I have been putting the Well-Educated Mind book list in order from my least favorite to most favorite. Last week I ordered the NOVELS HERE. This week I am going through the autobiography/memoir list. If I remember correctly, all of the books were autobiographies or memoirs.
My favorite genre is biographies because they cover several genres at once: it is a STORY [a nonfiction] about someone's LIFE that includes a period of HISTORY. Not surprisingly, I finished every book on this list.
By the way, what made reading through these books even more fun was that Cleo from Classical Carousel joined me. Which reminds me, when I first began TWEM journey, I connected with six other bloggers who were also reading through the novels. I had to catch up to them. But other than Fanda @ ClassicLit they have since disappeared from the blogosphere. : ( Anyway, it was a lot of fun to have buddies to read with and discuss these books.
OK, here are the autobiographies:
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| What remains of my WEM biographies. |
NO STARS [DNF]
(none)
ONE STAR
Kempe: The Book of Margery Kempe (c. 1430)
Maybe I was harsh, but I had a difficult time being sympathetic with Kempe.
TWO STARS
Nietzsche: Ecce Homo (1908) ⭐⭐
I only enjoyed this enough to argue with Nietzsche. He really should have gotten one star.
Hitler: Mein Kampf (1925) ⭐⭐⭐
Again, this only received three stars because I enjoyed writing a rebuttal.
I actually enjoyed reading about Rousseau's whiney life, which is why I placed it here; but he is responsible for spreading so much disinformation that has contributed to so many lies today. He should have gotten one star.
Overall, I enjoyed every one of these four-stars equally, and it was difficult to place them in some kind of order, but I did my best.
Gandhi: An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1929) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Bunyan: Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
FIVE STARS
Augustine: Confessions (AD c. 400) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This was really complex, but I had a good translator and found it easy to read.
This is one of my favorite books of all time, but I could not put it before the next five books because of their topics or subject matter, which is important to me. Thoreau was (to use today's terminology) privileged. He was an activist who tried living off the grid for awhile and then journaled about it. But the next books are more about overcoming adversity, for lack of a better word.
Washington told his story from slavery to the founding of education for newly freed slaves. No excuses.
Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Jacobs told her horrific story of slavery from a mother's and woman's perspective.
Douglass: Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Anything from Douglass, for me, is superb.
And if Solzhenitsyn's words aren't essential today, then liberty and freedom be damned.
ALL-TIME FAVORITE
Conway's personal story beautifully covered all of the genres I mentioned: a great story about her difficult life during a time of major social change and how she conquered it all.
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