The Armchair Birder

Everyone is familiar with the term “armchair traveler”.  Well, I confess to being something of an armchair birder.  Despite my pleasure in observing the birds drawn into my garden by various tantalizing feeders, cozy bird cottages, strategically placed water basins and a myriad of tempting flowers, what I often crave is immersing myself in a book, reading a great story about someone’s personal relationship with birds.  Here are a few reading selections that may bring out your inner armchair birder: 

Both sides of the story

It's no secret that I am a fan of memoirs. Truth is often crazier than fiction. Recently I've been on an Ann Patchett kick reading which started by reading This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. That book featured a few essays on her friendship with Lucy Grealy, author of Autobiography of a Face. After I finished Grealy's memoir about her childhood with cancer I picked up Patchett's memoir, Truth and Beauty, about her twenty-year friendship with Grealy (the two met in college).

This isn't the first time I've found myself going back and forth between both sides of a person's life. A few years ago I read Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines by Nic Sheff. His father, David Sheff, also wrote a memoir about Nic's teenage drug use in Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Meth Addiction. A few years after that Nic Sheff added to the story with We All Fall Down: Living With Addiction, his memoir about relapses and rehab. The combination of those three books really painted a picture of what addiction and recovery was like on a family.

Have you read a combination of memoirs that offered both sides of the story? Please share your recommendations! I'm looking to read even more!

Coming Out Stories

The 2014 Seattle Pride Parade and Festival kicks off this weekend, celebrating it's 40th year. According to the Seattle Pride website, "2014 Pride aims to celebrate the history of the Northwest's LGBTQ rights movement and advance the ongoing progress the LGBTQ community has made since first
coming out in 1974, the year of the inaugural Seattle Pride festivities."

Throughout the years I've read a number of compelling memoirs and stories about the LGBTQ experience including Portia de Rossi's Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain and Jennifer Finney Boylan's She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders. In the spirit of the 2014 Seattle Pride weekend June 27th- June 29th, we've created a LGBTQ Stories booklist on the website. There are also a couple of great lists for teens as well!

Do you have a favorite LGBTQ memoir or story?

Question of the Week: What is your favorite memoir?

I read a lot of memoirs. In fact, four of the last ten books I read were memoirs. Most recently I devoured Delancy: A Man, a Woman, a Restaurant, a Marriage by Molly Wizenberg, Grace After Midnightt by Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, and Sous Chef by Michael Gibney, three very different books. I enjoy getting lost in other people's stories and more often than not find true life even more fascinating than fiction.

What memoir or biography have you read recently that you enjoyed?