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Memoir: A History (2009)

by Ben Yagoda(Favorite Author)

3.54 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

159448886X (ISBN13: 9781594488863)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Riverhead Hardcover

review 1: Considering just how many memoirs and autobiographies are read and written each year, it was interesting to read a history of the genre. Even though memoirs are normally classed as non-fiction, when you come down to it, all novels and fiction are essentially like memoirs, telling the events of someone's life, like Huckleberry Finn, or David Copperfield or Jane Eyre. It was a very interesting book. Often when I read a book I am glad that I read it, but I do not feel a need to read it again. But I am keeping this book. I want to read it again.
review 2: Without just being a catalog of examples, Yagoda tours the spectrum of memoirs with highlights from the sublime to the ridiculous--religious confessions, captivity narratives, stories of Americanization, surv... moreival, tell-alls, tell-alls by celebrity flunkies, addiction memories, mid-Twentieth century comedies made from suffering, false memories, ghostwriters and posthumous revenge. Yagoda makes the useful point that memoirs are as much artifacts of when they are written edited and published as documents about the events they cover. less

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