Book Suggestions: memoirs

[tsearcher]

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The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test


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If you liked that you should read all of Jack Kerouac's novels, starting with "On the Road". Though technically novels, when put together they are one giant memoir. His writing is so incredibly honest that you really get inside his head.

Also, another book authored by one of the beat writers is "Junky" by William Burroughs. A very graphic description of his heroin addiction. The guy was a heroin addict for 50 years and lived to 87.

[Potvaliant]

Frederick Exley's "A Fan's Notes" is excellent (though categorized as a "fictional memoir").

Also "The Autobiography of Malcolm X."

As for crazy musician-type memoirs, there's "A Drink with Shane MacGowan." It's written as a conversation he's having with a girlfriend, and the writing is annoying and truly awful, but if you happen to like The Pogues, or self-destructive genius rocker types, it might be worth a read.

[Cancuk]

Gregory David Roberts, "Shantaram". One of the best stories i've ever read. If not the best. Highly highly highly recommend.

[maddog2030]

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

I haven't read it yet, but I saw the author appear on the Daily Show and this book sounded pretty amazing. A quick description: "This absorbing account by a young man who, as a boy of 12, gets swept up in Sierra Leone's civil war goes beyond even the best journalistic efforts in revealing the life and mind of a child abducted into the horrors of warfare."

I don't usually read memoirs but this one sounds damn interesting.

Edit: Also, in the Daily Show interview with the guy, I was completely blown away by how normal and really upbeat this guy was after having gone through some of the stuff he did.