memoir

Canton Seniors Book Discussion Group

Join us on February 27 as we discuss:

Also available in: e-book | large print

One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose of­fice she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.
 
As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients' lives -- a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys -- she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.
 
With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.
 
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is rev­olutionary in its candor, offering a deeply per­sonal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly reveal­ing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.

Upcoming sessions

There are no upcoming sessions available.

 

If you're looking for a readable memoir, browse this list of suggestions for your next read.

Between the world and me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Also available in: e-book | audiobook | large print

For Ta-Nehisi Coates, history has always been personal. At every stage of his life, he's sought in his explorations of history answers to the mysteries that surrounded him -- most urgently, why he, and other black people he knew, seemed to live in fear. What were they afraid of?

This title can also be checked out in multiple copies for a book discussion.

When it came to her elderly mother and father, Roz practiced denial, avoidance, and distraction. But after her elderly mother's encounter with a ladder, the tools that had served Roz well through her parents' seventies, eighties, and into their early nineties could no longer be deployed. The themes here are universal: adult children accepting a parental role; aging and unstable parents leaving a family home for an institution; dealing with uncomfortable physical intimacies; managing logistics; and hiring strangers to provide the most personal care.

H is for hawk by Helen Macdonald
Also available in: e-book | e-audiobook

When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer, she'd never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators, the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own. Resolving to purchase and raise a goshawk as a means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel, and turned to the guidance of author T.H. White's chronicle, The Goshawk. This book is an unflinching account of bereavement and a unique look at the magnetism of an extraordinary beast, with a parallel examination of a legendary writer's eccentric falconry. Obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir. Join us at Saturday, April 16 at 10 AM.

Biography Suggestions by Grade

Looking for fascinating stories about real people? Explore the following list for some suggestions.

Kindergarten

Gus & me [kit]: the story of my granddad and my first guitar by Keith Richards, with Barnaby Harris and Bill Shapiro ; art by Theodora Richards — About Keith Richards’ relationship with his grandfather, this copy comes with a CD of the author reading the story.

Marvelous Mattie: how Margaret E. Knight became an inventor by Emily Arnold McCully — A young woman inventor becomes known as the female Edison.

A boy and a jaguar by written by Alan Rabinowitz ; illustrated by Cátia Chien — A young boy struggles with stuttering, and uses his relationship with animals to overcome his difficulties.

A Big Little Life

Novelist Dean Koontz thought he achieved contentment in his life; happily married to his high-school sweetheart and a very successful writing career with more than 20 New York Times bestsellers so far. Then along came Trixie, a retired service dog from the Canine Companions for Independence. Koontz, who often features dogs in his books, never had owned one. In his memoir, A Big Little Life, he tells the story of falling in love at middle age with lovable Golden Retriever.

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