Reading Autobiography
As our social networks expand across our teens and twenties, we repeat these stories to others and to ourselves. We use them to feel a sense of coherence as we move from place to place. The stories we tell about ourselves become facets of our identity. They reveal our unique complexity. All at once, they say something about friends, family, and cul
... See moreMeg Jay • The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now
One must attend to developing new models of the self and self-making that recognize the labor of others in the making of each and every individual. And one must recognize that the desire to invent a life is no longer either evidence of narcissistic self-involvement or an emancipatory countercultural impulse, but rather is increasingly required as a
... See moreMicki McGee • Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life
Autobiography provides an alternate route—a seeming detour that may ultimately tell us something about an artist’s sensibility and the experiences that shaped it.
Terry Gross • All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists
