Books by Celebrities

[Mike 03]

1. I don't think it's your imagination that memoirs are often disappointing.

Now and then you might find a really good one. It seems to me like biographies, preferably unauthorized biographies, provide more of a kaleidoscopic insight about people. If I'm interested in a person I usually look for the longest biography written by an author with a history of writing biographies that is recent enough to cover the period of the person's life I'm interested in, and then read some reviews to get a secondary opinion.

I wanted to buy Linda Ronstadt's memoirs but the reviews said it was superficial and that she hardly talked about her music so I passed. My mother was so disappointed in Joan Baez's memoirs. Again, she didn't talk about being a musician, according to my mother, mostly just the people she slept with.

One recent memoir that didn't hold back is Patty Schemel's book Hit So Hard, her story of being the drummer for the grunge band Hole and her descent into heroin addiction. It was quite extraordinary as far as memoirs go.

I'm looking forward to President Obama's memoirs!