Wrapping up the Memorable Memoir Reading Challenge

It’s that time — lots of bloggers are wrapping up the year with their ‘best of 2010′ posts.  I know I’m not alone in finding so many lists of great books that I didn’t get around to reading this year …  Julie at BookingMama suggested that someone create a 2011 reading challenge based on the ‘best of 2010′ lists!

Speaking of challenges, SuziQOregon at Whimpulsive swears she’s participating in only one reading challenge next year (and says “I’m considering a “challenges I’m not doing” tab with lusts of books I’d choose” … how’s that lists/lusts for a fun Freudian slip?!?)

I don’t typically write a ‘best of the year’ post, but I’ll mark my favorites as I wrap up completed challenges.  And when those challenge wrap-ups are complete, I’ll move on to confessing which challenges I’m embracing for 2011.  On with the show:

Melissa, aka Betty and Boo’s Mommy from The Betty and Boo Chronicles, created and hosted a brand-new challenge this year.

The Memorable Memoir Reading Challenge for 2010 asked participants to read at least four memoirs, letters, diaries, and/or autobiographies during 2010.  Overlaps with other challenges were allowed, as are audiobooks.  Here’s a list of the books I read for the challenge, I’ve marked my favorites with an asterisk:

1. Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven by Susan Jane Gilman  * funny!  The author was able to put a humorous spin on a harrowing situation.  I liked this so much in abridged audio that I read the full print edition as well.
2. The Power of Half by Kevin Salwen and Hannah Salwen
3. Every Day in Tuscany by Frances Mayes
4. Clara’s Kitchen by Clara Cannucciari
5. A Long Stone’s Throw by Alphie McCourt
6. Have I Got a Guy for You ed. by Alix Strauss
7. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot  * yes, one of my faves, but … why did I think this qualified as a memoir?!  Oops!  Fortunately I read more than enough true memoirs to meet my challenge goal!
8. Talking to Girls about Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield  * again, funny!  The author is about my age (well, maybe he’s a year younger), and was raised about 20 miles from me (I was west of Boston, he was south).  The references he makes to bands, fashion trends, pop culture, and Boston landmarks are spot-on.
9. The Bucolic Plague by Josh Kilmer-Purcell  *  wait for it … funny!  Not rolling on the floor funny, there are some serious stresses in here.  But, the author gives us the highs with a large dash of humor, and the lows without garment-rending melancholy.  I hope to read his previous memoir, I Am Not Myself These Days.

There you have it!  Even with mis-classifying The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, I completed the challenge; I’m pretty pleased about that, because the rest of my wrap-up posts don’t look to be as positive.

How about you?  Did you join Memorable Memoir?  Do you make a “best of 2010″ list (or lust)?