Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the seventeenth day of the month is "Method."
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I have happily done the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge since 2018. I always find myself reading real gems I would never have found had it not been for the challenge. It stretches out the types of books I read and makes it so that I don't read solely romance novels with happily ever after endings and books with dragons as main characters. But this year there are a number of prompts for the challenge that are causing me some serious hangups.
#2 A book you bought from an independent bookstore
#8 A celebrity memoir
#26 The shortest book on your TBR list (number of pages)
#28 A book you bought secondhand
#49 The longest book on your TBR list (number of pages)
I really dislike buying books and bringing them into the house. There are already so many books here and my husband is consistently bringing more in since he doesn't share my deep concern about the lack of bookshelf space. So I'm grumpy about #2 and #28, but I have convinced myself that I can use books I've gotten from one of the Little Free Libraries in our neighborhood or from the library's used book sale as replacements and call it good enough and in the spirit of the prompt.
The number of pages as a metric is also super annoying to me because I don't keep track of this stat on my TBR list. My TBR is literally just the book name and author and, if I'm really paying attention, where I got the recommendation from. I think I'll just find the shortest and longest book I read at the end of the year and plop them in the slots, but that feels like cheating.
And then there's the celebrity memoir. In general, I dislike autobiography and memoir. I like books about dragons, so you can imagine that I frequently think that people think their own lives are more exciting than I do. I mean, when you read fiction in which people get to fly on dragons the whole "I met Beyonce and drank champagne at a fancy people party" does seem rather banal, doesn't it? But this random list that tells me what to do says I need to read one, so I guess I'm in. I started the project with three potential options:
I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jenette McCurdy
The World's Worst Assistant by Sona Movsesian
The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish
Slowly, as the months go by, I read more and more negative reviews of these books until I pretty much know I will find them insufferable and they will end up being DNFs. So, please help me. Give the name of a celebrity memoir I will read.
To help you out, I read Jensen Karp's memoir Kanye West Owes me $200 & Other True Stories from a White Rapper Who Almost Made It Big and spent an enjoyable few hours reading about an almost-famous person, so maybe celebrity adjacent is more my speed.
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In the meantime, I'm not sure I'm going to do this challenge again because I was so annoyed with so many of the prompts this year. Maybe I'll try to read the Top 100 of the BBC's Big Read?
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So, what's your best celebrity/almost celebrity/celebrity adjacent memoir recommendation for me?
Oh! Oh! Oh! How about The Disaster Artist for your celebrity memoir? Greg (the author) was a young actor who hit it off Tommy, a very eccentric man in his acting class. Tommy was inspired by their friendship to make a movie and he cast both himself and Greg in the movie. That movie was The Room, which has the distinction of being "The Citizen Kane of Bad Movies".
ReplyDeleteI like your workaround of getting books from the Little Library and wow I do not care how many pages a book is. Since I read mostly on Kindle, I don't even know the pages counts.
I may consider The Disaster Artist. I've listened to the How Did This Get Made? episodes about The Room and The Disaster Artist, so I think I have enough background to understand it. I feel like I really am going to come off as a downer in these comments, though, because this sounds a lot like piling on for poor Tommy Wiseau.
DeleteHmmm! There has to be a celebrity memoir that you would like. I don't read a lot of them either so I'm not a good one to ask. What about someone you admire like Michelle Obama (at least, I'm assuming you admire her- maybe not.) i haven't read her book but I'm pretty sure it's not going to be about drinking champagne with Beyonce.
ReplyDeleteOh, I should really have specified that I'm really not interested in inspirational memoirs, either. Ha. The point of this challenge is to stretch my wings a bit, though, so maybe I'll add the Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton autobiographies to my list.
DeleteOoh! Hillary Clinton. I actually started her book and really liked it- but I ended up DNF'ing because it was too soon after the 2016 election and it was just making me really upset and sad. Maybe enough time has passed that I could try it again. If you end up reading that one I'll be interested to hear what you think.
DeleteI'm actually a little worried that it's too soon after the 2016 election for me still! Ha.
DeleteI really enjoyed Stanley Tucci's memoir, Taste, Patti Smith's Kids, and Dave Grohl's The Storyteller - but I may have a loose grasp on what qualifies as a celebrity!
ReplyDeleteHmmmm...thanks for trying, Lindsay, but I can pretty much guarantee I won't be reading any of those. I heard Tucci talking about his memoir on a podcast (Off Menu) and he sounded very excited about food and travel, but also very boring. Sorry, Stanely Tucci! I'm sure you're a lovely man. I also heard Smith on a podcast (Fresh Air) and I think I actually probably got all I wanted from her memoir out of that interview. Maybe my answer to this question is to stop listening to podcasts!
DeleteWe are kind of opposites in that you could not pay me to read a book about dragons, but I love memoir of all kind, as long as it's a female memoir. So I don't know if anything I say will resonate with you in the memoir world. Perhaps - perhaps! - Paulina Porizkova's No Filter. I would not say it is excellent, but I did like reading it a lot. Wait, now that I've written this I think I'll take that back because I don't think you like reading about body image stuff. There isn't much of that but there is a really interesting piece about how she aged out of modelling. What she doesn't say is very interesting too, if that makes sense. Anyway, if you don't like memoir you don't like memoir! But I would definitely pass on the McCurdy book if I were you.
ReplyDeleteHm. Body image stuff is a very hard sell for me. I guess I know I'm exceptionally picky about this genre, but I also know the point of the challenge is to expand the types of books I read, so maybe I'll tentatively add the Porizkova book to my TBR, even though I have no idea who she is. Maybe that's better for me!
DeleteMemoir used to be MY jam. Like all I read. I have read two on your list of future DNFs! I recommend Des Linden's new memoir - Choosing to Run. Even if you aren't a runner, I think her grit and determination is really inspiring.
ReplyDeleteAnd getting books from the LFL totally counts! I am also anti lots of books in the house.
I am not necessarily anti-lots of books in the house, but more anti- MORE books in the house. We're already overwhelmed!
DeleteI got nothing to recommend (I read a lot of memoirs, but they all seem to be so traumatic!!) I would DEFINITELY recommend you steer clear of I'm Glad My Mom Died; I felt like I needed a shower when I finished reading it.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like I'm Glad My Mom Died has a lot of trauma in it that I don't think I'm up for. *sigh* I do sort of wish I were more interested in it, though. Everyone else is reading it and has an opinion!
DeleteI'm like Nicole and love memoir but would be fine never reading a book about dragons again! Have you read the Julia Child memoir - My Life in France? That is probably my all-time favorite memoir. I l found it inspiring that she learned to cook when she was in her 40s, I believe.
ReplyDeleteOh, that's a lovely suggestion, Lisa! I would never have considered it, but I imagine she led a fascinating life.
DeleteHmm, I read very little memoir so I won't be much help there. Is memoir the same as autobiography? I doubt you want to read My Life by Bobby Orr, though he is a celebrity by my standards! My favorite autobiography is probably AA Milne's, but I'm sure it would be very hard to find. He led a very interesting life!
ReplyDeleteI can get the Milne autobiography through the university library where my husband works! Not impossible to find, but it was not available through the public library!
DeleteI'm sorry, I can't help here, I'm with you on the celebrity memoir genre, ick. Dragons all the way.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your solidarity in dragon love!
DeleteI do like memoirs, but I think I vastly prefer them in audiobook format. Some that I've enjoyed:
ReplyDeleteLast year I really liked Kal Penn's You Can't Be Serious. He's probably most known for Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, or the tv show House. His accounts about the challenges and discrimination he faced as an Indian American actor were kind of hilarious and horrifying. He also talks about his time when he took a break from acting to work in the Obama White House, which I found fascinating and definitely celebrity adjacent.
You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism by Amber Ruffin - more a series of essays about her life than what I would think as a memoir, though. She writes about the casual racism that she and her sister faced every day.
Trevor Noah's Born a Crime.
Lindy West's Shrill, about her journey to be a stand up comic. Enraging and uncomfortable and funny.
Also - Brandi Carlisle's memoir Broken Horses is kind of fantastic on audio because she'll talk about an experience and then at the end of that chapter sing one of her songs inspired by that life incident.
On the other hand does celebrity have to mean Hollywood? Could you read, say, Obama's memoir?
Or on the Obama note, I also really liked Who Thought This Was A Good Idea? by Alyssa Mastromonaco, who was Obama's Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations.
Some of these are such great suggestions, especially the Obama Chief of Staff. It's just celebrity adjacent enough that it might work!
DeleteI second Born a Crime! Great book!
DeleteI had to think hard for this one because this is a category I avoid as well. But I've gotten so many good recs from you including one I made students read for our Oxford seminar (Babel) so I feel I've got to try to be useful here at least. While I haven't read them, Trevor Noah's _Born a Crime_ and America Ferrera's _American like Me_ have been recommended by people I respect.
ReplyDeleteBabel! That is such a great book. Have you read her new book Yellowface? I just ordered it from the library and there's a bit of a wait for it.
DeleteI have recommendations for the short novel and for celeb memoirs. For short novels, I recommend Montana, 1948 by Larry Watson (165 pages) which is a tiny, perfect mystery... or The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders (129 pages) which is a super weird parable about humans' tendency to divide the world into black and white... or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by R L Stevenson (114 pages) which is a classic. Honestly, a lot of classics are tiny. Siddhartha (152 pages), Animal Farm (128 pages), Night (109 pages), Candide (144 pages). This is not to say that I disagree with your strategy of back-filling this category at the end of the year! That works, too!
ReplyDeleteFor celebrity memoirs, I have enjoyed those by Jessica Simpson, Mindy Kaling, Rob Lowe, and Alan Cumming.
Oooohhhh...thanks for the short novel recommendations! I put Montana, 1948 on hold at the library right away. You can't ever have enough one-sitting books laying around, if you ask me.
DeleteI loved Katie Couric's book. Short novel-- Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews
ReplyDeleteThanks for the recommendations. I shall add them to the list to be considered!
DeleteOoh, this is fun because I love celebrity memoirs! And I have the added bonus of trying to find something that will be to your taste.
ReplyDeleteI definitely second You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey, Born a Crime, and Alyssa Mastromonaco's books. Very, very excellent.
In the Country We Love by Diane Guerrero was great - she's an actress and when she was 14, her entire family was deported and she (born in the US) had to stay in the US. Very powerful memoir. I also really liked Off Balance by Dominique Moceanu. If you were as obsessed with the 1996 women's gymnastics team and the Karolyi family as I was, it's a fascinating expose.
As I said above, Born a Crime is a great one. I also enjoyed Yes We Still Can, by Obama's communications director. It gave an interesting look inside the White House, and I learned some things, rather than it just being a narcissistic book about someone's life. I also enjoyed Kitchen Confidential (Anthony Bordain). Also I don't know if this is a "memoir" but I liked Angela's Ashes, which reminded me a bit of ATGIB...
ReplyDelete