It’s the end of the summer and we wish we could hit the beach with a good book, but we’re also working hard with our clients to make some compelling reads that we hope to share with you in the coming months. In the meantime, I asked the staff, “What’s your favourite memoir?”
Here are their answers:
- Cathy Smith, senior designer: Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny. Growing up in the Shadow of Saddam by Zainab Salbi. “I read the book back in 2006, and the description of tyranny through the eyes of someone my age at the time, stayed with me.”
- Samantha Reynolds, president: “One of my favourite memoirs is My Turquoise Years by B.C. writer, M.A.C Farrant. It’s a coming-of-age story about a 14-year-old only child and I found I could relate to her in so many ways. Plus, I laughed my pants off, which is always a treat (though sometimes awkward when reading on the subway).”
- John Wellwood, creative director: “I have always been a huge fan of the film Julia, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Fonda. Interestingly, it was based on Lillian Hellman’s memoir Pentimento, and the story of her relationship with a lifelong friend, ‘Julia,’ who fought against the Nazis in the years prior to World War II, but the filmmakers later learned that most of Hellman’s story was fictionalized. Despite all that, it’s still a riveting film and it’s the first story I think of when I think of memoirs.”
- Norma Larson, studio manager: “Two memoirs stand out for me: Arthur Miller’s and Candice Bergen’s. Timebends [by Miller] was so well written!”
- Monica Murray, VP, client relations: “A client recently recommended the documentary Senna, about Aryton Senna, the Brazilian Formula One race car driver who died in 1994. It is a beautiful movie about someone with a passion, a quiet wisdom, and a desire to make changes to improve the safety of his profession. For someone so young, it is so inspiring. The directors were able to capture so much in his eyes. On his final race, you could almost see it in his eyes that he knew he was going to die that day.”
I just finished Blood, Bones and Butter by chef Gabrielle Hamilton. I was completely enchanted from page one. The first chapter, which details the author’s memories of her father’s annual lamb roast, sets a magical scene:
We threw a party. The same party, every year, when I was a kid. It was a spring-lamb roast, and we laid out four or five whole little guys over an open fire and invited more than a hundred people. Our house was in rural Pennsylvania and was not really a house at all but a wild castle built into the ruins of a nineteenth-century silk mill. Our backyard was not a regular yard but a meandering meadow, with wild geese and a creek running through it. It was a lush setting. The beer, wine, and soda chilled in the creek, and the weeping willows bent their branches down over the water.
We hope you are enjoying a good story, be it a juicy read or a fine flick, too. Leave a comment and share your favourite memoirs with us.
