I just finished reading Nelson George’s new memoir City Kid: A Writer’s Memoir of Ghetto Life and Post-Soul Success. George’s personal reflections on Brownsville, East New York, and Fort Greene; his open discussions of race and class; plus his impassioned knowledge of the complex relationships between the media, music & film industries, and popular culture, make for an inspiring read. I’m looking forward to the City Kid launch party and reading here at BHS on May 13th.
Students in the BHS oral history seminar I’m teaching are choosing books of oral histories (or memoirs) to read and discuss with the class. I’m excited to hear what they find. Here’s what’s on my memoir/oral histories/historical biographies To-Read list, if you’re looking for ideas:
- The Fifties: A Women’s Oral History by Brett Harvey
- Long Journey Home: Oral Histories of Contemporary Delaware Indians by James W. Brown
- Triangular Road: A Memoir by Paule Marshall
- Writing Women’s Worlds: Bedouin Stories by Lila Abu-Lughod
- But Enough About Me by Nancy K. Miller
- Letters of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody: American Renaissance Woman by Bruce Ronda
- Woman in the Nineteenth Century by Margaret Fuller
- Reinventing the Peabody Sisters by Monika M. Elbert
- Not Becoming My Mother: and Other Things She Taught Me along the Way by Ruth Reichl