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Books - Bios/Autobios/Memoirs

Originally appearing in Mademoiselle, this brief memoir is a slice of Capote's childhood. He grew up with a distant cousin, a single woman sixty or so years older than he.

Simply told and sentimental without becoming maudlin, the book - which most English majors haven't even heard of - left an indelible mark on me. Like Capote (the man) or not, he certainly can write. The books tenor is similar to Calvin Trillian in the latter's Remembering Denny, but a little sadder and introspective.

Fast read; poignant; highly recommended.

A very short book - really, just a long essay - where Hardy describes his thoughts about mathematics, the field's worth and his place in mathematics and the world.

Hardy is one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, and this books is an excellent examination of mathematics, English collegiate life and - oddly (but not if you know Hardy) - cricket.

In this book, Hemingway writes of his love of Paris, writing and his first wife. An almost unknown book to non-English Major types, this book is a readable feast.

A very short memoir by Styron about his battle with depression and his near suicide.

Vincent Van Gogh's letters to his brother, Theo. Well written and - at times - haunting. In his last letter to Theo, Vincent writes: "Well, my own work, I am risking my life for it and my reason has half-foundered."

Wiesel - a Holocaust survivor and Nobel prize winner - writes of his time in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Along with The Diary of Anne Frank, part of the unfortunate literary cannon known as Holocaust literature/memoirs.

Subtitled "An Oral History of Harry S. Truman," that pretty much sums up the concept and protagonist of the biography. However, the format - a great deal of Q & A - is compelling because you hear Truman's voice, get what makes him click.

I remember reading this shortly after it came out in 1973 - after Nixon ("I am not a crook") resigned.

Night and day, even though - in retrospect - both Presidents shared common traits: More common folk than other commander in chiefs (such as Hyde Park Roosevelt or Princeton-groomed Wilson); less-than-impressive pasts (Eisenhower led the Allied Forces; Kennedy was beloved for his style/family etc, war hero also).

Yet Truman - who seems more like LBJ than the corner grocer (uh, ditto for Nixon) - comes off more as a common person, more grounded. More like Jimmy Carter, which (out of office) is not a bad thing.

It's interesting to hear Truman ruminate about recent and distant history, and about human nature in general. I don't have the quotation, but Truman says he views his lack of presidency as a promotion: The Americans are the boss of the President, so - no longer in power - he wields power over the President, instead of having 200+ million bosses. Even if it's a line, it's a good one.

Trillen, one of today's sharpest and most intellectual wits, pens this short memoir of a former Yale classmate.

Denny was a golden boy, popular in school, Rhodes Scholar, headed for great things in life: Potentially the biggest brass ring of all, the Presidency. It seemed possible.

But Denny wandered and ultimately took his own life. Trillen's examination of Denny's life turns into a closer look into the culture of upper-crust New England life and late-1950s society in general. It examines the privileged life and what one does - and doesn't do - in this culture.

For Trillen, this is a very quiet, serious book.

Plath Worship is almost a religion among many; like Ayn Rand, Plath has garnered (for different reasons) fans in the over-the-top way Rand has.

Beyond that - and even beyond her poetry (which rocks, painfully) - her prose is textured and moving. The story of her early life - through her excellence at school and winning an intership at a New York magazine - is most telling in what it tells about her: Her work, her feelings about family and friends, suicide attempts and so on.

This book is technically a work of fiction, but the membrane that separates this novel from reality is so thin as to be non-existent.

Plath - like Rand - has become somewhat of a cliche, which is unfortunate but not totally unexpected. However, look beyond the conventional wisdom and actually read her work, instead of reading about her work.

You'll be rewarded.