Summer Reading: Memoir Edition

Summer is my favorite time of year for reading. I’m a fairly voracious reader all year round–as an English professor, it’s part of my job description–but summer reading always feels different to me.

I’m not on the clock, for one thing. I can take as long as I like to finish a book. And I can read whatever I want, for whatever reason. Or for no reason at all.

This post will be the first in a series of summer reading recommendations. I’m starting off with memoir–true stories written by the people who lived them. It’s by no means an exhaustive list, but it’s a good start if you, like me, enjoy hearing from people who lived to tell the interesting tale.

In no particular order:

Educated, by Tara Westover

It’s been a long time since I read a book that I felt while I was reading it, but this memoir certainly falls into that category. Westover’s struggle to move beyond her deep isolation in a survivalist family (and the complete lack of an education this family provided her) was so compelling that I often struggled to put this book down. The scene in which she learns of the holocaust–while sitting in a college classroom–is something I’ll probably never forget.

I’m always amazed by the person who can find it in their heart to continue loving someone who hurt them deeply. Westover is clearly one of those people. The grace and forgiveness with which she treats her family members, even while telling such a painful story, is simply stunning.

We Are All Shipwrecks, by Kelly Grey Carlisle

One of the highest compliments I can pay to any book is I’ve never read this story before. That was thought that came to mind more than once while reading Carlisle’s memoir of growing up surrounded by the mystery of her mother’s murder.

Raised on a boat by her maternal grandfather–the owner of an adult video store–and his wife, who does her best to love a child she isn’t equipped to care for, Carlisle wants nothing more than an ordinary life. Her heartbreaking coming-of-age story is both remarkable and acutely familiar. Carlisle never lets us forget that, like each of us, she was just a kid who needed to know she was loved.

A Girl Named Zippy, by Haven Kimmel 

This memoir taught me that it’s okay to laugh at your younger self–to be honest enough to admit what you once believed, and to find the beauty and humor in childhood, rather than seeing it only as the place where we learn hard lessons. What a relief, to read a memoir of childhood that isn’t traumatic!

This book is one of a very few that have made me laugh out loud while reading. And Kimmel manages to make us laugh with her dysfunctional family, not at them, so it’s all in good fun.

She Got Up Off the Couch, and Other Heroic Acts, by Haven Kimmel

Yes, Kimmel is that good–she deserves two spots on this list. Her second memoir focuses more heavily on her mother, Delonda, who decides to go back to college in mid-life–after becoming a wife and mother as a teenager, sinking into a deep depression, and gaining 100 pounds.

This book is inspiring for the compassion and understanding Kimmel demonstrates toward her mother. It’s also deeply honest, illustrating the sometimes negative consequences of a woman’s decision to take charge of her life. Not as funny as Zippy, to be sure, but worth a read.

Wild, by Cheryl Strayed

You may have seen the movie, but you need to read the book.

There have been moments in my own life when I felt panicked and stuck and profoundly unhappy with the direction I was headed. This is a memoir that takes us deep into one of those moments and shows us how Strayed walked her way back out again. Although I’ve never been in the particular spot that Strayed was stuck in, the minute I read “Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren’t a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was,” I knew this author had something to say to me.

Wild is a terrific memoir about the power–and terror–of claiming your life, all on your own.