What makes a good memoir?

Bryant Park, New York City

When people tell me they don’t like to read non-fiction, I get what they mean with business-y or other types of non-fiction.

But I do feel like there’s a beautiful segment of non-fiction that is very overlooked, and that is the memoir.

3 reasons to try a memoir

  1. A good memoir reads like a story, especially if told well, and if you generally read only fiction, this is an easy way to access a genre you usually don’t read in a fun way.
  2. Good memoirs usually have an interesting story and you don’t need to know anything about the author’s life to enjoy it.
  3. If you don’t have a lot of time, get a book on audible, preferably read by the author.

5 favourite memoirs I heartily recommend, especially if you listen on audio

  1. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother – Amy Chua
  2. Stories I only tell my friends – Rob Lowe (you don’t need to be a fan – I wasn’t!)
  3. Born a Crime – Trevor Noah

Then there’s a subgenre of memoir that I love – it’s one where there’s a project for a certain length of time – and the author then writes a book about it.

3 of my favourite project memoirs are:

The Happiness Project – Gretchen Rubin (I’ve read this one twice and enjoyed it even more 6 years later)

The Year of Living Danishly – Helen Russell

Year of No Sugar – Eve O Schaub

Do you read memoir? What were some of your favourites?

And now, onto my reads for August.

I decided to only read books I wanted to seeing as it was my birthday month and my word of the year is FUN, and it was indeed a lovely, lovely reading month.

Interestingly, when I took photos for Instagram on Tuesday, I noticed that I read 5 non-fiction and only 4 fiction. I have to give a shout-out to The Year of Less, which is exactly the kind of project-based memoir I love. Those 5 non-fiction reads pushed me over my non-fiction reading goal for the year, which was 24. I’ve now read 27 non-fiction this year.

I’m still thinking through all the insights but I will add that I had $55 worth of stuff in a shopping cart, and after finishing this book, I clicked the X and told myself I don’t actually NEED any of those things. YAY Cait Flanders 🙂

My favourite fiction read was The Good House by Ann Leary. I did ask in the book club if people were interested, and there was no reply, so I read it on my own. And now I’m sorry I didn’t push a bit more because this would have made an excellent book club read. So many things to discuss.

What were some great books you read in August?

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Comments

  1. Terisha says

    I have been wanting to read the year of less since I heard about it on Young House Love Podcast. Glad to hear that you thought it was good. It’s going to the top of my reading list now.

    • To be fair, there are other books I would recommend over this one – The Life Changing magic for example – but this month, this was a noteworthy non-fiction, especially because this post is about project-based non-fiction. I’ve written before of my enending love for Tim Ferris’s book and of course, I’m Gretchen’s biggest fan.

      • Terisha says

        The Kon Marie book has been on my to read list since it released but never got around to reading it. I keep putting it off for some reason or the other. I think sub-conciously I am putting off the decluttering.

  2. Terisha says

    The Kon Marie book has been on my to read list since it released but never got around to reading it. I keep putting it off for some reason or the other. I think sub-conciously I am putting off the decluttering.

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