Top Ten Memoirs and Biographies of 2017

One of my favorite reading genres is memoirs & biographies, and I read some wonderful memoirs and biographies last year. This was one category where the top ten just made themselves known.

This is a comprehensive look at everything that has happened in the Kennedy family since the assassinations of JFK and Bobby Kennedy in the 1960s. It was a tad gossipy but very fair, and I learned a lot about the various Kennedy families.

This was my "proud to be an American" book of the year. It's the memoir of Donald Stratton who was on the USS Arizona when it was bombed in Pearl Harbor. After recuperating, Stratton returned to the Pacific theatre. It's a frank memoir in which he recalls on paper things he'd rather not recall at all.

I was surprised at how much I loved this travel memoir. Until this, I wasn't familiar with Tsh Oxenreider, but now I've become a big fan of her The Art of Simple podcast. This is the story of her family's travel around the world with one bag a piece. It really made me think about what "home" means.

This is another book I didn't expect much from but ended up loving. Written by Jackie Kennedy Onassis' personal assistant, this is a loving and fair look at what the private Jackie was like. I really enjoyed this one.

This is yet another book I didn't expect much from but ended up blowing me away. This is the memoir of a used bookstore owner in Appalachia. It's such a generous, spirited book, and it makes you think about communities and reading and bookstores in a new way. I adored it.

I just loved this one. It's the memoir of Homer Hickam, Jr. which inspired the movie October Sky. Homer ("Sunny") and his friends build and launch rockets in a 1950s coal town. A wonderful story that's about much more than just building rockets in the space age.

A true classic, this is Charles Lindbergh's memoir of his historic transatlantic trip. It's a long book, but it read fast. It really made me think about the importance of risk-taking in American history. 

Another wonderful book about flight, this is the story of Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who piloted a passenger jet into the Hudson River in January of 2009, without casualties. But more than that, it talks about the importance of character and integrity.

This is a book I read for spiritual study, and I took so much away from it. I wrote down copious notes and shared many passages with my husband who loved hearing them. Mary Baker Eddy is the discoverer and founder of Christian Science. She started the church, wrote Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and established periodicals including The Christian Science Monitor, at a time when women were still unable to vote.

Another book about flight and Africa, two of my favorite topics in 2017. This is the wonderfully written memoir of Beryl Markham's life in Africa in the early-to-mid 1900s.