Literary Biographies & Memoirs Nominations • September 2015

[sun surfer]

Help us select what the MR Literary Club will read in September 2015!

The nominations will run for four days until 5 September. Then, a separate voting poll will begin where the month's selection will be decided.


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 closed. Final nominations:


H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour- Bookworm_Girl, sun surfer, Bookpossum, Hamlet53


From Amazon:

Quote:
* Winner of the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize
* Named the Costa Book of the Year
* Amazon Best Book of the Month for March 2015

When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer—Helen had been captivated by hawks since childhood—she'd never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators, the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own. Resolving to purchase and raise the deadly creature as a means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel, and turned to the guidance of The Once and Future King author T.H. White's chronicle The Goshawk to begin her challenging endeavor. Projecting herself "in the hawk's wild mind to tame her" tested the limits of Macdonald's humanity and changed her life.

Heart-wrenching and humorous, this book is an unflinching account of bereavement and a unique look at the magnetism of an extraordinary beast, with a parallel examination of a legendary writer's eccentric falconry. Obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir from an outstanding literary innovator.

Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour- fantasyfan, sun surfer, Bookpossum, Bookworm_Girl


Here is the Goodreads description:

The wild Cevennes region of France forms the backdrop for the pioneering travelogue 'Travels with a Donkey,' written by a young Robert Louis Stevenson. Ever hopeful of encountering the adventure he yearned for and raising much needed finance at the start of his writing career, Stevenson embarked on the120 mile, 12 day trek and recorded his experiences in this journal. His only companion for the trip was a predictably stubborn donkey called Modestine. 'Travels with a Donkey' gives the reader a rare glimpse of the character of the author, and the journalistic and often comical style of writing is in refreshing contrast to Stevenson's more famous works.

Travels With a Donkey is PD and in the Patricia Clark E-book Library.

Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - Fully nominated

Spoiler:

In favour- BenG, Hamlet53, Bookworm_Girl, Lynx-lynx


It's available on Kindle Unlimited.


Saint Exupéry was a French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator. He won several of France's highest literary awards and also won the U.S. National Book Award. He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Night Flight.


Best known for his classic children's book The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was also an accomplished novelist and memoirist. For a dozen-plus years preceding the outbreak of World War II, he was a commercial aviator, flying for the French courier company Aéropostale. He was stationed both in South America (flying the spine of the Andes through Chile and Argentina) and in French West Africa (navigating between Toulouse and such African cities as Dakar, Marrakech, Casablanca, and Cairo, and secluded military outposts in the Sahara). Sadly, in 1944 he disappeared without a trace while flying a war-related reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean.

Fans of The Little Prince will gain insight into that strange little book, by reading this strange little book. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that Wind, Sand and Stars is the Ur-consciousness of The Little Prince, and its essence can be found in Wind: the little desert foxes, the plane crashes, the calm acceptance of an impending Saharan death, and finally, the thirst-induced hallucinations, during which Saint-Exupéry likely conjured his children's story.

National Geograpic also listed it as one of the 100 best adventure stories:

3. Wind, Sand & Stars. By Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1940)
With beautiful prose, Antoine de Saint-Exupery describes his adventureous flights over the Pyrenees, Andes and Sahara. Probably the best book ever written about flying

Under My Skin - Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 by Doris Lessing - 3

Spoiler:

In favour- Bookpossum, sun surfer, Bookworm_Girl


From Goodreads:

"I was born with skins too few. Or they were scrubbed off me by...robust and efficient hands."

The experiences absorbed through these "skins too few" are evoked in this memoir of Doris Lessing's childhood and youth as the daughter of a British colonial family in Persia and Southern Rhodesia Honestly and with overwhelming immediacy, Lessing maps the growth of her consciousness, her sexuality, and her politics, offering a rare opportunity to get under her skin and discover the forces that made her one of the most distinguished writers of our time.

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov - 3

Spoiler:

In favour- sun surfer, Bookpossum, Hamlet53


It has a 4.18 rating on Goodreads and is available in all forms- ebook, pbook and audiobook.


From Goodreads:

'Speak, memory' said Vladimir Nabokov. And immediately there came flooding back to him a host of enchanting recollections - of his comfortable childhood and adolescence, of his rich, liberal-minded father, his beautiful mother, an army of relations and family hangers-on and of grand old houses in St Petersburg and the surrounding countryside in pre-revolutionary Russia. Young love, butterflies, tutors and a multitude of other themes thread together to weave an autobiography which is itself a work of art.


Book Preview, the first paragraph:

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is headed for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour). I know, however, of a young chronophobiac who experienced something like panic when looking for the first time at homemade movies that had been taken a few weeks before his birth. He saw a world that was practically unchanged — the same house, the same people — and then realized that he did not exist there at all and that nobody mourned his absence. He caught a glimpse of his mother waving from an upstairs window, and that unfamiliar gesture disturbed him, as if it were some mysterious farewell. But what particularly frightened him was the sight of a brand-new baby carriage standing there on the porch; even that was empty, as if, in the reverse order of events, his very bones had disintegrated.

Longer Preview

The Autobiography of G. K. Chesterton - 1

Spoiler:

In favour- fantasyfan


It is available as an individual Kindle eBook at Amazon UK (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Autobiograph...G+K+Chesterton) and also at Amazon.com. However, it is also easily obtainable in several inexpensive collections of Chesterton's works such as the Delphi series.


Here is a description of it from Goodreads:

Here is a special two-in-one book that is both by G.K. Chesterton and about Chesterton. This volume offers an irresistible opportunity to see who this remarkable man really was. Chesterton was one of the most stimulating and well-loved writers of the 20th century. His 100 books, and hundreds of essays and columns on a great variety of themes have made G.K. Chesterton the most widely quoted writers of modern times. Here is Chesterton in his own words, in a book he preferred not to write, but did so near the end of his life after much insistence by friends and admirers. Critic Sydney Dark wrote after Chesterton died that perhaps the happiest thing that happened in Gilbert Chesterton's extraordinarily happy life was that his autobiography was finished a few weeks before his death. It is a stimulating, exciting, tremendously interesting book. It is a draught - indeed.

Personal Memoirs, Vol. 1 by Ulysses S. Grant - 1

Spoiler:

In favour- Hamlet53


"Man proposes and God disposes." There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice. Although frequently urged by friends to write my memoirs I had determined never to do so, nor to write anything for publication. In preparing these volumes for the public, I have entered upon the task with the sincere desire to avoid doing injustice to anyone, whether on the National or Confederate side, other than the unavoidable injustice of not making mention often where special mention is due.


This is the first in the series of two volumes. It was written by Grant near the end of his life when he was dying of throat cancer. Both volumes are in the public domain.

[Bookpossum]

I would like to nominate Under My Skin - Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 by Doris Lessing.

From Goodreads:

"I was born with skins too few. Or they were scrubbed off me by...robust and efficient hands."

The experiences absorbed through these "skins too few" are evoked in this memoir of Doris Lessing's childhood and youth as the daughter of a British colonial family in Persia and Southern Rhodesia Honestly and with overwhelming immediacy, Lessing maps the growth of her consciousness, her sexuality, and her politics, offering a rare opportunity to get under her skin and discover the forces that made her one of the most distinguished writers of our time.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I would like to nominate H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald.

From Amazon:

* Winner of the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize
* Named the Costa Book of the Year
* Amazon Best Book of the Month for March 2015

When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer—Helen had been captivated by hawks since childhood—she'd never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators, the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own. Resolving to purchase and raise the deadly creature as a means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel, and turned to the guidance of The Once and Future King author T.H. White's chronicle The Goshawk to begin her challenging endeavor. Projecting herself "in the hawk's wild mind to tame her" tested the limits of Macdonald's humanity and changed her life.

Heart-wrenching and humorous, this book is an unflinching account of bereavement and a unique look at the magnetism of an extraordinary beast, with a parallel examination of a legendary writer's eccentric falconry. Obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir from an outstanding literary innovator.

[sun surfer]

I second Under My Skin and H is for Hawk.

I nominate Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov. He had a unique life from pre-revolutionary Russian youth to modern American author and it'd be interesting to read about it in his own (poetic) words. It has a 4.18 rating on Goodreads and is available in all forms- ebook, pbook and audiobook.

From Goodreads:

'Speak, memory' said Vladimir Nabokov. And immediately there came flooding back to him a host of enchanting recollections - of his comfortable childhood and adolescence, of his rich, liberal-minded father, his beautiful mother, an army of relations and family hangers-on and of grand old houses in St Petersburg and the surrounding countryside in pre-revolutionary Russia. Young love, butterflies, tutors and a multitude of other themes thread together to weave an autobiography which is itself a work of art.

Book Preview, the first paragraph:

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is headed for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour). I know, however, of a young chronophobiac who experienced something like panic when looking for the first time at homemade movies that had been taken a few weeks before his birth. He saw a world that was practically unchanged — the same house, the same people — and then realized that he did not exist there at all and that nobody mourned his absence. He caught a glimpse of his mother waving from an upstairs window, and that unfamiliar gesture disturbed him, as if it were some mysterious farewell. But what particularly frightened him was the sight of a brand-new baby carriage standing there on the porch; even that was empty, as if, in the reverse order of events, his very bones had disintegrated.

Longer Preview

[fantasyfan]

I'll nominate The Autobiography of G. K. Chesterton. It is available as an individual Kindle eBook at Amazon UK (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Autobiograph...G+K+Chesterton) and also at Amazon.com. However, it is also easily obtainable in several inexpensive collections of Chesterton's works such as the Delphi series.
Here is a description of it from Goodreads:

Here is a special two-in-one book that is both by G.K. Chesterton and about Chesterton. This volume offers an irresistible opportunity to see who this remarkable man really was. Chesterton was one of the most stimulating and well-loved writers of the 20th century. His 100 books, and hundreds of essays and columns on a great variety of themes have made G.K. Chesterton the most widely quoted writers of modern times. Here is Chesterton in his own words, in a book he preferred not to write, but did so near the end of his life after much insistence by friends and admirers. Critic Sydney Dark wrote after Chesterton died that perhaps the happiest thing that happened in Gilbert Chesterton's extraordinarily happy life was that his autobiography was finished a few weeks before his death. It is a stimulating, exciting, tremendously interesting book. It is a draught - indeed.

[fantasyfan]

I'll add one more autobiographical work: Travels With a Donkey by Robert Louis Stevenson. Here again is the Goodreads description:

The wild Cevennes region of France forms the backdrop for the pioneering travelogue 'Travels with a Donkey,' written by a young Robert Louis Stevenson. Ever hopeful of encountering the adventure he yearned for and raising much needed finance at the start of his writing career, Stevenson embarked on the120 mile, 12 day trek and recorded his experiences in this journal. His only companion for the trip was a predictably stubborn donkey called Modestine. 'Travels with a Donkey' gives the reader a rare glimpse of the character of the author, and the journalistic and often comical style of writing is in refreshing contrast to Stevenson's more famous works.

Travels With a Donkey is PD and in the Patricia Clark E-book Library.

[sun surfer]

Both are tempting fantasyfan but I'll use my last vote to second the Stevenson.

[Bookpossum]

I third H is for Hawk, which is on my TBR list. I like the others too, but will wait until I can check my library for availability of the Nabokov. Down at the beach now but back home tomorrow.

[Bookpossum]

I shall use my last two votes for:

Speak Memory and
Travels with a Donkey

Any more voters out there?

[Bookworm_Girl]

These are all great options! I was waiting to see if anyone else had ideas since it's almost the weekend. I was also debating whether to nominate another book. Tough choices but that's a good thing!

[sun surfer]

A little over a day left for nominations!

[BenG]

I've been planning on reading Antoine de Saint Exupéry's Wind, Sand, Stars when I finish Candide. Some of you may be interested.
It's available on Kindle Unlimited.

Saint Exupéry was a French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator. He won several of France's highest literary awards and also won the U.S. National Book Award. He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Night Flight.

Spoiler:

Best known for his classic children's book The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was also an accomplished novelist and memoirist. For a dozen-plus years preceding the outbreak of World War II, he was a commercial aviator, flying for the French courier company Aéropostale. He was stationed both in South America (flying the spine of the Andes through Chile and Argentina) and in French West Africa (navigating between Toulouse and such African cities as Dakar, Marrakech, Casablanca, and Cairo, and secluded military outposts in the Sahara). Sadly, in 1944 he disappeared without a trace while flying a war-related reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean.

Fans of The Little Prince will gain insight into that strange little book, by reading this strange little book. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that Wind, Sand and Stars is the Ur-consciousness of The Little Prince, and its essence can be found in Wind: the little desert foxes, the plane crashes, the calm acceptance of an impending Saharan death, and finally, the thirst-induced hallucinations, during which Saint-Exupéry likely conjured his children's story.

National Geograpic also listed it as one of the 100 best adventure stories:

3. Wind, Sand & Stars. By Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1940)
With beautiful prose, Antoine de Saint-Exupery describes his adventureous flights over the Pyrenees, Andes and Sahara. Probably the best book ever written about flying

I actually do read a lot of books that fall into the memoir/biography category. However while I find those that interest me are informative and worthwhile in general seldom would I rate the books as "literary." So I don't have a new nominations to offer in time for the deadline.

I will add nominations for H is for Hawk, Speak, Memory, and Wind, Sand and Stars though.

Seeing that the first volume of Doris Lessing's autobiography has been nominated I will change my mind and nominate a book I have been meaning to tackle for some time:

Personal Memoirs, Vol. 1 by Ulysses S. Grant

"Man proposes and God disposes." There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice. Although frequently urged by friends to write my memoirs I had determined never to do so, nor to write anything for publication. In preparing these volumes for the public, I have entered upon the task with the sincere desire to avoid doing injustice to anyone, whether on the National or Confederate side, other than the unavoidable injustice of not making mention often where special mention is due.

This is the first in the series of two volumes. It was written by Grant near the end of his life when he was dying of throat cancer. Both volumes are in the public domain.

[sun surfer]

With about five hours left, here's a heads up on our guidelines so that everyone's clear- If only one selection is fully nominated then it becomes our de facto winner.