history, sailing, or the casual racism and class separation that was so pervasive not too long ago...
posted by PontifexPrimus at 12:04 PM on April 16

I got some good answers to a similar question, including the recommendation of Motion of Light in Water which was great. Lately I've been reading a lot of autobiographical graphic novels. Some I've loved include:

the "Boy" series by LAT
Diary of a Teenage Girl by Phoebe Gloeckner
Stuck Rubber Baby by Howard Cruise
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
and
Jokes and the Unconscious by Daphne Gottlieb
posted by serazin at 12:04 PM on April 16

Jill Ker Conway, The Road from Coorain.
posted by brianogilvie at 12:20 PM on April 16

Bill Bryson is my favorite author, and I'd say Notes from a Small Island is my favorite book of his.

I also love food essays, with Ruth Reichl probably my favorite author of that genre.
posted by pyjammy at 12:22 PM on April 16

Jan Wong's China and Red China Blues (excerpt). This fits your new journalism requirements. Writer Jan Wong is a Canadian journalist of Chinese ancestry, and studied in Beijing in the 1970s. Because she's ethnically Chinese, as long as she didn't speak (her Chinese was only semi-fluent at the time) she passed for a Chinese citizen and was therefore able to access things no other foreigners could see. Because she's culturally North American, she filters it all through her own Western perceptions. It's a really interesting look at China, and her writing is very readable.

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers (excerpt). Another new journalism book. Gladwell explores the making of exceptionally talented people. There are some memoir-esque segments, and the ideas are interesting food for thought (Why are Asian kids so good at math? What do the majority of star hockey players have in common? Why are there so many Jewish lawyers?) --even if you don't agree with his ultimate conclusions. I found this book both fascinating and very inspirational- I don't come from the kind of uber-lucky circumstances that produced some of his sample outliers, but I feel like now that I've thought a bit about what makes those people so successful, I can adjust my own lifestyle to compensate.

Fall On Your Knees by Ann Marie MacDonald (excerpt). This novel is good in the same way as She's Come Undone- another Oprah book club pick. It traces the fictional history of three generations of a family. A compelling story, really finely-drawn characters, and a great mixture of poetry, grit, and humour. A fantastic, un-put-down-able read. Actually, if you like novels like She's Come Undone, you should look at Oprah's book club list (scroll down)- most of the novels she chooses are good in the same way as that one.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 12:33 PM on April 16

Some New Journalism books:

A.J. Jacobs- The Year of Living Biblically- hilarious
Martin Kihn- Asshole- Again, a funny look at how being self-serving helps one's life.
Kurt Eichenwald- The Informant and Conspiracy of Fools- Eichenwald has a great way of writing about historic events in a novelistic fashion
J. Maarten Troost- Sex with Cannibals- Loved this one, more so than Stoned With Savages
William Langewiesche- The Outlaw Sea- very interesting look at how the sea affects our world.
George Crile- Charlie Wilson's War
Misha Glenny- McMafia

Some novels:

Anything by Christopher Moore
Anything by Matt Beaumont
Audrey Niffenegger- The Time Traveler's Wife
Christopher Buckley's novels
Zadie Smith- White Teeth
Ann Patchett- Bel Canto

Some other great books:

Anything by Henry Alford
Anything by Paul Feig
Chelsea Handler- My Horizontal Life and Are You There Vodka? It's Me Chelsea
Darcy Frey- The Last Shot

Happy reading!
posted by reenum at 1:01 PM on April 16

I highly recommend Giving Up The Ghost by Hilary Mantel. It is a little dark, but beautifully written and relatively short. It stayed with me for a long time after I finished it.
posted by abundancecafe at 1:14 PM on April 16

You Can't Win by Jack Black.
posted by Alex Voyd at 1:23 PM on April 16

seconding Homicide, The Cornor, Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady...

also Jeffrey Goldberg's Prisoners. And I've liked a few books by Robert Kaplan. I also recently enjoyed listening to Fareed Zakaria's Post-American World.
posted by K.P. at 1:32 PM on April 16

I just read A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, who also writes my favorite food blog. Although it centers around recipes, it's highly readable as a memoir even if you're not interested in cooking.
posted by katie at 1:37 PM on April 16

So today seems to be the day that I recommend the fantastic bio of major science fiction writer Alice Sheldon (James Tiptree Jr.), James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon. This is a great read about an amazing woman. Even if you aren't an SF fan, it is quite interesting.
posted by thebrokedown at 2:18 PM on April 16

I remember enjoying Sean Wilsey's "Oh The Glory Of It All".
posted by djgh at 4:59 PM on April 16

I am reading Good Book by David Plotz (his previous book was mentioned above) and am enjoying it immensely.
posted by wittgenstein at 5:16 PM on April 16

Log from the sea of Cortez - John Steinbeck
posted by primer_dimer at 4:40 AM on April 17

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia (Twentieth-Century Classics) 1941 (Paperback)
by Rebecca West (Author) While I never got into her other books - this is astonishing in its ability to be wise, laugh out loud funny and sad to the point of tears. While there is such a strong personal point of view that some of the history is either incorrect or anecdotal - if that is kept in perspective - the characters and message are worth the 1200 page read.
posted by epjr at 9:22 AM on April 17

'The Agony and the Ecstasy', Irving Stone's biography of Michelangelo, is extraordinary.
posted by twirlypen at 12:03 PM on April 20