The eNotes Blog Night and 10 Other Must-ReadMemoirs

Night and 10 Other Must-ReadMemoirs While  Nobel  Peace Prize recipient  Elie  Wiesel  penned  several  autobiographies and works of fiction, his  best-known work is  Night- a memoir based  on his experiences as a prisoner in WWII  concentration camps, specifically  Auschwitz and Buchenwald. A harrowing read  offering a  firsthand account of one of  our  worlds most tragic  time periods, Night  helped shine a light on the Holocaust and to this day is regarded as one of the worlds most important works of literature. A fact that is not as widely known as the work itself is that  Night is part one of a trilogy:  Night,  Dawn, and  Day.  Each book focuses on specific parts of Wiesels transformative renaissance- darkness to light, horror to healing. With  Night, we know of Wiesels intent: I wanted to show the end, the finality of the event. Everything came to an end- man, history, literature, religion, God. There was nothing left. And yet we begin again with night. For the trilogys subsequent works, Wiesel took a different approach, saying, In Night it is the ‘I who speaks. In the other two, it is the ‘I who listens and questions. The final book,  Day (not a memoir but a work of  fiction), completes the transformation arc: an injured man reflects on his relationships and experiences during WWII and comes to grips with his survival and the deaths of loved ones. Memoirs, like Night, offer a clear window into the thoughts and experiences of others, especially those who write them. They are also a subgenre of autobiography- though the exact categorizations of memoir and autobiography are a bit fuzzy and at times almost entirely overlapping. Essentially, a memoir is autobiographical, while not all autobiographies meet the criteria  for a memoir. Loosely, autobiographies will encompass the subjects entire lifespan, whereas memoirs- depending on the work- tend to be more flexible and focused on a specific point in time or subject matter, like WWII. Though there has been some debate over the years about  Nights designation as a memoir, most publishers agree that the story speaks to Wiesels personal experiences- something we can all learn from. Night  will surely live on as part of the historical canon and as a must-read memoir for generations to come. Keep reading for ten more memorable, must-read memoirs handpicked by our staff. Some are new, some are old, and many you may not have heard of just yet (but should definitely check out now!). 1. When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithis poignant memoir When Breath Becomes Air recounts his fight against Stage IV lung cancer. A brilliant medical student, Kalanithi had a bright future in neurosurgery ahead of him when he received his diagnosis. His New York Times op-ed How Long Have I Got Left? led him to write this memoir. Continue reading When Breath Becomes Air summary → 2. The Lost Boy The Lost Boy is the sequel to Dave Pelzers bestselling memoir A Child Called It.  The story opens in Daly City, California in 1973, when Davids teachers call the police to report their suspicions of child abuse.  Continue reading The Lost Boy summary → 3. Between the World and Me Between the World and Me is a book-length letter from author Ta-Nehisi Coates to his fifteen-year-old son, Samori. It was written shortly after his son learned that Michael Browns killers would go free- the same year that Tamir Rice and Eric Garner were killed by police officers. Coates wanted to explain to his son what it means to be a black man in America.  Continue reading Between the World and Me summary → 4. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis Hillbilly Elegy is J. D. Vances illuminating memoir of life in Appalachia, a region of the Eastern United States stretching from Alabama in the South to New York in the North. Appalachia used to be an industrial haven, home to the coal and steel industries, but the decline in manufacturing has resulted in widespread economic hardship.  Continue reading Hillbilly Elegy  summary → 5. Man’s Search for Meaning In Mans Search for Meaning, psychologist Victor Frankl draws on his experiences in Auschwitz to develop his method of logotherapy. In the concentration camp, he discovered that the desire to find meaning is essential to the human experience. He uses this knowledge in his psychoanalytic practice.  Continue reading Mans Search for Meaning  summary → 6. The Fire Next Time James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, according to writer William Styron, is â€Å"one of the great documents of the twentieth century.† It articulates the anger, frustration, and hope felt by African Americans during the 1960s. The two essays composing this work were published in 1963, selling more than one million copies, making Baldwin- according to The New York Times- the widest read African American writer of his time.  Continue reading The Fire Next Time summary → 7. The Story of My Life In The Story of My Life, author and activist Helen Keller recounts her early education with Anne Sullivan from the Perkins Institute for the Blind. An illness left Keller deaf and blind at eighteen months, and shes unable to communicate until Sullivan teaches her the manual alphabet.  Continue reading The Story of My Life  summary → 8. The Last Lecture In The Last Lecture, professor Randy Pausch expands on a speech that he delivered at Carnegie Mellon University in September 2007. Pausch, who had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, addressed his book primarily to young adults and children hoping to fulfill their dreams.  Continue reading The Last Lecture  summary → 9. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou recounts the story of her life up to the birth of her child. Though she faces many hardships in her life, including being raped and living in a junkyard, shes able to find love and happiness as a mother.  Continue reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings  summary → 10. This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen In his introduction to the English translation of This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Jan Kott writes of Tadeusz Borowskis decision to render his Auschwitz stories in the first person: The identification of the author with the narrator was the moral decision of a prisoner who had lived through Auschwitz- an acceptance of mutual responsibility, mutual participation, and mutual guilt for the concentration camp.  Continue reading This Way for the Gas  summary →