Myrthe's List

I'm late posting my list here, but the list has been up on my blog for a while already. These are the books I plan to read for this challenge:

* Black Dog of Fate by Peter Balakian. A memoir of an Armenian-American who learns about his heritage and about the genocide that happened to his ancestors at the beginning of the 20th century. Technically, this is a reread for me, as I read it this past summer. But it is so incredibly rich in content and so well written that I really want to read it again. I didn't get around to write a review the first time, so I'll discuss it for the first time for the challenge.

* Iran Awakening by Shirin Ebadi. She is a human rights lawyer from Iran and in 2003 won the Nobel Peace Price for her work.

* Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore (to double for the Russian Reading Challenge), a biography of Joseph Stalin's younger years.

* The Mitford Sisters by Mary S. Lovell (to double for the Chunkster Challenge)

* Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi.

I have one other book on my TBR-pile that I am not sure yet really is a memoir. I want to read it next year anyway, and if it fits, I will include it in my challenge list. The book is called Ararat by Dutch journalist and writer Frank Westerman (the book is in my native language Dutch). The book recounts the author's search for what meaning the religion he grew up with has for him and what place it has in his life now.

Shortly before I found out about this challenge, I read the memoirs of Queen Noor of Jordan. I posted a review of that here. Also, over the summer I read an anthology with excerpts from memoirs and autobiographies of women. My review (with lots of links for inspiration) is here. The collection was wonderful and very inspirational. I added lots of the authors to my wishlist!