Literary Biographies & Memoirs Nominations • September 2013

[sun surfer]

Help us select what the MR Literary Club will read for September 2013!

The nominations will run for FOUR days until September 5 (we have added an extra day to nominations to see how it goes). Then, a separate voting poll will begin where the month's selection will be decided.

Note - We no longer aim for a certain number of fully nominated works; rather, we now aim for a certain length of time for nominations (now four days).


The category for this month is:

Biographies & Memoirs


In order for a work to be included in the poll it needs four nominations - the original nomination plus three supporting.

Each participant has four nominations to use. You can nominate a new work for consideration or you can support (second, third or fourth) a work that has already been nominated by another person.

To nominate a work just post a message with your nomination. If you are the first to nominate a work, it's always nice to provide an abstract to the work so others may consider their level of interest.


What is literature for the purposes of this club? A superior work of lasting merit that enriches the mind. Often it is important, challenging, critically acclaimed. It may be from ancient times to today; it may be from anywhere in the world; it may be obscure or famous, short or long; it may be a story, a novel, a play, a poem, an essay or another written form. If you are unsure if a work would be considered literature, just ask!


The floor is now open!

*

Nominations are now closed. Final nominations:


Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour - issybird, Stephjk, Bookpossum, Bookworm_Girl


Published in 1933


From Wikipedia:

Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell (Eric Blair), published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. The first part is an account of living on the breadline in Paris and the experience of casual labour in restaurant kitchens. The second part is a travelogue of life on the road in and around London from the tramp's perspective, with descriptions of the types of hostel accommodation available and some of the characters to be found living on the margins.


From Amazon:

What was a nice Eton boy like Eric Blair doing in scummy slums instead of being upwardly mobile at Oxford or Cambridge? Living Down and Out in Paris and London, repudiating respectable imperialist society, and reinventing himself as George Orwell. His 1933 debut book (ostensibly a novel, but overwhelmingly autobiographical) was rejected by that elitist publisher T.S. Eliot, perhaps because its close-up portrait of lowlife was too pungent for comfort.


On the issue of memoir vs. fiction, Orwell said:

I think I can say that I have exaggerated nothing except in so far as all writers exaggerate by selecting. I did not feel that I had to describe events in the exact order in which they happened, but everything I have described did take place at one time or another.


Orwell is public domain in Canada and Australia and for those fortunates, here’s the link to the download page at Adelaide.

Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour - issybird, Bookpossum, desertblues, Hamlet53


Published in 1921 and winner of the James Tait Black Memorial prize


A review posted on Amazon 31 August this year is the best issybird found:

I cannot praise this biography of Queen Victoria too much. Like all of Strachey's work, it is a gem of English prose style: sometimes mordant, often subtly sarcastic, but always spot on. He does in 100 pages what other biographers seem to fail to do in 1000 pages in capturing the essence of his subject's personality, the zeitgeist of the time in which they lived and so forth. His tongue in cheek description of Prince Albert's marital fidelity (all the while implying that he was gay and just not interested in women to begin with) is typical of Strachey's style and his wit. I say again, a real gem of English prose style and biographical art. A must read for anyone interested in English literature or the Victorian era in general.


And from the Guardian:

Hilarious social commentary… If all biographies were like Stracheys, they would probably kill off the novel altogether.


Available at Manybooks in all formats, free.

The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour - Bookpossum, desertblues, Bookworm_Girl, sun surfer


From a review by Carolyn Heilbrun:

This beautifully written narrative of Conway's journey from a girlhood on an isolated sheep farm in the grasslands of Australia to her departure for America (and eventually the Presidency of Smith College) is both new and universal. If few of us have known an eight-year drought in New South Wales, many of us have felt the despair of an ambitious young woman facing a constrained female destiny. This book, an extraordinarily gripping and inspiring work, will take its place as one of the few heroic stories of girlhood.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour - Hamlet53, issybird, desertblues, Bookpossum


The diary which Samuel Pepys kept from January 1660 to May 1669 ...is one of our greatest historical records and... a major work of English literature, writes the renowned historian Paul Johnson. A witness to the coronation of Charles II, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of 1666, Pepys chronicled the events of his day. Originally written in a cryptic shorthand, Pepys's diary provides an astonishingly frank and diverting account of political intrigues and naval, church, and cultural affairs, as well as a quotidian journal of daily life in London during the Restoration.


This is in the public domain and available here at MR.


fantasyfan comments:

The Pepys Diary is one of those works that can be read in a non-linear way. I have the three volume Warrington edition from Everyman Library that runs to over 1500 pages and I've always found it sufficient {though Warrington removes the spicier bits}.

Pepys lived in a very eventful time and most people might well want to begin with his vivid description of the Great Fire of London or the Black Death which ravaged London at that time. He mentions the two dramatic Comets that appeared over the London skies and the coronation of Charles II. His literary tastes come through in an interesting way--he tends to regard Shakespeare as a lesser dramatist than Dryden.

Wikipedia gives a useful overview of it and one can simply browse through it with an index of some of the important characters. "Penn" his professional partner, for instance, was the father of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, who made for a short visit {as a child} to Ireland.

Night by Elie Wiesel - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour - Synamon, desertblues, Bookworm_Girl, sun surfer


Warning: the subject matter is not light. Available as an ebook in the stores (~$5 at Amazon.com) and Synamon found a library audiobook.


In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, a scholarly, pious teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare world of the death camps present him with an intolerable question: how can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? There are no easy answers in this harrowing book, which probes life's essential riddles with the lucid anguish only great literature achieves. It marks the crucial first step in Wiesel's lifelong project to bear witness for those who died.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by June Chang - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour - paola, issybird, Bookworm_Girl, sqdancer


Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, by June Chang. Along with the stories of the authors, her mother and her granmother, it also sweeps through the history of 20th century China. As for its literary value, Penelope Fitzgerald praised it in the London Review of Books. More reviews extracts here and here.

Available as ebook, it is originally in English.

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour - Pablo, sun surfer, fantasyfan, paola


From Wikipedia:

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War. The first edition was published in 1938.

Orwell served as a private, a corporal (cabo) and—when the informal command structure of the militia gave way to a conventional hierarchy in May 1937—as a lieutenant, on a provisional basis, in Catalonia and Aragon from December 1936 until June 1937. In June 1937 the leftist political party with whose militia he served (the POUM, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification, an anti-Stalinist communist party) was declared an illegal organization and Orwell was consequently forced to flee or face imprisonment.


The book can be downloaded here from the University of Adelaide site for readers living in life+50 countries.

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin - 2

Spoiler:

In favour - jgaiser, fantasyfan


At Amazon US - Team of Rivals


From Amazon:

On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry.

Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each had energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and civil war. That Lincoln succeeded, Goodwin demonstrates, was the result of a character that had been forged by experiences that raised him above his more privileged and accomplished rivals. He won because he possessed an extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires.

It was this capacity that enabled Lincoln as president to bring his disgruntled opponents together, create the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshal their talents to the task of preserving the Union and winning the war.

We view the long, horrifying struggle from the vantage of the White House as Lincoln copes with incompetent generals, hostile congressmen, and his raucous cabinet. He overcomes these obstacles by winning the respect of his former competitors, and in the case of Seward, finds a loyal and crucial friend to see him through.

This brilliant multiple biography is centered on Lincoln's mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation's history.

How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed by Slavenka Drakulić - 1

Spoiler:

In favour - paola


How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed, by Slavenka Drakulić, is a recollection of life under communism in what was at the time Yugoslavia.


From Goodreads:

Hailed by feminists as one of the most important contributions to women's studies in the last decade, this gripping, beautifully written account describes the daily struggles of women under the Marxist regime in the former republic of Yugoslavia.

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir - 1

Spoiler:

In favour - paola


Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, by Simone de Beauvoir, the French philosopher and novelist.


Blurb from Goodreads:

A superb autobiography by one of the great literary figures of the twentieth century, Simone de Beauvoir's Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter offers an intimate picture of growing up in a bourgeois French family, rebelling as an adolescent against the conventional expectations of her class, and striking out on her own with an intellectual and existential ambition exceedingly rare in a young woman in the 1920s.

She vividly evokes her friendships, love interests, mentors, and the early days of the most important relationship of her life, with fellow student Jean-Paul Sartre, against the backdrop of a turbulent political time.

A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland by Samuel Johnson - 1

Spoiler:

In favour - fantasyfan


Here's a comment from Wikipedia:

Scotland was still a relatively wild place in 1773. Marauding privateers and slave-ships worked the coasts (seven slavers were reported in 1774 alone). The destruction of Scottish forests was in full swing. The Scottish clan system had been dismantled by Act of Parliament, the population had been disarmed and wearing of the tartan was prohibited. Scotch whisky was distilled illegally and profusely (Johnson noted the custom of the skalk, or drinking whisky before breakfast). The rule of law was by no means properly established, and the power of the clan chieftains was curtailed but was often the only real authority.

Johnson and Boswell toured the Highlands and islands by carriage, on horseback and by boat, planning the stages of their journey to stay at the houses of the local gentry. They were astounded when they visited their colleague Lord Monboddo at Monboddo House and saw him in his primitive attire as a farmer, a quite different picture from his image as an urbane Edinburgh Court of Session jurist, philosopher and evolutionary thinker.

This part of Scotland in 1773 was a romantic place. It was relatively empty of people and nearly unspoiled by commerce, roads, and other trappings of modern life – Johnson noted that in some Highland islands money had not yet become custom. Indeed with no money or roads parts of Scotland were more akin to the 8th century than 18th. Once Johnson reached the West Highlands, there were few roads, none at all on the Isle of Skye, and so they traveled by horseback, usually along the ridge of a hill with a local guide who knew the terrain and the best route for the season. "Journies made in this manner are rather tedious and long. A very few miles requires several hours", Johnson wrote. He deplored the depopulation of the Highlands: "Some method to stop this epidemic desire of wandering, which spreads its contagion from valley to valley, ought to be sought with great diligence".

Johnson came to Scotland to see the primitive and wild, but Scotland by 1773 was already changing quickly, and he feared they had come "too late". But they did see some of the things they sought out, such as one gentleman wearing the traditional plaid kilt, and bagpipe playing – but none of the martial spirit Scotland was so famous for, except in relics and stories. Johnson records and comments on many things about Scottish life, including the happiness and health of the people, antiquities, the economy, orchards and trees, whisky, dress, architecture, religion, language, and education.

Johnson had spent most of his life in London, and only travelled for the first time in 1771.


It is in the public domain and available free from Project Gutenberg.

ManyBooks:

http://manybooks.net/authors/johnsonsam.html

and Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Journey-West...on+kindle+free

Under the Eye of the Clock: The Life Story of Christopher Nolan by Christopher Nolan - 3

Spoiler:

In favour - fantasyfan, sun surfer, Stephjk


It won the 1987 Whitbread Book of the year. While Nolan does not actually use his own name it is about his own experience.


From the back of the book:

This is the story of Joseph Meehan, born cruelly handicapped and known to the world as 'the crippled boy'. Filled with insight into the soul inside a broken body and warm with the beauties of the Irish landscape, it is the story of Joseph's fight to escape the restrictions and confines of his existence. It can also be read as the autobiography of its author, the brilliantly gifted young writer Christopher Nolan.


It is available in two inexpensive editions at Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...f%2Cnull%2C232

In epub format in the iTunes Book Store and in Kobo:

http://www.kobobooks.com/search/sear...bORJVJWct75ONA

[issybird]

I’m nominating Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey, published in 1921 and winner of the James Tait Black Memorial prize.

I was looking for a potted description to crib and this review, posted on Amazon just yesterday, is the best I’ve found:

I cannot praise this biography of Queen Victoria too much. Like all of Strachey's work, it is a gem of English prose style: sometimes mordant, often subtly sarcastic, but always spot on. He does in 100 pages what other biographers seem to fail to do in 1000 pages in capturing the essence of his subject's personality, the zeitgeist of the time in which they lived and so forth. His tongue in cheek description of Prince Albert's marital fidelity (all the while implying that he was gay and just not interested in women to begin with) is typical of Strachey's style and his wit. I say again, a real gem of English prose style and biographical art. A must read for anyone interested in English literature or the Victorian era in general.

And from the Guardian:

Hilarious social commentary… If all biographies were like Stracheys, they would probably kill off the novel altogether.

Available at Manybooks in all formats, free.

I’m also nominating Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell, published in 1933.

From Wikipedia:

Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell (Eric Blair), published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. The first part is an account of living on the breadline in Paris and the experience of casual labour in restaurant kitchens. The second part is a travelogue of life on the road in and around London from the tramp's perspective, with descriptions of the types of hostel accommodation available and some of the characters to be found living on the margins.

From Amazon:

What was a nice Eton boy like Eric Blair doing in scummy slums instead of being upwardly mobile at Oxford or Cambridge? Living Down and Out in Paris and London, repudiating respectable imperialist society, and reinventing himself as George Orwell. His 1933 debut book (ostensibly a novel, but overwhelmingly autobiographical) was rejected by that elitist publisher T.S. Eliot, perhaps because its close-up portrait of lowlife was too pungent for comfort.

On the issue of memoir vs. fiction, Orwell said:

I think I can say that I have exaggerated nothing except in so far as all writers exaggerate by selecting. I did not feel that I had to describe events in the exact order in which they happened, but everything I have described did take place at one time or another.

Orwell is public domain in Canada and Australia and for those fortunates, here’s the link to the download page at Adelaide.

Here’s a synchronicity! When I was checking around for reviews and links for my two nominations, I discovered that Strachey and Orwell share a deathday which is also my birthday (which was the last of the three events ). Is the universe sending me a message?

[desertblues]

hm....I am known for reading almost anything but I have a weakness, or strong point, or foolishness..........I never read biographies or memories. I do like to get to know a writer, but I do it by reading all of hers/his books and books about their context.

But I trust all your nominations and I will vote and aim to participate.

[Stephjk]

I'm going to try to join in this month so I'll start by seconding 'Down and Out in Paris and London'

[Bookpossum]

I'll second Queen Victoria and third Down and Out. I have read them both but a long time ago and agree that both are more than worthy of being on anyone's TBR list.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

I'll second Queen Victoria and third Down and Out. I have read them both but a long time ago and agree that both are more than worthy of being on anyone's TBR list.

I thought I'd nominate two old favorites which I'd love to revisit and discuss and which I thought might have broad appeal, but this is a month where I'm really looking forward to what others suggest.

Glad to have you on board, Steph!

[jgaiser]

I haven't been participating at all lately, but I've been on a non-fiction kick lately and the current book I'm working my way slowly though is a perfect fit. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry.

Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each had energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and civil war. That Lincoln succeeded, Goodwin demonstrates, was the result of a character that had been forged by experiences that raised him above his more privileged and accomplished rivals. He won because he possessed an extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires.

It was this capacity that enabled Lincoln as president to bring his disgruntled opponents together, create the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshal their talents to the task of preserving the Union and winning the war.

We view the long, horrifying struggle from the vantage of the White House as Lincoln copes with incompetent generals, hostile congressmen, and his raucous cabinet. He overcomes these obstacles by winning the respect of his former competitors, and in the case of Seward, finds a loyal and crucial friend to see him through.

This brilliant multiple biography is centered on Lincoln's mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation's history.

[Bookpossum]

I would like to nominate The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway. From a review by Carolyn Heilbrun:

This beautifully written narrative of Conway's journey from a girlhood on an isolated sheep farm in the grasslands of Australia to her departure for America (and eventually the Presidency of Smith College) is both new and universal. If few of us have known an eight-year drought in New South Wales, many of us have felt the despair of an ambitious young woman facing a constrained female destiny. This book, an extraordinarily gripping and inspiring work, will take its place as one of the few heroic stories of girlhood.

[desertblues]

I'll third Queen Victoria and second The road from Coorain

[Bookworm_Girl]

I will third The Road from Coorain since I purchased it awhile ago and keep intending to read it!

I will fourth Down and Out.

[CharlieBird]

Really curious to see which one comes out on top! I've just put three of them to my TBR list.

I'll add a fourth vote for Queen Victoria.

I will nominated The Diary of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys.

The diary which Samuel Pepys kept from January 1660 to May 1669 ...is one of our greatest historical records and... a major work of English literature, writes the renowned historian Paul Johnson. A witness to the coronation of Charles II, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of 1666, Pepys chronicled the events of his day. Originally written in a cryptic shorthand, Pepys's diary provides an astonishingly frank and diverting account of political intrigues and naval, church, and cultural affairs, as well as a quotidian journal of daily life in London during the Restoration.

This is in the public domain and available here at MR.

[Stephjk]

Whichever wins, I'm looking forward to my first challenge with the Literary Club :-)

[issybird]

I meant to read Pepys this year and haven't gotten to him, so I'll second.

[desertblues]

I'll third The Diary of Samuel Pepys