Thanks for the Memoirs

August 09, 2010

Here’s a fun piece of trivia: besides being famous singers and performers, what do Julie Andrews and Anne Murray have in common? Answer: they both had their tonsils removed as adults, they both suffer from scoliosis, and they both married much older men.

How do I know this? Two words: memoir season.

Curiously enough, I read memoirs in the spring and summer. I don’t know why, but when the foliage begins to turn green and that first robin hops across the lawn, I find myself stocking up on memoirs and biographies.

This year I’ve read Home: a Memoir of My Early Years by Julie Andrews; All of Me by Anne Murray; My First Five Husbands--and the Ones Who Got Away by Rue McClanahan, and Half broke horses: a true-life novel by Jeannette Walls (which will be a blog of its own). Next up on my list is Spoken from the heart by Laura Bush.

I love taking the 300-or-so page journey into people’s lives and reading about their childhoods, their friends and foes, and their struggles and triumphs. I enjoy browsing the photos that span the breadth of their lives, from knobby-kneed unknowns to famous (or infamous) celebrities and public figures. I like learning little tidbits like ,Julie Andrews being the neighborhood lookout for German doodlebugs when she was nine, or Anne Murray’s preference to perform barefoot, or Rue McClanahan’s debilitating panic attacks at dusk.

To those authors who have given me hours of enjoyment reading on my front porch as the new season blooms around me, I’d like to say, “Thanks for the memoirs.”

Mary P.