http://jannghi.blogspot.com/2019/10/memoir-reading-challenge-2020.html
https://jannghi.blogspot.com/2020/10/memoir-reading-challenge-2021.html
An autobiography focuses on the chronology of the writer’s entire life while a memoir covers one specific aspect of the writer’s life.
This is a challenge all about reading memoirs and autobiographies that fit into various categories. This challenge lists 32 categories – I have reduced it to 25 books, but who knows how many I will actually read. Five books is the minimum.
January 1, 2021: With 2020 being a dumpster fire, you would have thought I would have read more. But that is not the case. So, this challenge continues into 2021, with basically the same categories and the same books. The only category added was for a memoir published in 2021.
Completed Readings 2020
Written by a person who identifies as LGBTQIA
- Seriously… I’m Kidding by Ellen DeGeneres -read 1/10/2020
Music Memoir
- Reba: My Story by Reba McEntire -read 1/12/2020
Animal Memoir
- Marley & Me by John Grogan -read 1/19/2020
Written by a woman
- Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick -read 1/29/2020
Completed Readings 2021
Travel Memoir
- Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea – April 18, 2021
Made into a movie
- Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed – read 4/23/2021
Mental Illness Memoir
- Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen – read 5/2/2021
Planned Readings
Other Illness Memoir
- Lucky Man by Michael J Fox
Political Memoir
- Becoming by Michelle Obama
Food Memoir
- Jell-O Girls by Allie Rowbottom
Written by a person of color
- A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown
Written by an actor or a comedian
- Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe
Written by an author or journalist
- The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Written by any other celebrity
- You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day
Written by someone from a different country
- A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
Written by someone under 40
- The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer
Written by someone over 40
- The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Bestselling memoir
- Educated by Tara Westover
Humorous memoir
- Naked by David Sedaris
Graphic Novel memoir
- Stitches by David Small
Published in 2021
- Widowish by Melissa Gould
Published in 2020
- The Impossible First: From Fire to Ice – Crossing Antarctica Alone by Colin O’Brady
Published in 2019 or earlier
- Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
Under 300 pages
- I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron
Over 300 pages
- Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
Author of your choice
- More Myself: A Journey by Alicia Keys