Books And Lifelong Learning

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.

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.

Join me in listening to AudioFile's 2017 Best of MEMOIR Audiobooks

with their review link:

AL FRANKEN, GIANT OF THE SENATE by Al Franken, read by Al Franken

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/127342/

THE BRIGHT HOUR by Nina Riggs, read by Cassandra Campbell, Kirby Heyborne

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/128981/

CHASING SPACE by Leland Melvin, read by Ron Butler

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/125005/

DEATH NEED NOT BE FATAL by Malachy McCourt, Brian McDonald, read by Malachy McCourt

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/127352/

HUNGER by Roxane Gay, read by Roxane Gay

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/115868/

LET JUSTICE ROLL DOWN by John M. Perkins, Shane Claiborne [Foreword], read by Calvin Robinson, Shane Claiborne

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/123738/

LOGICAL FAMILY by Armistead Maupin, read by Armistead Maupin

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/131536/

MY LIFE, MY LOVE, MY LEGACY by Coretta Scott King, Barbara Reynolds, read by Phylicia Rashad, January LaVoy

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/122158/

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

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/124736/

THEFT BY FINDING by David Sedaris, read by David Sedaris

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/125391/

VACATIONLAND by John Hodgman, read by John Hodgman

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/131423/

WHAT HAPPENED by Hillary Rodham Clinton, read by Hillary Rodham Clinton

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/131755/

YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME by Sherman Alexie, read by Sherman Alexie

http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/124863/

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.