Free Downloads The World's Best Memoir Writing: The Literature Of Life From St. Augustine To Gandhi, And From Pablo Picasso To Nelson Mandela
Eve Claxton has taken the most intriguing portions of the world's most famous memoirs and compiled them in this volume. The reader experiences world history as the authors lived it and gains rare insight into the lives and personalities of some of the world's most important writers, thinkers, athletes and artists.From Charlie Chaplin's childhood walks through Victorian London and Alan Bennett's wartime boyhood in Yorkshire to the day Muhammad Ali discovered boxing and Mahatma Gandhi experimented with cigarettes; from Primo Levi's capture of fascist militia at twenty-one and Katherine Hepburn's first acting job at the same age to Charles Darwin on his lifelong love-his work-and Nelson Mandela on being released from prison at seventy-one.The World's Best Memoir Writing is a uniquely enjoyable immersion into some of the world's best, and most personal, writing.
Paperback: 412 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks; 1 edition (September 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1402209754
ISBN-13: 978-1402209758
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.2 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #161,697 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #19 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Hinduism > Gandhi #79 in Books > Reference > Encyclopedias & Subject Guides > Literature #1213 in Books > Reference > Writing, Research & Publishing Guides > Writing > Fiction
I teach memoir. I primarily used this text for writing examples. A few memoir excerpts were useful as prompts to get students to imitate/mimic the style or thought process. Unless I was writing/teaching memoir, I don't feel I would read this for pleasure. I would rather spend time reading the individual memoir in their entirety --- those I find most intriguing.
I haven't read this entire book, just some of the parts from people I was interested in reading about. The book includes excerpts from various people's memoirs. Some of them are Muhammad Ali, Bertrand Russell, Salvadore Dali, Mahatma Gandhi, Elie Wiesel, Charlie Chaplin, and Kurt Vonnegut. Some of the excerpts made me laugh such as Dali's and Kurt Vonnegut's excerpt from his later years (Vonnegut was a feisty old man). I would say the main drawback of this book is that some of the excerpts are too short. I wanted to read more and wish they hadn't ended so soon, but maybe the purpose of the book is to pique your interest in reading the person's whole memoir. The book is divided into Beginnings, Youth, The Middle, and Toward the End so you get glimpses of different people in different phases of their lives with some of the authors' memoir excerpts covered in more than one section.
Picked up this book from the library and enjoyed it so much that I ordered my own copy. I can pick it up and read one memoir when I have just a few minutes--a good addition to any library.
This book skims the cream of memoirs. It will lead to you to pick up several other books, based upon the excerpts used. The background on the authors provides additional insight to the passages.
Great
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