Reading Confessions Part #2

I think I've gone over this before, but in continuance of adding on more of my reading confessions I will reinsert how my adulation for reading developed, grew wings, and took flight. 

…by scampering and scuttling around libraries, scavenging hunting true stories; bios, history, war, and true crime... and now I'm at memoirs.

The reason memoirs and true accounts enamor me is because I find many contain genuinely unique stories and perspectives. More poignantly it's something like visualizing, and please pardon me... this is about to get a little graphic as I describe this great mountain. A mountain I'll call Our Climb.

As a mountain is generously known, it's tall and all uphill, or downhill for those preferring to remain on a flat surface. Most, however, prefer to climb as we are lead to believe something magical will be up there when we get to the top. This is where memoirs come into play.

Memoirs portray our individual spirits we adhere to as we pursue reaching this magical top. And it's amazing, because even treading the same paths we each recall different experiences. One might speak of how many times he or she had to wash their feet. Didn't care for all that dirt getting between their toes. Another goes, 'so what', he or she loved seeing the sun. "Didn't you see that sun? My goodness, like what were you looking at?" Surely seeing the sun is more important than what goes on between the toes. That's where this other one who could care less about what goes on between the toes, or that miserable elevated hot sun, darn it, points out how he (or she?) had the chore of having to battle a ferocious mountain lion along the way! Who are we kidding! That has to be the tale of all tales. Now no one saw the mountain lion, well maybe one other person. And that's a big maybe since prodigious explorers have already tin foiled and put their stamp of authenticity on it, affirming mountain lions hadn't been seen running (loose) since the first expedition. Lions are now all safely in petting zoos, yet our memoirist vividly declares having left the tent one night to take care of some nightly business when WHOA, there was the big cat he (or she?) had to fight off so they could do their nightly business in peace.

Going no further with my outrageous painting, I'm sure you get the point. From fighting mountain lions to those rapt up in counting all the people he or she saw fall off the mountain, to those who describe climbing the same breech of terrain as a cakewalk, heck... there might even be a memoirist who says there isn't a mountain, or they've never had to climb a mountain, they were born on top of the mountain, or are the mountain... and once more let me stop here, I sometimes really get carried away, though not before adding how our experiences... what we see and don't see, vary... even as we climb the same mountain. This is what I crave and seek out... those unique perspectives and versions of what we (individually) see. Every one of us has that story within us. It's just a matter of how we tell it.

And so what new memoirs am I about to delve into? Some really good ones, I'm thinking and hoping.

Yes, I did cheat... a little... by opening each of these books to take a peek before putting this out there. The Grace of Silence by Michele Norris I've started and am already hooked. I absolutely am into Michele's memoir. And finally! I have Condoleezza Rice's book: Extraordinary, Ordinary People. Took a peek inside here too. I think it'll be a keeper as well. Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann is one where I'll likely have to move aside a week or two to absorb. The Undiscovered Paul Robeson is another one where I'll be moving weeks aside to get through. And Fat Chick, a novel by Lorraine Duffy Merkl; this little number looks like a perfectly kicked back rainy day read.

Also, and this is a real plus, I just finished reading Age is just a number by D.S. White. And I know. I know. I said I put reading on hiatus while working on... ahem... several projects I have 'acoming. But this one little book is such the pocket size treat, and so hilariously funny and entertaining that I couldn't put it down. D.S. White is one of my blog-buddies, which made it twice the fun to read. And while I'm confessing here, I'll go on and confess this too,  I knew "D" had style, especially since she's been over here laughing a time or two at something on OEBooks, but this woman really has a writing style I appreciate.

And so, there it is. My Reading Confessions Part #2.