My favorite memoirs...

Sometimes when something is hugely popular, I avoid it. Not sure why that is (but I suspect it has its roots in the unfortunate incident of my reading The Celestine Prophecy.) Anyway, I resisted Eat, Pray, Love for a really long time, then finally broke down and got my copy after a close friend and I started a cozy two-person book club and chose EPL because it was about a woman's journey of self-discovery, which was something we had been discussing.

Anyway, the book is lovely, and I consumed it with the same relish that the author would consume a pizza in Naples. Elizabeth Gilbert meets the world as a friend, which I found endearing and instructional. She is witty and charming and, at moments, self-deprecating and unflinchingly honest; I found it impossible not to like her. And, while I learned a lot about Liz Gilbert and the world from reading this book, I also learned a thing or two about myself (and I didn't even have to scrub floors for five hours a day in India to do so. Thank you, EG.)

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LOVED this book. Witty and poignant.

I would read about a lot more dysfunctional families/odd childhoods, if the tellers of the tales were as good as poet Mary Karr. Her follow up, Cherry was also great and I'm looking forward to her latest, which is called Lit.

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I don't remember where I first read about Among the Porcupines. It was in an article, possibly--probably--in Vogue magazine, which I read religiously for years though its featured $10,000 size-0 dresses are about as practical as a rocket ship.

Anyway, Among the Porcupines was an irresistible rags-to-riches and riches-to-rags story that featured supporting characters like Walter Matthau, Gloria Vanderbilt, Charlie Chaplin, and Truman Copote.

I was--and still am--quite taken with Carol Matthau. I'm sure that I will never relinquish my copy of this book.