memoir

This is the memoir of Aaron Hartzler, a writer and actor currently living in Los Angeles. The story covers his growing up years right here in the Kansas City metro.

Aaron was raised in an extremely conservative Christian home as the son of a preacher. As a child, he was thrilled by the idea of the Rapture, a highly anticipated event in which Jesus will return to Earth to gather his believers and take them directly into heaven. Aaron would jump as high as he could into the air while singing, hoping that he could catapult himself directly into heaven. But as he entered his teen years, Aaron

If you’re a fan of Frances Mayes and  her Tuscan adventures, and even if you read this one when the book came out in 2010, I recommend listening to it on audio. In her southern Georgia drawl, Mayes narrates the third installment of her life in Italy after buying and renovating a dilapidated Italian farm house. Every Day in Tuscany is the third of her Cortona tales, following the ever popular Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany.

Here, she shares stories of the Italian countryside and the people she has grown to love, the food, wine and art she has enjoyed, and the home and garden that have

I'll cut to the chase: Listen to this book. Narrator Dion Graham turns an already great memoir by Dave Eggers into an absolutely entertaining bundle of ah-mazing. The words burst with personality and energy thanks to his narration, perfectly capturing the author's tone. (No surprise, turns out there are multiple Eggers-Graham audiobooks out there.) You'll forget you're basically listening to a giant monologue. 

So what's it about? In A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Eggers shares a heartfelt account of his life after suddenly becoming the guardian of his young brother when both

Bill Klein and Jen Arnold are little people with their own show called The Little Couple on TLC. When the show began, they'd already established themselves in their careers and were about to get married. Life is Short covers the early years leading up to the show, addressing the unique challenges they individually faced being small, as well as the challenges common to many of us. Chapters alternate between Jen and Bill, beginning with their early childhood years. Both are very open about painful experiences, but also focus on how important attitude, love, support, and hard work are in

Wow, what an amazing life Linda Ronstadt led! In a musical career that spanned almost half a century, she sang rock/pop, opera, American standards (accompanied by an orchestra), country, blues and Mexican rancheras (with a mariachi band)!  Along the way she performed, jammed, hung out and/or formed friendships with an eclectic group of famous musicians including Jim Morrison, the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Dolly Parton, and Rosemary Clooney—to name just a few.

Simple Dreams is not a particularly well-written memoir, and it doesn't reveal much personal information (like the names and ages of her

Comet, a rescued greyhound, will win you over with her lovable, graceful and insightful personality.  Steven Wolf rescues Comet from the horrors of greyhound racing, and in turn she rescues him when his debilitating back injuries leave him disabled and unable to participate in everyday life. 

Shortly after adopting Comet, Wolf stumbles upon the idea of training her to be a service dog.  Comet learns how to open doors, provide stability so that Wolf can hoist himself up, and even pulls Wolf’s wheelchair around the local airport.  While Comet is not your average working dog, she tackles every

Sarah battles a crazy disease, the kind of mysterious disease with no definitive end. It’s a disease that requires a central line (a catheter placed into a large vein in the neck), the kind of disease that attacks nerves and turns the body into a battleground.

And while all these things are very critical in this memoir, the most important element is how the disease is presented to the reader. This book may be comprised of poems threaded with angst, humor and despair or it could be a teetering castle of prose blocks. Or perhaps it’s one long essay ravaged by the disease itself. The way this

I've been a fan of Amanda Palmer, her music and her personality, for a while now. I admire how open, honest, brash, and brave she is. The Art of Asking is based on a TED talk she gave in 2013, expanded here to talk about her life as an artist and musician along with musings on why it's important to ask for help, why we often find it difficult to ask, and why sometimes asking for help doesn't get us what we asked for. (If you listen to the audiobook, you also get Amanda singing with her ukulele and some bonus songs by her and some of her friends.)

This is one of those books that smacked me

William Styron was already an accomplished, award-winning author by the mid-1980s when he suffered a devastating episode of clinical depression. His novels The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie’s Choice had made him famous and respected in the literary world. Meryl Streep won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the protagonist in the film version of Sophie’s Choice. To someone who had never experienced clinical depression, Styron must have appeared on top of the world.

Styron’s descent into severe depression, for which he was eventually hospitalized, is chronicled in his

Having read all the Little House books many, many times, I was very excited when I heard about Pioneer Girl: the Annotated Autobiography. I would get to read the true story behind the beloved fictional narrative.

The book was full of surprises. First, it was much larger than I was anticipating—it would make a lovely coffee table book. Next, I discovered from the introduction that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, played a huge part in the editing and publishing of the Little House Books, something I had never known. Finally, while it was enjoyable to read how closely the

Enchanting language, lush scenery, a romping, completely factual story and a rascally, joyful raccoon are the fixings for this adorable and happy memoir by Sterling North. 

This was my favorite animal story as a child.  And it is still at the top of my list.  I started squealing the moment Rascal was swiped from the woods, and made no efforts to contain my delight for the duration of the book.  My adult squeals echoed the squeals of my 10 year-old self as Rascal snuggled his way into Sterling’s bed, made a sugar lump disappear and trilled all of his desires, questions, indignations and love. 

In Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil, Deborah Rodriguez offers an account of Afghan life from a unique vantage point as an American beautician serving local and foreign women in Kabul.

Imagine, at the age of 30, discovering you're not typical — or rather, not neurotypical. What could have been a scary diagnosis turned out to be very empowering for David Finch. His personal story of coping with Asperger Syndrome and saving his marriage paints a picture of hard-earned possibility. Finch may be at the milder end of the Asperger/autism spectrum, but for a neurotypical like myself, I learned a lot about the life of someone whose brain works very differently from my own. At the same time, I also saw aspects of myself in his behaviors, a reminder that common ground can still be

Belinda Carlisle seems to have lived the quintessential rocker’s life—starting off poor and dreaming of a magical life, being in love with music at a young age, starting a band almost on a whim, seeing her band rise to fame, drowning in drugs. Belinda’s story, Lips  Unsealed, is one of brutal honesty about how her own shortcomings and insecurities kept her in the grip of addiction even while her life seemed perfect and almost fairy-tale like to those on the outside. Her life reads as an inspiring and cautionary tale. It also made me want to dig up The Go-Go’s albums and listen with a greater

Food critic Frank Bruni reveals his personal struggle to overcome a love-hate relationship with food, and how he achieved self-control in the most unlikely circumstances.

Elisabeth Tova Bailey has a mysterious illness that lasts for many years.  At one point during this illness she is confined to her bed.  She can only sit up or hold a book for minutes at a time.  She has been removed from her beloved farmhouse to a condo in the city so that she can be cared for around the clock.  One day a friend brings Elisabeth a snail that is nestled in a pot of violets.  This is the story of how a snail ferries one woman through countless hours of suffering into a place of wonder-induced healing.

I, too, was swept up in the White-Lipped Forest Snail’s trail of reverence

Kitty lovers will appreciate Caroline Paul's humor, devotion and manic-depressive curiosity in Lost Cat.

I'm not a writer but Anne Lamott makes me believe that I could be a great one.  Bird by Bird is a writing manual that reads like a memoir, a very funny, life affirming, let's get real memoir.  She reminds me a bit of Cheryl Strayed in her clarity and insight not only about writing but about relationships and priorities.  Lamott says, "if you want to know your characters, you have to hang out with them for awhile."   I highly recommend hanging out with Lamott.

This memoir explores the life of Waris Dirie, recognized by many for her work as a model, and by others for her advocacy for human rights and a battle against female genital mutilation. The reader follows her from her early life as a nomad in the deserts of Somalia, to her difficult and sometimes dangerous journey to Mogadishu and eventually London. Working there as an underappreciated maid for her own family, she is "discovered", and sets off on an equally nomadic life as a model. Throughout her journey, Waris has to face the world with her own wits and tenacity. The best part of this story

This memoir recounts the story of Malika Oufkir, whose father was the closest aide to the King of Morocco. We follow Malika from the age of five, as she is raised in the palace as the princess’ companion. While life in the harem is a kind of imprisonment itself, it is nothing compared to what awaits her, her mother, and her siblings after her father is executed for an attempt to assassinate the King.

She and her family spend the next 20 years in prisons. Sixteen years into their ordeal, sickly, starving, and desperate to the point of suicide, Malika and some of her siblings manage to dig a

Naoki Higashida is a thirteen-year-old boy with autism so severe that he cannot speak aloud.  But using an alphabet grid, he--letter by letter--has composed this missive from the depths of autism, revealing that a clever mind and keen perception lie behind the limits of his disorder.  Higashida approaches the topic through a series of questions, like "What's the worst thing about having autism?" and "Is it true that you hate being touched?"  His answers are illuminating and occasionally heart-breaking, like this one: "The hardest ordeal for us is the idea that we are causing grief for other

In his new book, Scott Stossel describes his harrowing experience with clinical anxiety as well as its origins as a psychiatric disease. He looks at the philosophical and biological underpinnings of anxiety and the amazing response from pharmacology, both as a benefit for those who suffer from the illness and as an industry that pathologizes normal emotions upon the arrival of drugs that can alter them.

Most amazing of all is how Scott holds nothing back while not seeming to whine as so many others do in memoirs about personal challenge. Read this book if you’re curious about what can be

Delia Ephron has written an entertaining group of personal essays that range from the deeply touching to the absurdly humorous in Sister Mother Husband Dog, (etc.)  The first essay in the book is a tribute to her late sister, the writer Nora Ephron.  The two sisters worked together writing  screenplays for several popular movies, including You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle. Certainly she writes of her sister in a loving way, but she also shares with us the humanness of the relationship – the jealousy and the competition. Another of the more heartfelt essays titled, “Why I Can’t Write

Perhaps the best essay in Wild Comfort is the piece that launches the collection, The Solace of Snakes.  It’s possible that it’s my favorite essay because of her cunning implementation of snake tins (sheets of metal) to give snakes a proper home in a cleared field.  Kathleen Dean Moore further explains her recordings each day as she carefully lifts the snake tins and examines the life beneath: “A large vole. . . dropping blind babies from her teats like ripe plums,” garter snakes, rubber boas, an alligator lizard – treasures of the dark that are suddenly revealed in the light of Moore’s simple

The smell of baking cookies brings back memories of mother's kitchen...Biting into a fresh tomato recalls the garden behind your childhood home...Watching the yellow powder and milk combine to create delicious macaroni and cheese reminds you of your first apartment. For author Lucy Knisley, as for many of us, food is a trip down memory lane. With a caterer mother and foodie father, her life has been defined and marked by some of the best (and worst food).

A graphic memoir, this book touches on the food that has shaped her life, from sushi visiting a childhood friend in Japan to the junk food

These days, I read a lot of mom-oirs – enough to feel justified making up a word to describe the sub-genre clash of parenting book meets memoir.  My twins are fifteen months old.  They toddle and they’re fickle, irrational, urgent, tiny, and I love them.  Just like the subtitle says.

I enjoyed a lot about this book.  More daddies wrote for this compilation than I’ve yet seen.  This is representative of modern parenting: my own husband is a stay-at-home daddy while I work as a librarian.  The stories in this collection are short, so I was able to read several in a sitting or read something

Don’t be fooled, you’ll learn nothing about diabetes or owls here, but the random suggestion makes it all the more entertaining.  Shortly before this book was released, I had the privilege of attending “An Evening with David Sedaris” in Kansas City, where I got a preview of some of the hilarious treasures to come in Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls.  Sedaris likes to test his pieces with various live audiences, tweaking them along the way until they are primed for publishing, and I was excited to hear some of my favorites again in their polished state. 

This collection is packed with a

I like to think of myself as a modern woman -- cool, level-headed, doesn’t cry easily, likes Duran Duran, but not too much. 



Leave it to Rolling Stone editor Rob Sheffield and his ruminations on Pat Benatar, Whitney Houston, Sleater-Kinney and Pavement to make me cry like a baby. It also wreaked havoc on my bank account as I went on an iTunes downloading spree. Hanson's "MMMBop," anyone?



In Love is a Mix Tape, written half a decade ago, Rob Sheffield chronicles his marriage to a punk rock, hell-raising Appalachian girl; a love affair that ended tragically when she suffered a pulmonary

Wesley the Owl is a fascinating story about the 19 years Stacie O’Brien shares with Wesley, a barn owl.  Stacie, an employee at Caltech, is offered the opportunity to raise a barn owl.  She immediately accepts the offer and throws herself into the arduous but overwhelmingly poignant task of creating a happy and long life for her new feathered baby.  Wesley thrives in Stacie’s care, and Stacie, in return, becomes the best owl mother a baby owl could ask for.  At a very funny moment in Wesley’s life his relationship with Stacie changes, and he chooses her as a mate.  Because of The Way of the

In the introduction, Kaling says of herself, “I’m only marginally qualified to be giving advice at all. My body mass index is certainly not ideal, I frequently use my debit card to buy things that cost less than three dollars, because I never have cash on me, and my bedroom is so untidy it looks like vandals ransacked the Anthropologie Sale section. I’m kind of a mess.” And yet, she’s written a compelling, humorous memoir, with occasional advice. The advice she does offer is based on her own, real-life experiences and all the more valuable for its lack of childhood trauma.

As a writer