I was listening to an interview about history and biography when the author mentioned oral histories and how important they were for putting together his book. I nodded my head in agreement and then stepped back as I realized how important oral history is to memoir.
If we differentiate memoir from biography as told in the first person as opposed to the third, then memoir is really an extended oral history. More than that, memoir is oral history written down and edited, thought out and perhaps contextualized with background on important events in a person's life. More importantly, memoir is the first person account of a person's life, a look back at how that person responded to events and actions around them. Memoirs are another name for auto-biography, writing from memory.
Two authors stand out in my mind as writing excellent and engaging memoirs or autobiographies. The first is Jill Ker Conway whose The Road to Coorain https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/5637/the-road-from-coorain-by-jill-ker-conway/ recounts her life until she goes to university. It's a wonderful oral history writ large, a history of growing up in Australia. Jill Ker Conway, a president of Smith College, went on to write several autobiographies and a wonderful study on the subject called When Memory Speaks: Reflections on Autobiography
James McBride is the second author who writes down the history of his family, particularly his relationship with his mother in The Color of Water https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/96315/the-color-of-water-by-james-mcbride/ This memoir tells of his life in Red Hook and his struggles with issues of race, religion, and identity.
In the AudioFile Magazine’s 2017 Best
AudioBooks, particularly Memoir http://digital.audiofilemagazine.com/t/9418-audiofile-best-audiobooks, we can listen to memoirs written and read by the author or interviewee, that is, the person who made an oral history come to life in print. Some of the memoirs are read by professional narrators. Does that make a difference? It depends upon the memoirist's ability to read for a long period of time and to capture the rhythm and tempo of their life. That's my opinion What do you think?
Take a listen to the audioclips provided by AudioFile Magazine
http://digital.audiofilemagazine.com/t/9418-audiofile-best-audiobooks
and make up your own mind.
Monday, December 4, 2017
Friday, December 1, 2017
Memoirs = Life Stories
Each of us looks for role models, role models who help us
through difficult times, understand love and loss, relate to others, and so
much more. Where do we find these role models? At work, at places of worship,
in our families, and in books. Books might be fiction, history, biography or
memoir. It’s memoir that’s the focus of this column in honor of AudioFile Magazine’s 2017 Best
AudioBooks, particularly Memoir http://digital.audiofilemagazine.com/t/9418-audiofile-best-audiobooks
This year’s
Memoirs are a wonderful mixture of triumph and success; of determination to
survive loss and disease; and to understand what happens in life, good and bad.
Links to the 2017 Best AudioBook memoirs are below.
Join me in listening to AudioFile's 2017
Best of MEMOIR Audiobooks
with their review link:
This year’s
Memoirs are a wonderful mixture of triumph and success; of determination to
survive loss and disease; and to understand what happens in life, good and bad.
Links to the 2017 Best AudioBook memoirs are below.
Before you peruse
the list, consider why you might listen to a memoir. In the telling of one’s
life, the memoirist tells his life stories, of her hopes and dreams, of tactics
for survival against all odds. Memoirs are often dramatic and dynamic, a glimpse into the most intimate
and passionate periods of a person’s life. With each memoir, we learn a little
more about ourselves, good and bad.
Maybe you prefer
biography to memoir. Maybe you ask, “what’s the difference?” To me, biography
is an external view of a person’s life along with lots of explanations and
examples of why and how the subject reacted and lived in their time. Memoir is
an internal view, a personal perspective that can provide a model for your own
experiences, trials, and struggles.
The thirteen
titles below are a wonderful mix of life stories that will delight and charm,
will touch you deep in the soul, and affect your own lives. I hope you find a role
model, an author who will help you shape your own life stories, values, and
internal strengths.
AL FRANKEN, GIANT OF THE SENATE
by Al Franken, read by Al Franken
THE BRIGHT HOUR by Nina Riggs, read by Cassandra Campbell, Kirby
Heyborne
CHASING SPACE by Leland Melvin, read by Ron Butler
DEATH NEED NOT BE FATAL by
Malachy McCourt, Brian McDonald, read by Malachy McCourt
HUNGER by Roxane Gay, read by Roxane Gay
LET JUSTICE ROLL DOWN by John M. Perkins, Shane Claiborne [Foreword],
read by Calvin Robinson, Shane Claiborne
LOGICAL FAMILY by Armistead Maupin, read by Armistead Maupin
MY LIFE, MY LOVE, MY LEGACY by Coretta Scott King, Barbara Reynolds,
read by Phylicia Rashad, January LaVoy
SEVEN by Paula Cizmar, Catherine Filloux, Gail Kriegel, Carol K. Mack,
Ruth Margraff, Anna Deavere Smith, Susan
Yankowitz, read by Shannon Holt, Jossara Jinaro, Alex Kingston, Emily Kuroda,
Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris, Annet Mahendru, Sarah Shahi
THEFT BY FINDING by David Sedaris, read by David Sedaris
VACATIONLAND by John Hodgman, read by John Hodgman
WHAT HAPPENED by Hillary Rodham Clinton, read by Hillary Rodham
Clinton
YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME by Sherman Alexie, read by Sherman
Alexie
Listening to Memoirs
In celebration of AudioFile Magazine's 2017 Best AudioBooks
http://digital.audiofilemagazine.com/t/9418-audiofile-best-audiobooks, I decided to write about listening to audiobooks and give you the opportunity to listen to a few clips on SoundCloud.
While many of us like to read about someone’s life, trials,
and tribulations, successes and heartache, others like to listen to the same
words. Listening to memoirs is more intimate for the aurality is a look into an individual that’s personal and passionate.
Biography, the life of a person or persons written by a
scholar or journalist or relative, is an external and often dispassionate view.
The subject’s life is set into a social, familial, or historical context with
asides that explain or demonstrate why the person developed to be who he or she
is or was.
Memoir is that personal look or remembrance of what life was
like when growing up, when struggling with life and loss.
Audiobook narrators make the memoir come to life. Sometimes
the reader “becomes” the memoirist. Other times, the reader is the author. Of
course, there are times when reader and memoirist are mismatched but we hope
that doesn’t happen too often.
When the author, the memoirist, reads their own book,
listeners get an earful. How does that author sound in real life? Do they lisp?
Do they have regional accents? Where do they place emphasis on their words and
writing? In other words, we hear what they sound like “warts and all.” That’s
not necessarily a bad thing. It’s reality.
Below are some SoundCloud clips of current Audiofile Magazine 2017 Best Memoiraudiobooks.
MY LIFE, MY
LOVE, MY LEGACY by Coretta Scott King, Barbara Reynolds, read by Phylicia
Rashad, January LaVoy
https://soundcloud.com/audiofilemagazine/my-life-my-love-my-legacy
THEFT BY
FINDING by David Sedaris, read by David Sedaris
VACATIONLAND by
John Hodgman, read by John Hodgman
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