January CATWoman -- Biography, Autobiography, Memoir

Welcome to CATWoman. I hope that you will enjoy reading for this challenge in 2022.

We start out with biography, autobiography, and memoir.

This is a very broad subject area since biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs about women can be written about women in practically any field.

Biographies – I’m assuming that since we are celebrating women that biographies about women should also be written by women although anyone is free to make their own rules.

Here are a few suggestions for biographies about individual women:
Looking for Lorraine: the Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry
Cleopatra: a Life by Stacy Schift
Frida: a Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera
Manchu Princess, Japanese Spy by Phyllis Birmbaum
Marie Antoinette: the Journey by Antonia Fraser
Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 by Elizabeth Winder
Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis

Collective biography – more than one woman:
Jane and Dorothy: a True Tale of Sense and Sensibility: The Lives of Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth by Marian Veevers
The Agitators: Three Friends who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights (Martha Wright, Frances Seward and Harriet Tubman in upstate New York) by Dorothy Wickenden
Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation by Judith Mackrill
Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan
Hidden Figures by Margaret Lee Shetterly
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy by Karen Abbott
Marie Curie and Her Daughters by Shelly Emling

Autobiography and Memoir – probably different people have different understandings of these terms. Possibly autobiography is more a straight account of a person’s life and memoir is centered on a certain aspect of it or a person’s memories.

Autobiography:
Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hursten
I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

Memoir – memories, or centered on a certain aspect of a person’s life:
Danger Close by Amber Smith
Dimestore: a Writer’s Life by Lee Smith
Under Magnolia by Frances Mayes
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Biographical fiction – fiction based on a person:
The Other Alcott by Elise Hooper (May Alcott, an artist and younger sister of Louisa May Alcott)
The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin (Anne Morrow Lindbergh)
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd (Sarah Grimke and her slave)
A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline (Christina Olson pictured in Andrew Wyeth’s painting)
Three Sisters, Three Queens by Philippa Gregory
(Katherine of Aragon, Queen of England; Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots; Mary Tudor, Queen of France)

Please remember to post your reading on the wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/CATWoman_2022

My most likely choice here is Mudlarking, a memoir by Lara Maiklem

I am planning on reading Wonderful Tonight by Patti Boyd.

I'm thinking of reading the fictional memoir, Elena Ferrante's The Story of a New Name.

I'm planning to read Life in the Garden by Penelope Lively.

A couple of options here:

The Five / Halle Rubenhold
Lucky / Alice Sebold

I plan to read my early reviewers copy of Betwixt and Between: Pauli Murray's revolutionary life for January.

>1 sallylou61: Thank you for the guidelines. I have no idea where I will land...too many choices. I'll be back to post my decision in January.

>6 LibraryCin: I can recommend The Five for sure. I love it when forgotten victims are brought to light. Here's my review
https://www.librarything.com/work/21791844/reviews/179255511

>8 beebeereads: Oooh, good review! Thanks!

Unless I change my mind and decide to hold it off until closer when our book club discusses it in March, I'll probably read Janice P. Nimura's The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women--and Women to Medicine. It just fits the category so well!

>10 thornton37814: Our book club did this one last summer. I thought it was a worthwhile read and gave a perspective of the doctors different from what accepted history shows. https://www.librarything.com/work/25415982/reviews/205176388

Still haven't made my choice. ;-)

I plan on reading a doctor-related book also, As Long as Life: The Memoirs of a Frontier Woman Doctor, Mary Canaga Rowland, 1873-1966.

The book I have out from the library that might fit is
Our bodies, their battlefields: War through the lives of Women by Christina Lamb

I'm looking at reading Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

I'm going to read a memoir by Cassandra Alexander called Year of the Nurse: A Covid-19 Pandemic Memoir.

Considering replacing The Story of a New Name with Saltwater by Cathy McLennan.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to read Manchu Princess, Japanese Spy by Phyllis Birmbaum

I'll be reading Nella Last's Peace. Nella Last was an English housewife who partipated in the Mass Observation Project beginning in 1939. As a member she recorded her experiences as an ordinary citizen for about 30 years. This is the second volume of her records and covers the period after WWII. I read the first volume, Nella Last's War a couple of years ago.

I'm reading Tender at the Bone and also plan to read The Yellow House.

Oh! I posted this earlier today! Duh!

If anyone is looking for recommendations, I enjoyed Lynn Sherr's Sally Ride: America’s First Woman in Space a few years ago.

I have to think if there's one I want to read...

I've just finished Emotional Female, Dr Yumiko Kadota's recounting of her time from medical school through to being a surgical registrar in the Australian hospital system. I remembered her story being in the media several years ago so it was good to read a bit more about the situation.

I read Kartoffeln mit Stippe by Ilse Gräfin von Bredow, which is a childhood memoir. Ilse Gräfin von Bredow grew up in the countryside of Eastern Germany in the 1920s and this book consists of sixteen episodes from that time, although they are a little fictionalized.

I just finished The Same River Twice, which is a rather harrowing coming-of-age memoir about the author's journey across three continents as a 17- and 18-year-old, most of it while in an abusive relationship.

Starting Jane Austen At Home by Lucy Worsley

I read The Flame Trees of Thika, Elspeth Huxley's fictionalized memoir of childhood in east Africa (now Kenya) before World War I.

Confessions of a Sociopath / M. E. Thomas
3.5 stars

The author is a sociopath and wants to describe it to others. She is not violent, but she doesn’t feel things the way other people do. She talks about her life and what makes her different from “normal” people.

I thought she did a good job explaining. I have read other books that tell me that not all sociopaths are serial killers, etc. They aren’t all violent, as this author isn’t. I did find some of her comparisons to “empaths” a bit odd, and they often didn’t seem to ring true for me. It was only in the epilogue that she defined how she was using the word to mean non-sociopaths (if she also defined it earlier, I missed it). I listened to the audio and it was done well. I rarely lost interest.

I just finished As Long As Life: The Memoirs of a Frontier Woman Doctor by Mary Canaga Rowland, M.D.

Finished The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting by Evanna Lynch.

I read Just As I Am, the fabulous Cicely Tyson's memoir. At 96 when she passed, she had a lot to say!

COMPLETED Jane Austen At Home by Lucy Worsley

I read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and I found it to be helpful as reminder that we have some control over our own attitude and happiness. She lists a lot of books she used in her research, but nothing stuck out as something I need to add to my own TBR. It is long enough already =)

The Five / Hallie Rubenhold
4 stars

This book looks at the five (cannonical) women who were murdered by Jack the Ripper. It doesn’t look at the murders, but it is a biography of each of the women.

So, they weren’t all prostitutes. In fact, most of them weren’t. They were all, however, poor and had trouble finding money to pay for a place to sleep on many nights. Most of them were also alcoholics (well, my perception is that they were – I’m not sure the book actually says that).

In any case, I’m surprised the author was able to find as much information about them as she was. A number of years ago, I read another book that focused on the Ripper victims, but it was thin. I don’t remember it well (only the cover), and I thought I kept it, but it doesn’t look like I did, or I would have checked, but my assumption was that there just wasn’t a lot of information about five very poor girls who grew into women in the mid to late 19th century. But Rubenhold was able to find quite a bit. I was extra surprised to read about Mary Jane Kelly, but I won’t spoil it!

I listened to the audio book and my mind wandered occasionally, but not much. I was interested enough a few times to rewind, as well, so as to not miss what was just said.

I've finished Life in the Garden by Penelope Lively.

The Bluebird Effect / Julie Zickefoose
4 stars

The author grew up with parents who enjoyed watching birds and helping them. As an adult she has regularly helped rehabilitate injured and raise orphaned wild birds, and this book contains stories of all the different types of birds she has helped. She is also an artist, so while helping them, she has drawn them at different stages (often as they grow), so many of her illustrations and paintings, with notes alongside, are included.

I really liked this. I do enjoy watching birds myself, but what a lot of work and effort it takes to raise the babies! The author also touches on habitat destruction, hunting, outdoor cats and other threats to wild birds, as well. The illustrations were beautiful, and I have to admit, although I prefer reading on my old Kobo Touch (black & white), the Kobo doesn’t always recognize DRM-free for library books, anymore, so I often end up reading on my tablet via Libby. The colour was really nice for the beautiful illustrations and paintings in this book.

I've just finished Year of the Nurse by Cassandra Alexander, a covid19 pandemic memoir by a California ICU nurse, based on her journal entries, tweets etc at the time. It's very sweary and angry, and very compelling. This might not be the time that most people want to read about the pandemic, but I do recommend this one (although if you hate swearing and voted for Donald Trump you'd probably want to give it a miss).

I'm reading The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution and Resilience: 500 Years of Women's Self-Portraits which in effect is potted biographies of artists grouped by themes (some of which I think work better than others). I've just reached the section on Dada & Surrealism, which is fun. Beautiful colour plates, too.

I have completed my read of Wonderful Tonight by Pattie Boyd. While there really wasn't anything new to add to my information about George Harrison or Eric Clapton, I still found this a fascinating look at the 1960s and at a woman who influenced a couple of the greatest musicians of the era.

I just read Lucy Worsley's Jane Austen at Home, a breezy, readable Austen biography.

I've read Crazy Brave: a memoir by Joy Harjo. This is, to me, an unusual memoir since it includes telling about spirits, etc., which are part of the Indian culture. (In this memoir, the author uses the term Indian). This memoir covers the early years of Joy Harjo's life up through her being a young mother with very young children. She suffered a lot of fear and brutality from her white stepfather. Fortunately, she was able to get away and go to the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico to high school. During the period of her life told in this memoir, her creative endeavors were primarily in studio art. It was before her adult career in music and poetry. She is currently the poet laureate of the United States and has recently published a second memoir, Poet Warrior.

I've finished Dust Tracks on a Road. See my comments here
https://www.librarything.com/topic/338552#n7728036

I finished James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips.

Ally Sheldon led a fascinating life. The prolific amount of letters she wrote allows for a very thorough biography. The author did not have to guess what her subject was thinking because there was often a letter or journal entry where she tells you herself.

I think I want to read every book that someone has mentioned so far on this thread.

I read Tender at the Bone, a memoir by Ruth Reichl. This is a food memoir, and I love the way Reichl tells a story. Not quite as good as Save Me the Plums, but still very interesting, and this one focuses on her beginning and ends with her being a food critic.

I read Half Broke Horses - one of those lives that is stranger than fiction!

I read Dinner with Edward, a memoir by Isabel Vincent. Vincent recalls her special friendship with Edward, the 90-something father of a friend. The two share special meals and grieving recent losses.

I've read Unsinkable: A Memoir by Debbie Reynolds. This was a fun look back at her life. She also narrated the audio edition which, I think, added to the enjoyment of the read.

The subtitle in Catherine the Great : a short history should have told me this is not a biography in the usual sense, but a potted history of her reign as Empress of Russia. But it was such an engrossing read that I continued nonetheless. And it was a relief to see the focus put on her reforms and politics, not her private life. I do wish the relation with her son had been part of this, after all he was her successor.

Lab Girl / Hope Jahren
3.25 stars

Hope is a research scientist and professor. She studies trees. This is a memoir primarily focusing on her life starting as a student (though there is a little bit when she is younger). She and fellow scientist and best friend, Bill, set up a lab at a different university three times. Eventually, amidst their long working hours, Hope gets married and has a son, while dealing with bi-polar disorder.

I know most people loved this. I’m waffling between good and ok. I liked the biography/memoir parts of the book. I found some (but not all) of the science interesting (my favourite science chapter was the one on desert plants.) Where I definitely lost interest was in the philosophical parts. She did tend to mix her science with philosophy. Too much philosophy my liking, anyway.

I've finished reading Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR by Lisa Napoli. The subtitle is a bit misleading; although Ms. Napoli gives background biographical information about the four women and describes their work for NPR, the book is actually a history of NPR (U.S. National Public Radio). The book describes how hard it was for women to break into broadcasting, and how they still do not receive the level of salaries the men do.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this month's challenge. It's interesting to see the range of topics covered. Hope you enjoyed your reading.

I read a book Louise Erdrich wrote that described her travels in her ancestral lands. I wasn't quite sure if it would qualify so I didn't add it to the wiki, but if you all think it does, I'll add it.

>53 thornton37814: Sounds like a memoir; I would add it.

I read a couple of memoirs in January. Love, Loss, and What I Wore is a memoir of the author's life told through fashion. It's well worth the hour or so it takes to read it. I also read Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro, who learned through a DNA test that the father she grew up with was not her biological dad, but a sperm donor. Her memoir describes how she recalibrated herself after her discovery, as well as how she found her biological father.

>55 cbl_tn: I just added two to my TBR! I acutally had considered the Shapiro book but overlooked it for awhile. The Ilene Beckerman speaks to me...I'll find it soon...thanks.

I read This time next year we'll be laughing, Jacquline Winspear's memoir and enjoyed learning about her parents and their family's life in rural England.