Memoir Book Reviews

Poignant and warming to the soul, Salmon Swimming Upstream and Homebound: Tales about Brotherhood from Bear Creek by Stephen E. Johnson is a reflective memoir, diving into the perennial power of family, place, and nature to help renew bonds and enliven the spirit.

Sliding decades backward into the past, readers are welcomed into the intimacy of a family still finding its feet out in the country, away from the tumult of city life. Three brothers gather in a beloved cabin for a weekend of escape and remembrance in the wilderness of the Cascades, falling into the comfort of siblings sharing […]

A visceral and intensely personal memoir about trauma, resilience, forgiveness, and grace, Diane: True Survivor as told to Ward V.B. Lassoe is a portrait of heartbreaking fortitude.

Drawing readers through the tangled movements of Diane’s repeatedly fractured life, this is a vivid account of one woman’s determination to transcend the past, even with all the odds set against her. A detailed and thoroughly unflinching story, this dictated memoir looks at the situations forced upon her, poor choices she made and regretted, and moments of moral clarity that likely saved her life and any hope for a future.

Beginning with a […]

Paging through the chapters of his own adventurous existence, Robert Furmaga delivers a thoughtful and nostalgia-heavy memoir in A Life’s Journey: Choice and Circumstance.

Revealing the seminal moments and unforgettable events that shaped him, this is a compelling anthology of essays and treasured memories, combined neatly with professional achievements and personal accolades. From even the author’s earliest years of life, he recounts clear-eyed scenes and nuanced details of his successes, failures, and hard-won lessons, from terrifying tumbles out of bed and touching instances of parental bonding to the overindulgences of his teenage years and those first stumbling errors of […]