Autobiographies, Whose Have You Read?

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FlakeNoir

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Apr 11, 2006
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I've read a couple of David Bowie biographies. (I think(?) one of them was "Moonage Daydream")
The last biography I read was: Richie McCaw, The Open Side (He is the current captain of our national rugby team.)

Richie+McCaw+-+The+Open+Side.jpg
 

Walter Oobleck

keeps coming back...or going, and going, and going
Mar 6, 2013
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Biographies: Carlos Baker's, Papa...'bout Ernest Hemingway (I'd read 2 or 3 others about Hemingway...but I think this is the definitive bio...)
I've read several about Faulkner and enjoyed each one though that was long ago...I like how this once he asked these Hollywood guys if it would be okay to go home and write for them...I dunno, scripts and stuff...and they said yea, verily, boy howdy...so he went home to Mississippi. Then he wrote As I Lay Dying (maybe the most accessible Faulkner story) in six weeks during a time when he worked in the post office.
No One Gets Out of Here Alive...about Jim Morrison
P.O.W. John G Hubbell's account of the P.O.W.'s of the Vietnam War...included in that group is an enlisted man who was blown overboard when he went out on the weather-deck to watch the naval gun...maybe only a five-inch?--and he eventually escaped. Perhaps the only one to do so.
Dispatches, Michael Herr...more about Vietnam...he was also the narrator, I believe, in the opening scene of Apocalypse Now...Martin Sheen, lying on the bed, etc...though I could have sworn the voice was Sheen's as it did sound like the man.
Something About a Soldier~ Charles Willeford, this is more autobiography...I Was Looking for a Street...more memoir-type stuff from Willeford...if you have never read any Willeford, you're missing a treat. Give his Miami Blues a go and tell me I'm wrong.
If you want something that tickles the funny-bone, give Patrick McManus a-go..."outdoor" stories...we share a birthday...and he has whacky titles like They Shoot Canoes Don't They? and Never Sniff a Gift Fish. The stories are based on "real-life" experience, hunting, fishing, they are short and sweet. @blunthead He has characters w/crazy names like Rancid Crabtree, Retch Sweeney...
I've read biographies of Alexander Hamilton, John Adams...one title of the million or so out there about Reagan.
 

AnnaMarie

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The one I'm talking about is from 1999. I think it was the first autobiography published by WWE like that. He wrote another years later.
That would be the one I read then. I don't remember it much, but I do recall liking it.

I also read Steven Tyler's Does the Noise in my Head Bother You. That one I would not recommend. A bit disjointed, and seemed he was trying to get back at people for things they had said about him in their autobiographies. It was a bit like sitting and listening to a drunk telling people off...and I was never quite sure what the person had done wrong.

I think Bette Davis did that in hers too.

I enjoyed Shirley Temple Black's book. And I've read a few biographies of Judy Garland. I think one was by her daughter.
 

Dana Jean

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Apr 11, 2006
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The High Seas
Bad As I Want to Be -- Dennis Rodman
Tears of Rage -- John Walsh
What's It All About -- Michael Caine
Secret Ceremonies -- Deborah Laake
How to Lose Your Ass and Regain Your Life -- Kirstie Alley
Hazel Court -- Horror Queen
The Dirt -- Motley Crue
It's Only a Movie -- Alfred Hitchcock
Infidel -- Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage -- Raquel Welch
North by Northwestern -- capt. Sig Hansen
The Politician --Andrew Young
Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road -- neil Peart
Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life -- Queen Noor
The Elephant to Hollywood --Michael Caine
Life -- Keith Richards
Big Russ and Me -- Tim Russert
Talk Show -- Dick Cavett
I'm Over All That and Other Confessions -- Shirley MacLaine
RED: My uncensored Life in Rock --Sammy Hagar
Shelley, also known as Shirley -- Shelley Winters
Let's Spend the Night Together -- Pamela Des Barres
The Story of My Life -- Helen Keller
Diana, Her True Story in Her Own Words
PT 109 about John Kennedy
Evil Spirits: The Life of Oliver Reed

I've read more before I started keeping track of my books in a book journal.
 

Dana Jean

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Apr 11, 2006
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The High Seas
The Diary of Anne Frank
Cleopatra: A Life
A CHild called It
Three Cups of Tea
The Last Lecture
Me Talk Pretty One Day
On Writing and Danse Macabre were sort of biographical
The Six Wives of Henry the VIII
The Complete Persepolis
Maus I and II
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Hitch 22
The Children of Henry the VIII
Naked
In Cold Blood
Memoirs of a Geisha
Henry the VIII: The King and his Court
Tuesdays with Morrie
A Girl Named Zippy
Black Like Me
Go Ask Alice
Mommie Dearest
On the Road
The Cross and the Switchblade
Exposing myself -- Geraldo Rivera
My Life -- Burt Reynolds
Helter Skelter
Profiles in Courage
It's Always Something -- Gilda Radner
Are you my Mother
Elvis and Me

Many of these I wouldn't have categorized as a biography but I'm going by what Goodreads considers biographies.
 

prufrock21

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Jun 2, 2011
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The Caribbean
Just finished Steve McQueen, the Life and Legend by Marshall Terrill. And anything by Donald Spoto is good. Also, Bombshell, the Life and Death of Jean Harlow by David Stenn (if you can find it inexpensive) and Beautiful, The Life of Hedy Lamarr by Stephen Michael Shearer. Am currently looking for a
good, inexpensive copy of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story by John O'Dowd.
 

king family fan

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Jul 19, 2010
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south
@Dana Jean you mentioned several I forgot, that I have read.

diary of Ann Frank
Mommy Dearest
Black Like Me
Go Ask Alice
Helter Skelter
Elvis and me (maybe...could be a different one)

Was Lisa Bright and Dark fiction or biography?
Dick Van dyke - My Lucky Life in and out of show biz.
I read a few of these back when I was in school. Lisa Bright and Dark, Go ask Alice were both given as reading assignments.
 

Neesy

#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
May 24, 2012
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The Diary of Anne Frank
Cleopatra: A Life
A CHild called It
Three Cups of Tea
The Last Lecture
Me Talk Pretty One Day
On Writing and Danse Macabre were sort of biographical
The Six Wives of Henry the VIII
The Complete Persepolis
Maus I and II
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Hitch 22
The Children of Henry the VIII
Naked
In Cold Blood
Memoirs of a Geisha
Henry the VIII: The King and his Court
Tuesdays with Morrie
A Girl Named Zippy
Black Like Me
Go Ask Alice

Mommie Dearest
On the Road
The Cross and the Switchblade
Exposing myself -- Geraldo Rivera
My Life -- Burt Reynolds
Helter Skelter
Profiles in Courage
It's Always Something -- Gilda Radner
Are you my Mother
Elvis and Me

Many of these I wouldn't have categorized as a biography but I'm going by what Goodreads considers biographies.

Well I sorta messed that up - I tried to highlight the same ones I had read but accidentally posted already (I think?)
Anyway - Black Like Me, Go Ask Alice, Helter Skelter and A Child Called It (that last one was quite disturbing actually)
I also read Margaret Trudeau's biography (wife of one of our former Prime Ministers) called Beyond Reason - it turns out she apparently had bipolar disorder and depression - no wonder she got in so much trouble 'back in the day' as they say
 

The Nameless

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The Darkside of the Moon (England really)
I know that only about 1% of you guys will have probably heard of him, and I doubt if anyone has read it, but I would like to read The Binman Chronicles by Neville Southall. He is a former Everton Football Club (my team) Goal Keeper, who started out as a binman and went on to become known as one of the best keepers of his generation.
 

Neesy

#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
May 24, 2012
61,289
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Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
I know that only about 1% of you guys will have probably heard of him, and I doubt if anyone has read it, but I would like to read The Binman Chronicles by Neville Southall. He is a former Everton Football Club (my team) Goal Keeper, who started out as a binman and went on to become known as one of the best keepers of his generation.
He wasn't the one who got a liver transplant? I think that is the only soccer player I have heard of that I remember...:rugby: or is that rugby? I know in UK football really means soccer :question_pig:
 

The Nameless

M-O-O-N - That spells Nameless
Jul 10, 2011
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The Darkside of the Moon (England really)
He wasn't the one who got a liver transplant? I think that is the only soccer player I have heard of that I remember...:rugby: or is that rugby? I know in UK football really means soccer :question_pig:
Nah, that was George Best - and he ruined his 2nd liver too and died from Alchoholism. Eric Abidal recently had one because he had Cancer, and he's still playing, he is an inspiration. Big Nev never drank alchohol.

Yes, soccer is football - our football is mostly played by kicking it, not throwing. And rugby is like American football but harder, tougher, and without all the padding. :playful: