MEMOIRS WE HAVE READ AND ENJOYED...

Thought I'd start a list of memoirs we've read and enjoyed.

In no particular order here are some of my favorites:

Breaking Clean by Judy Blunt (great memoir about growing up on a ranch in Montana)

http://books.google.com/books/about/Breaking_Clean.html?id=Zn706icmmhkC

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (about growing up in an African Muslim nation, defecting to the Netherlands and then getting targeted for death by Muslim extremists and going in to hiding. A vividly written indictment of radical Islam.

Escape by Carolyn Jessop (who fled the Warren Jeffs cult, a polygamous sect in Utah.)

http://www.slate.com/id/2189275/

(Eye opening for me as I had no idea that polygamy still existed in the U.S.)

Heaven's Coast by Mark Doty (poet, essayist and memoirist)

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Heavens-Coast-Mark-Doty/?isbn=9780060928056

Al recommends: The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. Here is a link to the Wikipedia entry about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Castle