Memoirs and "true" stories.

[DebinSC]

Some of my favorite books in recent years have been memoirs or true stories written by the people who lived them. My faves from the past few years are:
The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver (Growing up as a missionary's daughter in the Congo)
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, by Peter Godwin (How Mugabe's reign destroyed Zimbabwe), and
An Anthropologist on Mars, by Oliver Sacks (fascinating case studies of various patients with unusual neurological disorders)

Have you read any of these? Or...can you recommend something you've read in this genre?

[roknrolhrt]

Deb, we have both The Poisonwood Bible and An Anthropologist On Mars, and Nettie has read them. She particularly enjoyed The Poisonwood Bible. I have moved them both to my "to read" pile.

[Bebop]

I really liked Poisonwood Bible. I didn't realize it was autobiographical.

[DebinSC]

You know, I mis-stated. It's not really autobiographical, but she did live in Africa, and apparently based it on some of her experiences there.

[Bebop]

I read Obama's Dreams from My Father before the election. Not only was it well written, it gave me real insight into what makes him do what he does.

[DebinSC]

So should I add it to my "to read" pile? (As Rok says. I think we all have one of those. ;> )

I strongly recommend Crocodile. Peter Godwin is/was a journalist with the BBC and other organizations and grew up in Zimbabwe, where his mother still lives. Fascinating, heartbreaking.

[roknrolhrt]

Dreams From My Father was excellent and, I think, anyone who has read it has a much better understanding of the man, his character, and his motives. I found Audacity Of Hope quite good as well, but certainly more political.

[Keith]

Deb, I've been meaning to post here about one of our recent "listens" We listened to Scott McClellan's What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. Read by the author, we found it to be a most enlightening tale by a person who sat at the right-hand of the leader of the free world, and was his mouth piece for a little less than 3 years. Controversial, but what about that administration was not controversial. He makes an argument about the "permanent campaign" brought to us by Karl Rove and now transcending all that goes on inside the beltway... at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. McClellan also details his betrayal by Scooter Libby resulting in McClellan making false statements to the press "...through no fault of my own..." I guess it is easy to characterize this "listen" as compelling!

[DebinSC]

Sounds interesting, Keet. I think I'll have to read it, though it will probaby just make me mad all over again. ;->

[Keith]

Another of my rather "recent" reads in this genre: Bethany McLean's and Peter Elkind's The Smartest Guys in the Room ~ the amazing rise and scandalous fall of Enron. It is a tome I've had "intentions" to read since this version came out back in '04. I'm glad I waited. There is an amazing similarity in what these greedy Enron economic pranksters pulled-off, or attempted to pull-off in the natural gas industry, not only domestically, but in the energy industry world-wide; and what has happened more recently in the financial/credit industry world-wide. If you want to understand what "Fair Value" accounting is (more popularly called "mark-to-market") and what "credit default swaps" (Consolidated Debt Obligatinos) can do to an otherwise orderly and REGULATED securities market, then this is a very informative, educational and enlightening read.

The fact is that Enron was not so "big" that its failure was allowed by our government. It is indeed quite scary when you consider that these same actions by those in the Mortgage Industry who have used the same financial shenanigans "created" by Enron albeit for mortgage debt, not natural gas futures, but are TOO BIG to be allowed to fail. We, the taxpayers, our children, and theirs must finance these same mistakes.

Financial espionage at its best!