The Magnolia Story / Chip and Joanna Gaines /184 pp.

I admit, I'm huge fan of the HGTV show "Fixer Upper." Chip makes me laugh and Joanna's design style makes me swoon. This book about their lives and how they came to be the most famous couple in Waco, Texas only adds to their appeal. I listened to the book so I got to hear their story in their own voices, which was perfect. Their story is inspirational and funny. They encourage each other and the readers to have dreams and work hard for them. I recommend this book wholeheartedly whether you are a fan of the show or not.

The Heart and the Fist/ Eric Greitens / 309 pages

   This is an adult memoir about Eric Greitens experiences leading to becoming a Navy Seal.  I started this book to see how it would be different from the YA memoir.  The book was word for word the same except for extra chapters about deployment to the Philippines, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  Even though he added details about some missions, there was nothing in there about actual fighting, death, attacks, or secret operations.  Instead, he describes a "crossing the equator celebration" that navy men do. I am sure that he must have been in some dangerouse situations where he had to fire his gun or blow something up like he does in his commercial.  He still amazingly turns up with a connection to events like chasing the terrorists that had abducted Graciela Burnham earlier in the Philippines.  Another was that he finished his Seal training right after 9/11.
    His non-profit "The Mission Continues" is about getting veterans to volunteer somewhere after they come home so that they can re-connect and feel useful in society and move on with life.  The web site shows that there are groups in quite a few states.

The Warrior's Heart / Eric Greitens / 264 pages

     Missouri governor candidate Eric Greitens has written a YA memoir of how he became a Navy Seal.  Most of the book is the story of how he got there.
He started to travel as a volunteer after his freshman year in college.  He goes to China only a few years after Tiananmen square protest.  He actually gets pulled in by the police for talking with students about rights of free speech.
The next year, he goes to Bosnia (actually Croatia) to refugee camps as an observer.  He goes to Africa and Bolivia. Luckily, he can play soccer.  It's a universal game for kids.
     He goes to Cambridge on a Rhodes Scholarship and finally joins the Seals.
He really details the training.  He stops the narrative before deployment and then talks about his non-profit, the Mission Continues.
     If I heard about this in a novel, I would think that it was over the top like Forrest Gump showing up at all those historic moments.  However, it appears that Greitens really did do the things that he talks about. 

Unforgettable / Scott Simon 256 p.

Unforgettable / Scott Simon 256 p.

The subtitle tells it all. 

"a mother's final days and the lessons that last a lifetime"

This memoir is a delight.  Simon makes you laugh and cry and sometimes at the same time.  He recounts the time he spent in the ICU with his mother.  They reminisced, told favorite stories, shared confidences, laughed a lot, and showed the loving bond between mother and son.  Her son tells her story, Patricia Lyons Simon Newman (and his) with sincerity, genuineness, honesty, seriousness and love.  A memoir that is hard to put down.  It start while his mother was in the ICU with tweets.  These became the nucleus of this book.  Tweets like:

Mother called: "I can't talk. I'm surrounded by handsome men." Emergency surgery. If you can hold a thought for her now...

Tnx for nice thoughts for my mother. She's in recovery now, wheezing jokes through oxygen tube! Inspiration in aspiration! 

My mother in ICU sees Kate & Will holding baby and tears: "Every baby boy is a little king to his parents. " So I tear too.

I am getting a life's lesson about grace from my mother in the ICU. We never stop learning from our mothers, do we? 

Through out the final hospital stay, his mother maintained her wit.

I consider this a good sign: mother sez when time comes, obit headline should be Three Jewish Husbands, But No Guilt. 

I tell my mother, "You'll never stop teaching me." She said, "Well don't blame me for everything."

Food: A Love Story / Jim Gaffigan / 340 pgs

I have loved Jim Gaffigan ever since I was introduced to him in college about five years ago. I watched him joke about Hot Pockets, Cinnabon, bacon, and cheese and could not stop laughing. I will admit that I have yet to read Dad is Fat but when I realized I needed to read a food memoir for the #ReadHarder challenge I've been doing, I went straight for this book.


“I don’t know much about grammar, but I think kale salad is what they call a “double negative.”




Gaffigan does not miss a thing. He wrote a book that touches on every single food item you can think of, and a lot you probably did not. His scope goes from talking about food from different areas of the country (yes, he does talk about St. Louis style pizza and toasted ravioli) to all the different food categories out there (fruit, vegetables, seafood, breakfast foods, fast food, even crackers). Even when you don't agree with him - how can anyone hate seafood? - you still can't help but crack up.

Maude / Donna Mabry / 477 pages

     This was a riveting book that had to be totally true because that many things would never be in a fiction book.  The book is a memoir of the author's grandmother of the stories and events of her life.  It is a story of personal survival of the spirit in that so much tragedy happened in Maude's early life and then more unwanted events made up much of her story. the time period is the early half of the 1900's.  Donna Mabry has been able to weave the changes in culture and morality seamlessly into the story.  It explains Maude's actions since most women today would be able to change their life more easily.
     I think this is a self-published book as there is no publisher listed.  Donna Mabry has written other books which are listed at the back.  I doubt that the fiction can compare with this compelling story.

A House in the Sky / Amanda Lindhout / 373 p.

Amanda Lindhout escaped the problems of her troubled childhood by reading National Geographics.  The pictures and stories about exotic places fascinated her. As a young adult she was filled with wanderlust and Amanda soon became a world traveler. Earning just enough money as a waitress to fund her traveling, she eventually decided that she also try to make money as a journalist. Continuously pushing boundaries, Amanda eventually decides to try to cover a story in one of the most dangerous places on Earth--Somalia.  She is accompanied by a former boyfriend.  It is hard not to judge her foolishness in putting herself in such a dangerous place. But this memoir is an interesting study in why we make the choices we make, how strong the will to live can be and how desperate the situations are for people living in impoverished, war-torn areas.

Yes Please!/Amy Poehler/329 pgs

This is one of the best "memoirs" I have read. To be honest, I wasn't expecting a lot. I was a fan of Amy Poehler's when she was on Saturday Night Live, but didn't know much about her personal history. She invites the reader into her life in a funny, open, and quite "frank" manner. It was entertaining, and by the end of the book, I felt I had a better insight into her personality, and to what makes her "tick." Highly recommended!