Biography Day

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-20-2003
Biography Day
14
Tue, 06-28-2005 - 7:09am

let's talk aboout biographies today. What have been some of your favorites and are there any in your TBR pile right now?

I just picked up Brooke Shields' "Down Came the Rain" and am looking forward to it


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iVillage Member
Registered: 02-09-2000
Tue, 06-28-2005 - 8:17am
Okay....this is going to be a short "conversation" on my part
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-02-2003
Tue, 06-28-2005 - 10:25am

A Boy Called It by Dave Pelzer is the last non-fiction book I have read.

Avatar for misstk
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 06-28-2005 - 11:34am

I read lots of biography, mostly of female historical figures. One really good one is Harriet Jacobs: A Life by Jean Yellin. Jacobs was a slave who ran away from a master who was trying to sexually abuse her. Another good one is American Jezebel by Eve LaPlante. It's about the Puritan woman Anne Hutchinson who so disrupted the community with civil and religious heresies that she was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony.

I read some memoirs and autobiographies, too, but not of famous people. Adele Crockett Robertson tells a beautiful story, for example, of trying to save her family's apple orchard during the Depression. Her memoir is called The Orchard.

TK

MissTK


 

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-15-2005
Tue, 06-28-2005 - 2:25pm

Hi Maggie,

Two books that I read this year I really liked! "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey. It was the story of an alcoholic, really interesting. "Under and Alone" by William Queen. He was an ATF agent who infiltrated "The Mongol Motorcycle Club". I have no interest in MC but thoroughly enjoyed the book, good read! Sue

Avatar for arizonagal
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 06-28-2005 - 3:55pm

One of my favorite's was a biography of Audrey Hepburn written in the early 90s by Diana Maychick. I had always enjoyed and respected Ms. Hepburn's work, in and out of the movie industry. But after reading what she endured during WW II - starvation, working for the Resistance is just a couple - it truly opened my eyes as to why she took up the causes she did, especially for UNICEF. During the war, she took up smoking to help relieve stress and unfortunately was the cause of her early death. But what a legacy!

Donna

Avatar for scrappy_ams
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Tue, 06-28-2005 - 6:48pm

I recently listened to the audiobook of Truman by David McCullough. It was magnificent and I highly recommend it. I also enjoy memoirs. One which was particularly powerful was First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung (sp?) about the authors time as a young girl in Cambodia during Pol Pot's regime. Excellent book.

scrappy

Scrappy
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-09-2000
Wed, 06-29-2005 - 3:20pm
I'd forgotten about that one
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-03-2005
Wed, 06-29-2005 - 3:31pm
I liked Patty Dukes's story "Call Me Anna", it's all about her fight with Manic-Depression. Also the most recent biography I read was, "Not Without My Daughter." by Betty Mahmoody. It's about Betty's fight to escape Iran after her husband takes her and her daughter there for a family vacation. Very good but scary too. ~Joey
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-22-2003
Thu, 06-30-2005 - 10:42pm

I've read quite a few - I enjoyed the ones I read about Grace Slick, Janis Joplin, Bugsy's Girl (about mobster Bugsy Siegel,) & one called Nina's Journey, about a young girl growing up in Russia during the Stalin era


iVillage Member
Registered: 01-11-2005
Mon, 07-04-2005 - 11:56pm

I've been on vacation, babysitting the grand poopies, and just been incredibly busy lately!!

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