Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Bookeywookey's best biography and memoir reading of 2012

There is a blizzard headed our way here in the wilds of Ohio and I brought no boots.  Great!  I guess I will return to my end-of-year list-making. 

I noticed that I returned to a reading pleasure of old this year.  I used to read many more biographies and autobiographies than I have in the past few years (especially when I was acting), but in 2012 I read many more. Here were the highlights.

Catherine the Great by Robert Massie
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
A Positively Final Appearance by Alec Guinness
My Name Escapes Me by Alec Guinness
Winter Journal by Paul Auster

It is difficult to pick a 'best' from this list since the straight, long-form biography of the empress of Russia is so different from the memoir form, which is different again from Joan Didion's deep elegiac reflection on the loss of her daughter.  Good thing I don't have to choose.  These were all great, but I'll single out:


No comments: