It’s the most wonderful time of the year… when truck loads of memoirs hit the bookstores in time for festive season shopping. I always stock up on autobiographies for my holiday reading and this year there are plenty to keep me happy during December.
First up, and the most highly anticipated, is Barack Obama’s The Promised Land. Released next week, the book is about the inside story of Obama becoming the 44th president of the US as well as being the first African American to hold the highest office in the country. It should be an enlightening read, especially at this time, as Obama writes about the dynamics of the demented partisan politics in Washington. The blurb also promises that Obama is “frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment”.
Lenny Kravitz opens up about his childhood and early start of his career in his bio called Let Love Rule which is written with David Ritz. The musician writes lovingly of how his parents met, his difficult relationship with his father Sty who was a strict disciplinarian, his love for his mother Roxie Roker who was a star in the 80s sitcom The Jeffersons, and of his marriage to Lisa Bonet who played Denise Huxtable in the now unwatchable The Cosby Show. Heavyweight names like Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Cicely Tyson are dropped throughout his memoir, but despite this Kravitz remains charmingly down to earth — perhaps because he grew up in two different worlds — Upper East Side New York and Brooklyn. In bookstores now.
Our own celeb Survivor/celeb stripper Gigi tells all in Nipple Caps & G-strings. It’s the story of Perlé van Schalkwyk from Paarl, the daughter of Jehovah Witnesses who becomes one of SA’s most successful erotic dancers and the owner of The Lollipop Lounge. Jeepers, be prepared as there’s a lot to take in but it’s certainly enthralling. Already in bookstores.
When I read the blurb for Matthew McConaughey’s Greenlights, I could hear the actor’s Texas drawl so easily. He writes: “This is 50 years of my sights and seens, felts and figured outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops. Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s licence, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.” On shelves from November 19.
I love the title of this memoir: Putco Mafani: The Price and Prize of Greatness. This is a rags-to-riches story of how Mafani became a household name when he anchored the biggest breakfast show on the radio channel Umhlobo Wenene FM. In bookstores now.
One I’m certainly going to read as soon as it’s out in December is Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. The country pop icon gives us an insight into 175 of her songs that’s defined her life and career. To illustrate the memoir there are previously unpublished photographs from Parton’s personal archives. Eeep!
