I've become a great fan of biographies of people that aren't celebrities or politicians or otherwise famous. (Although I also love political biographies!)

Anyone else interested in the less-than-famous? I'd recommend The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer and Corked by Kathryn Borel.

At the risk of adding substantially to my TBR shelves: any recommendations?

I read an interesting memoir called Cups with no Handles at the start of this year. A memoir of Bette Boynton, an Australian woman who was a keen political activist and social reformer in the 1930s-through to the seventies. She told her tale to Carolyn Landon who added an afterward by her daughter, as Bette died in 2003.
A very interesting look at urban and rural life in Victoria, Australia as well as a non-saccharine view of mothers and their children - especially with the children's viewpoint of how they felt about their mother's political and non-traditional mothering activities.

edited to add: oops, my LT notes say I read it end of 2008. Time flies...

Message edited by its author, Nov 1, 2009, 3:54am.

Less-than-famous? Hell, how about unknown, or obscure? Try mine. I've written 3 volumes of memoirs so far and am working on another one. I'm nobody, but people seem to like 'em. They keep chugging along on Amazon and at my website (RatholeBooks.com). I read more memoirs than anything else these days, but still love a good novel too.

Alain DeBotton wrote a biography of a girl he liked called Kiss and Tell.

I really enjoyed The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls.

If you are into that kind of thing the book Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston about the young man whose arm was trapped under the rock and he had to cut it off in order to survive.

I have read several survival type memoirs

Another good one is The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan. Definately just an ordinary family.

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Message edited by its author, Nov 4, 2009, 8:29pm.

May not qualify but Mykal Gilmore's Shot In The Heart was really good.

I really liked The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio -- what a great story! Another good one was Eyeing the Flash: The Making of a Carnival Con Artist by Peter Fenton

An autobiography I really enjoyed was Paperboy: Confessions of a Future Engineer by Henry Petroski. Petroski is not exactly unknown, he has written a dozen books or so. I've never seen him on Leno though. He has even written a book about bookshelves. Right up our alley.

I think he also wrote a book about pencils?

I'm reading (for the second time actually) Alexandra Fuller's memoir of her childhood in Africa, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight. As immigrants from England, her family struggled to maintain their farm as Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.

I've read two by Sylvia Smith, Appleby House and Misadventures.

Also The Piano Shop on the Left Bank by Thad Carhart.