Writing a Memoir, Writing a Biography | Write Your Memoir

Abraham Verghese recommended in yesterday’s Five Best in The Wall Street Journal five of his favorite books by physicians, including two memoirs. Adventures in Two Worlds is A. J. Cronin’s memoir about being a young physician in a Welsh mining town. The Puzzle People by Thomas E. Starzl is the memoir of the pioneer transplantation surgeon.

Memoirs by physicians have have the added layer of insight which comes from a trained physician’s eye. Abraham Verghese’s 1994 memoir, My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story, is one of my favorite physician-memoirs. Verghese published a wonderful first novel last year, Cutting for Stone:

Review of Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese