FanFare

Dorje grew up in a remote high-altitude village in Nepal without electricity, running water, or even the wheel, in the 1980s. The book is the story of her life to about age 10, when she is adopted by an American couple and brought to the US for life-saving scoliosis surgery. With no schooling at all, she is turned loose in the Himalayas at age 6 to shepherd over her family's herd of goats and yak, responsible for both getting herself and the animals back to the village safely each day. As it becomes apparent that she needs medical help the family embarks on a nearly 1-month trek to Kathmandu, where Dorje sees electricity, automobiles, and TV for the first time. Living 9 people in a 1 room apartment with another family from the village, they eek out survival via begging and social services until Dorje is accepted into a boarding school and starts to learn to read and write, and her family starts the 1-month trek up the mountain back to the village. The book ends as Dorje receives life- saving surgery in America. The book is essentially self-published, but her story is so compelling it does not matter. A real editor working their magic could result in an amazing book that would compare to Angela's Ashes. As is, I still highly recommend the book.
posted by COD on Apr 6, 2023 - 0 comments

Alex Trebeck resisted writing a memoir, right up until he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. What he produced in his final year of life is funny, insightful, and touching, but it's more of a highlight reel of his life than an in-depth autobiography. It reads like it's a series of blog posts, with no more than a few pages ever dedicated to any chapter.
posted by COD on Feb 11, 2023 - 3 comments

An international bestseller—the extraordinary memoir of a German-Nigerian woman who learns that her grandfather was Amon Goeth, the brutal Nazi commandant depicted in Schindler’s List. [more inside]
posted by johnofjack on Jan 14, 2023 - 2 comments

I'm Glad My Mom Died is a memoir by American former actress and singer Jennette McCurdy based on her one-woman show of the same name. The book is about her career as a child actress and her difficult relationship with her abusive mother who died in 2013. [from wikipedia] [more inside]
posted by phunniemee on Dec 27, 2022 - 9 comments

In Soft Lad, for the first time, Grimmy will share his outlooks, surprising obsessions and personal experiences with the world, in book form. From his move from Oldham to the bright lights of London, to his 14-year career climbing to the helm of the Radio 1 breakfast show, he'll discuss everything from his love of music through to self-care and partying, Red Nose Day, coming out, dogs, family, ADHD, Catholicism, and all that he's seen in between.
posted by ellieBOA on Nov 16, 2022 - 0 comments

Metafilter's own Wil Wheaton revisits his 2004 book Just a Geek. The result is two books in one, the original Just a Geek, and a book's worth of annotations with a happier, more content, more mature Wil wondering what the hell he was thinking when he wrote some of that stuff.
posted by COD on Jun 8, 2022 - 4 comments

I'm not even that big of a Foo Fighters fan but Grohl was already the rock star I most wanted to have a beer with before I read this book. It's an autobiographical sketch of his life, told in stories ranging from poignant (Kurt Cobain), to hilarious (the time he got a text from his wife asking if it was okay for AC/DC to join them for dinner), to downright this guy can't be human (flying RT from Australia to LA to attend the daddy-daughter dance with his daughters). Dave Grohl really is one of the good guys. And he is a hell of a storyteller, in music or print.
posted by COD on Feb 3, 2022 - 2 comments

The amazing story of an Afghan child who grew up in a refugee camp in Pakistan, only attended a few of years of formal school while dodging bombs back home in Afghanistan, and eventually got to the UK as a teenage refugee. While working in retail sales he studied on the side, enrolled in school and ultimately passed his A-levels before getting in pre-med at Cambridge. Ultimately he becomes a doctor and starts a non-profit that uses tele-medicine to help doctors in war torn Afghanistan treat patients. It's an amazing autobiography to write, and the author isn't even 40 yet.
posted by COD on Oct 5, 2021 - 0 comments

Alison Bechdel (Fun Home, Are You My Mother?, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For) creates another autobiographical graphic novel, this one covering her entire life and examining it from the perspective of her lifelong quest for physical fitness and its effect both on her body and her mind, and how it has changed (and changed her) as she's grown older. [more inside]
posted by Halloween Jack on May 28, 2021 - 5 comments

**Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography** Surfing is the star of probably 90% of the pages in the book. So it’s fair to say it’s a book about surfing. However, it’s also a book about growing up and about making decisions, both good and bad. It’s a travelogue, taking you to places around the globe that you will probably never visit, because you don’t have a driving obsession with finding the perfect wave. It’s one big metaphor, with surfing standing in for all sorts of other things. You’d think there are only so many ways to describe a wave in the ocean. Finnegan will disabuse you of that thought,
posted by COD on Dec 24, 2019 - 3 comments

Nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work: You want to know about the struggle of growing up poor, black and female? Ask any girl from any hood. You want to know what it takes to rise above your circumstances when all the cards are stacked against you? Ask me. [more inside]
posted by rue72 on May 10, 2019 - 1 comment