Add this one to your memoir list: The Memory of All That, by Katharine Weber

Actually, move "The Memory of All That" by Katharine Weber to the top of your memoir-list, particularly if you are reading memoir because you want to know how the good ones are done. Or if you're reading memoir because you love memoir. I read memoir for both reasons.

(There are a lot of good ones. We know some that aren't. If you know me, you've probably heard me gnashing my teeth over a few of those.)

"The Memory of All That" does everything right. Weber takes a loving and fierce (not easy to do at the same time) look at two generations of her family and their friends who are interesting in their own right (witty lyricist and musician Kay Swift,famous and witty George Gershwin, who collaborated with Swift, Weber's mother's place in an historic American family, and Weber's father, who some might call 'unusual.')

But how does a writer make memoir out of a family saga?

Sorcery. Hard work. A willingness to understand, in lyrical and often fall-out-of-bed laughing * language, how the good and the less-good parts of a family make a writer who she is.

More on the book and Weber at her blog, which you can get to via her website .

In other words? Honest and real and interesting. (Note to beginners? There will be a pop quiz on 'interesting.')

*Falling out of bed only possible for those who are reading in bed.

PS. And the book has some wonderful photographs, especially if you like high style and dogs. Not always at the same time.