The Problem with Memoir is...

You know what the problem with reading spiritual memoirs is, don't you? By the time you reach the end of the book you feel like you know the author, but you really don't. You can't pick up the phone and call them, say hey, I know we haven't talked in a while, but remember me? How's your week been?

Well, I suppose you could, maybe, but you'd probably come across as a lunatic.

And yet, I really do like the genre. I'm reminded of a quotation from Wayne Boothe that I used to use as the tag line under my email signature: "In life we never know anyone but ourselves by thoroughly reliable internal signs, and most of us achieve an all too partial view even of ourselves (The Rhetoric of Fiction, 3). Even though we know that the author has used their creative and selective vision to tie their personal story together, we still come away knowing something about them that we otherwise wouldn't discover from reading their profile off a fly leaf. I like knowing something about what another person, different from me, has experienced, mediated though it is, and must be.

My favorite memoirs:

• Most any nonfiction written by Madeleine L'Engle, as her writing style is largely memoir-esque, even outside of her published journals.
• Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner
• An American Childhood by Annie Dillard
• Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis
• most recently, Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber

There's a whole world of memoir I have yet to discover. Name your favorites?