30 Books to Read Before You Die (Pt. 44)

When will this series end? Who knows?

Anyways, I've had a lot of fun sharing books with you, and yet, I still have much more to share. There are so many books out there waiting to be read, and really, I think I may be doing these list things for the rest of my life at this rate. Anyways, let us move on to today's topic. Today I want to talk to you about reading biography and autobiography (which I really hope we haven't touched on already because I seriously forgot what we spoke about in the teens).

Reading biography and autobiography is something I see as a key part of the reading journey and experience, when it comes to wider reading and seeking out other genres and other voices. I may have some sort of bias since I prefer biographical, semi-autobiographical, and autobiographical texts to complete fiction. But then again you could argue that nothing is really completely fiction, is it?

In the past year, I have been on a quest to read at least fifty biographies and autobiographies in 2019, and I really hate to say this, but I actually finished that challenge last month (sad face), and now I need a new challenge. The question I want to answer here is "what's so important about reading true stories or life stories?"

The answer is simple: experience. When you read a biographical or autobiographical work, you are gaining access to someone else's experience of something. You're gaining access to an experience you would've never known about if you hadn't read this book. You're gaining access to all the emotions, every person involved, each thought and movement that you could not access without having read this book. Whether it is a person of the far past, a person of the recent past, an icon, an orator, a politician, an activist, an entertainer, a writer, or just a regular person like you and me—the experience is almost sacred. It is a backstory that nobody would have known about had someone (or themselves) not written it down. I find that to be incredibly important, and in most aspects, very entertaining.

I want to share with you some biographies and autobiographies I have been reading within the last year or so that I think are notable, and that you should have a go at reading as well:

• Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Wadlow
• Me by Katharine Hepburn
• The Essential Writings of Groucho Marx
• My Autobiography by Charlie Chaplin

If you know how obsessed I am with Chaplin, then you'll probably want to have a guess at how many times I have read and re-read that book over the years (No, it wasn't my first read of the book but it still counts okay!).

Anyways, now that we've talked a little bit about the biographical realm, we're going to do this the same as always. I'll go through thirty books I've read and mark my favourites with an (*)—I'll also talk a little about one or two memorable experiences if you haven't had enough of me already! Let's go then, this is numbers 1291-1320!

1291-1300

1291. The Devil's Pool by George Sand

1292. Sylvia by Upton Sinclair

1293. Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell

1294. Cymbeline by William Shakespeare*

1295. Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck

1296. Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann

1297. Blood Tie by Mary Lee Settle

1298. The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor

1299. Morte D'Urban by JF Powers

1300. Paris Trout by Pete Dexter

1301-1310

1301. The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan

1302. The Field of Vision by Wright Morris

1303. A Fable by William Faulkner

1304. In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow

1305. 'Time Out of Mind' by Rachel Field

You can only imagine why I read this book (because of the title, if you weren't aware). I actually read this book whilst listening to the album Time Out of Mind by Bob Dylan. I love the album, and the book is pretty good too—though they may not match in atmosphere it is a good way of doing things.

1306. The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Cornell

1307. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens

1308. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

1309. Wild Seed by Octavia Butler

1310. A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott

1311-1320

1311. The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

1312. The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

1313. The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant*

1314. Little Big by John Crowley

1315. I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusack

1316. The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson

1317. Evelina by Frances Burney

1318. Dune by Frank Herbert*

1319. Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger

1320. Now in November by JW Johnson