Choose Life. Part Two!

More Memoirs.  More biographies.  People are out there living lives we can only dream about, or at least read about.  And I have been.  These ten are some that I read last year and this year you might want to read one.  Or more.

1.  Rez Life by David Treuer (2012)

As a child of the Ojibwe Tribe, Treuer writes candidly about the poverty, casinos, minority wealth and rampant crime on reservations.  For some, there is resentment that the Native American community is the recipient of 'special treatement' but the truth is far more tragic.  Very readable, first-hand account of life on the 'Rez.'

2. Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos  (2002)

Acclaimed children's author tells the story of his beginning and how he broke out of a life of crime into a life of writing for children.  Note:  this is not a book for children.  The Newbery-winning author of Dead End in Norvelt, a wonderful story to give your children or better yet, to read WITH your children (I promise, you will enjoy it!) came from a dubious start and grew up to be Jack Gantos.

3.  Escape From Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Journey from North Korea to freedom in the West by Blaine Harden  (2012)

Imagine being born a political prisoner, knowing no other life.  Where your parents don't have a protective instinct over you because they are taught to snitch, every man for himself.  You are one of the very few who escapes and lives to tell the story.  Adjustment to a free world is not the joy we expect it to be.  This is that story.

4.  Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman  (2012)

The author was raised in the insular, fundamentalist Satmar Hasidic Brooklyn community by grandparents who stepped in when her parents were unable to raise her.  She never saw the dogma as her own and did not fit into her community, quite the death knell in that world.  Trying to make the best of it, she married as per her match as a teen and she visited the public library to grow intellectually, verboden.  No spoiler, she left the sect.  Worth a look.

5. A Good Man: Rediscovering My Father, Sargent Shriver by Mark K. Shriver  (2012)

This little book packed in so much love, admiration and information, I was thrilled to have picked it up. If my parents were Sargent and Eunice Shriver, I'd be proud, too.  They put a lot of wonderful into the world for those who needed it.  Mark Shriver was surrounded by Kennedy cousins and tough uncles, often overbearing.  But his father was always a force and a presence in his life.  Sargent Shriver left both a personal and an American legacy.

6.  Island Practice: Cobblestone Rash, Underground Tom and Other Adventures of a Nantucket Doctor by Pam Belluck  (2012)

I've been to Nantucket once.  When everyone else who hasn't been there was there.  But year-round, people call this island home.  Dr. Lepore has for many years and he is one of a kind.  I don't know if that's good or bad but it makes for a pretty decent read.  Aside from the profile of the 'island doctor' the book addresses issues with living remotely when emergencies occur and the rash of teen suicides among other 'Nantucketry.'

7.  Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man by Mark Kurlansky  (2012)

Birdseye.  You know him!  The guy behind the frozen food trays.  So why read a book about him?  Because he was a man driven by adventure.  While you and I were parked in front of the idiot box with frozen peas and potatoes, he was out exploring the Arctic or inventing things and applying for patents.  A little bit biography, a little bit history, a little bit trivia.  Not necessarily riveting but a study of innovation and why he developed his food storage and freezing process among other ideas.

8. Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury by Lesley-Ann Jones  (2012)

For a number of years I've been looking for a good bio of Freddie Mercury.  This one fit the bill. I remember when he died.  I remember Queen music just being there.  This book was chock full of background on his upbringing, education, how he came to Queen and how Queen became the music industry powerhouse and the sad end when illness took his life.  Best revelation for me?  Queen was one of the most highly educated bands before they left to 'play some music!'

9.  The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess and One Extraordinary Girl's Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster by Tim Crothers  (2012)

I play chess.  Badly.  But I think everyone should know how.  Even destitute kids in Kampala, Uganda?  Especially those kids, as evidenced by this book.  A missionary brought chess to a local school so boys could do something constructive.  And one day, Phiona followed her brother there and sat down to play.  By the time she was just 11, she was the Ugandan Junior Champion.  The National Champion at 15.  She traveled to Siberia for the Chess Olympiad.  Chess may be her ticket out of an AIDS-ridden, poverty-stricken existence.  And she knows it.

10.  Sex and God at Yale: Porn, Political Correctness and a Good Education Gone Bad
by Nathan Harden (2012)

This book is a puzzlement.  The author goes out of his way to do anything, anything to get to Yale after multiple rejections.  He gets there and is astonished by what he finds.  Sex.  Lots of Sex.  Not the students.  School sanctioned-sex in projects.  Or school-sanctioned, activity-fee supported sexual content programs.  He is horrified.  But he stays.  Yale is Yale!  But it's shameful, what it has devolved into.  Well, some of it, in my liberal opinion, was not such a terrible thing.  Some was utterly ridiculous and he makes good points.  But let's be fair.  It isn't just Yale that houses such programs.  I don't know that it warranted a book and I'm not sure the author walks away clean, either.

In the coming week, expect a post about Young Adult books.  For you or your young adults.

I read, therefore I am,
the lowercase b