memoirs

  • Bulosan at 75: Contemporary Filipino/Filipinx Memoirs

    Bulosan at 75: Contemporary Filipino/Filipinx Memoirs

    Carlos Bulosan’s fictionalized memoir America is in the Heart was published 75 years ago this month. The passionate and incendiary account captures the brutality and casual cruelty meted out to Filipino migrants in America, persecution that would continue as the poet and labor organizer was subsequently blacklisted and targeted by the FBI. By the time… Continue reading

  • Unmuted Spotlights the Connective Power of Personal Storytelling

    Seattle-based memoir author and writing coach Ingrid Ricks recently led a personal storywriting workshop for LGBTQIA seniors and their allies at Seattle’s GenPRIDE center. The workshop built a community of writers and generated an intriguing anthology of fourteen stories entitled Unmuted: Stories of Courage and Resilience from the GenPRIDE Community, released in October to celebrate… Continue reading

  • Iditarod 2020: This Mush Is True

    Since 1973, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, has united mushers, dogs, and spectators for a 938 mile run from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska. This can take anywhere from 8 days to over 15! I’ve heard of the Iditarod, but it wasn’t until my husband started following Blair Braverman on Twitter a few years back… Continue reading

  • Read This: The Misfit’s Manifesto, by Lidia Yuknavitch

    Read This: The Misfit’s Manifesto, by Lidia Yuknavitch

    Quote: “You are not nothing. You are vital to your culture. We misfits are the ones with the ability to enter grief. Death. Trauma. And emerge. But we have to keep telling our stories, giving them to each other, or they will eat us alive. Our suffering is not the Christ story. Our suffering is… Continue reading

  • Straight from the Horse’s Mouth: Audiobook Memoirs Read by the Author

    I unabashedly love audiobooks. They are not cheating. Audiobooks are simply a different way to take in and make sense of information, and to enjoy stories. Audiobooks have an inherent performance value that can be done well with multi-person cast productions or simply great individual narrators. My personal favorite is the particular insight and authenticity… Continue reading

  • The Vietnam War: Essential Accounts

    There is no single story of the Vietnam War. In our second of four lists commemorating the premiere of Ken Burns’ and Lynn Novick’s ten part documentary series on the Vietnam War, we feature twenty-five memoirs and personal accounts of the War and its aftermath, representing a wide array of experiences and voices. Here are some highlights. Continue reading

  • Inside the Story: Immersive and Personal Journalism

    Memoir tends to be subjective, while journalistic writing aims at objective treatment of a topic. Then there are those books that combine these strengths, exploring a topic of interest from within, either through the eyes of someone whose experience gives them a revealing perspective, or a journalist who immerses themselves in the world they’re writing about. In both cases, the… Continue reading

  • Fall Biographies: Bruce and Beyond

    It’s fall, and the publishing industry is set to release the year’s most anticipated books during these dark, wet months. Lucky for us, there’s a bumper crop of celebrity biographies and memoirs to curl up with. Here are more than two dozen of the best bets. Continue reading

  • Book Bingo: Memoirs

    Join The Seattle Public Library and Seattle Arts & Lectures for our 2nd annual Summer Book Bingo for adults! Follow us throughout the summer for reading suggestions based on each category. From gossipy tell-alls to the extraordinary lives of ordinary individuals, the popularity of memoirs endure. Here are some memoirs to consider for Book Bingo – and… Continue reading

  • Celebrity Biographies for Fall

    This is a bountiful fall for celebrity biographies and memoirs! Here are some of the most anticipated titles to look for in the coming months. Continue reading

  • A New Way to Read Biographies

    ~posted by Di Z. In The Infinite Wait and Other Stories, Julia Wertz recounts the time she was diagnosed with lupus and was not able to read novels, one of her favorite pastimes. Wertz’s condition gave her intense headaches and the inability to concentrate, resulting in her trying without success to finish the same paragraph for… Continue reading

  • Book Bingo: Memoirs

    This summer The Seattle Public Library, in partnership with Seattle Arts & Lectures, is excited to offer a summer reading program for adults called Summer Book Bingo! In order to help you along on your quest to complete your bingo sheet, we have pulled together some book suggestions based on each category. Follow this series… Continue reading

  • LGBTQ memoirs

    ~posted by Frank It’s Gay Pride month, and it’s time to take a look at some forthcoming and recently released memoirs celebrating the richness and diversity of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender lives. For a good laugh, check out Bad Kid by David Crabb as he recounts growing up goth and gay in Texas in the… Continue reading

  • Driving with my Favorite Celebrities: Audiobook Memoirs Read by the Author

    I’m obsessed. Listening to audiobook memoirs during my daily commute, my favorites are read by the authors themselves. It makes the ride more enjoyable, and there is something special about listening to a person read aloud their own memoir. It feels like they’re sitting right there, sharing their story with me and me alone. Here… Continue reading

  • Tearjerking Memoirs

    By  Danielle J. Lately, I’ve seen numerous memoirs passing over the circulation desk and have marveled at the seemingly indiscriminate flurry of people rushing to tell their stories.  Great memoirs take more than just an interesting life or unique experience. In a New York Times Op-Ed, Neil Genzlinger wrote:  “What makes a good memoir —… Continue reading

  • Dreaming of Wild Places

    Cold weather and snow (snow!) make me want to curl up under my bubble lights and dream about outside adventures in the natural world. I like a touch of nostalgia too, so here are a few memoirs that are intricately connected to the time and place they were written in, with a great mindfulness for… Continue reading

  • Comic book memoirs and family secrets

    Several talented cartoonists have used comics memoir (also called graphic memoir) to chronicle their family stories. Alison Bechdel has rightly received much acclaim for her books Fun Home and Are You My Mother? which closely examine her relationships with her father and mother respectively. Below are several more comics which deftly explore complex familial relationships.… Continue reading

  • Other kids

    So it’s pretty much a given that everyone in Seattle is on the hold’s list for Just Kids, Patti Smith’s new memoir about her friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. And while that book is all sorts of amazing, there are several other musician memoirs that don’t have a huge holds ratio and just might tide… Continue reading