Choose Life - someone else's.

Memoirs are this week's highlight.  Again, they are drawn from the books I read in 2012.  I love reading about other people's life experiences and I tend to pick up a lot of memoirs with some bios thrown in.  Here are ten mini-reviews of such a variety within the genre that one should pique your interest.  (If not, next week:  Choose Life-part two!)

1- Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie (2012)

Salman Rushdie likes himself.  A lot.  After the release of The Satanic Verses, many of us remember a fatwa was issued on his life.  He was in hiding, living in fear for himself and his loved ones for years.  It was a gripping story of how he lived during that time.  One that could have been adequately and deftly told in 375 pages.  This book was 600+ pages.  It would make a good doorstop.

2-  The Scientists:  A Family Romance by Marco Roth (2012)

Your father is a brilliant doctor.  Your aunt, the author Anne Roiphe.  She tells stories and the world reads them.  But your version is different.  You, being a gifted writer, tell the story of your family, albeit a different one than your aunt put forth.  It makes us think about not only the substance of the story, a family in turmoil over the hidden AIDS of the author's father, but about perspective.  What is the truth?  How do we know which version to believe?

3-  The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap:  A Memoir of Friendship, Community and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book by Wendy Welch (2012)

This was a charming little book about a charming little shop in a renovated house started by a couple who admittedly knew nothing about running a bookstore.  It started as a typical later in life change in career story.  Stress!  Let's find a quaint town and start over.  Was it easy?  Was it fun?  Did they succeed?  If you are a book lover, crack the pages of this one and find out.  It was a joy to relive their journey and find out what it's really like to own a used book shop.  (Spoiler:  you don't actually spend your days reading, though you started it all because of your love of books.)

4-  The Lunatic Express:  Discovering the World...  via Its Most Dangerous Buses, Boats, Trains and Planes by Carl Hoffman (2010)

A travel writer has been bitten by the proverbial travel bug, decides that he wants to take the most dangerous modes of transportation to the most remote destinations on the planet and leaves his family for five months.  Obviously, he lives to tell about it.  This is a story of lunacy, indeed, but more importantly, a look at the terrible conditions many of the world's citizens endure just to travel to work and the reality that many of them don't make it to their destinations.  Less interesting is his self-indulgent personal journey that we could have done without.

5- The Year of Learning Dangerously:  Adventures in Homeschooling by Quinn Cummings (2012)

The author, former child star of the 70s TV series Family, became a mother who was frustrated with her daughter's schooling.  In response she embarked upon homeschooling.  It was not a religious journey, emergency response or public school boycott.  Rather, it was an attempt to help her daughter enjoy learning.  The writing was witty and the book explored different reasons for and versions of homeschooling.  Honest about the struggles, Cummings was also relatable to the average reader.  Homeschoolers are no longer on the fringe, but using an alternative educational model.

6-  Gypsy Boy:  My Life in the Secret World of the Romany Gypsies by Mikey Walsh (2012)

This book was difficult to read.  It was harsh abuse at the hands of the father and other gypsy boys.  The mantra?  FIGHT!  From the time Mikey was a young, young boy, he was being groomed to fight, hand to hand combat.  His mother did not protect him.  And when someone challenged him to a brawl, he could not refuse.  He had no choice but to be beaten repeatedly at the behest of his father.  He then endured other flavors of abuse throughout his adolescence with nowhere to turn.  I was left with the question, was this Gypsy life?  Was this the norm?  Or was this one very unfortunate Gypsy Boy?

7-  Running With the Kenyans:  Passion, Adventure and the Secret of the Fastest Running People on Earth by Adharanand Finn (2012)

Loved reading this one about the author moving his family from England to Kenya to train.  He was running in tennies, running barefoot, while I was sitting on the couch or reclining in bed.  Loved it, I tell you!  He was kicking up dust mile after mile, passing lions and hey!  There goes a zebra.  Running with the fastest men and women in the world.  How DO they do it?  Why the Kenyans?  He studied their childhoods, routines, diets, training and Finn tried it all right along side them.  Get the book.  Take the journey.  You won't be sorry.

8-  Monkey Mind  A Memoir of Anxiety by Daniel Smith (2012)

This one caught my eye before I knew we shared an alma mater.  One of the prime Northeastern breeding grounds for young Jewish adult angst, Brandeis University.  He's frank about what it's like to have anxiety, when others tell you to just get over it or why can't you...  Not so easy to understand the body's rejection of 'normal' reactions and the brains adjustment to equalize when you need it to most.  It puts the feelings on the page and makes it real.  If you care about someone who suffers from anxiety and you want to better understand them, this is a fast read that can help.

9-  My Happy Days in Hollywood by Garry Marshall (2012)

Laverne and Shirley, Happy Days, The Odd Couple, Pretty Woman, The Princess Diaries, Beaches.  Garry Marshall is a triple threat, award-winning writer, director and producer, who had a hand in something you've seen and enjoyed.  This was no different.  He starts by telling about his early life and subsequently how he found himself in show business.  The book was hefty but flies by as you enjoy his personal story and work anecdotes, though he is honest, too, about his shortcomings.

10-  Mortality by Christopher Hitchens (2012)

The author, an avowed atheist, wrote this throughout his battle with esophageal cancer and reaffirmed his beliefs while discussing how terminal illness changes us, our life and relationships.  Wanting to speak and to write, his body would only succumb to the force of the cancer.  And yet, those who debated with him said that when faced with death, he would surely turn to religion and that is precisely what did not happen.

I read, therefore I am,
the lowercase b