A somewhat random sampling of memoirs worth checking out…

Straight Up and Dirty: A Memoir
by Stephanie Klein

A big momma of the blogger book deals, Stephanie Klein just can’t be ignored. The beloved and be-loathed “bloggist†of Greek Tragedy puts it all out there yet again – the demise of her perfect marriage, the therapy sessions, the cocktails, the headfirst dive back into the dating pool, preferably a few men at a time.

My Pet Virus: The True Story of a Rebel Without a Cure
by Shawn Decker

Shawn Timothy Decker’s initials are S.T.D. This creepy bit of foreshadowing opens My Pet Virus, his comic memoir of HIV positivity. A hemophiliac, Decker was diagnosed with HIV from a blood transfusion in sixth grade. He writes without self-pity of his off-beat childhood and adult adventures as a positive heterosexual man in rural Virginia. And while the topics addressed are deadly serious, Decker’s style doesn’t ask for our pity either — especially now that he’s married to a beauty queen.

Christmas Remembered
by Tomie dePaola

Tomie de Paola, author and artist of more than two hundred books for young readers, offers a Christmas memoir in words and pictures for children and adults. He shares fifteen memories spanning sixty years and life phases from art student to novice monk.

Wild Harmonies: A Life of Music and Wolves
By Helene Grimaud

If you never thought much about the connection between classical music and wolves, Helene Grimaud would like you to try. A wildly successful French pianist, she met her first wolf in Florida and felt an instant connection. Today she has a wolf conservation center and works as an advocate against their unfair demonization. In return, the wolves have “given her a sense of freedom that she has never before experienced, even as an artist.â€

Cancer Vixen
by Marisa Acocella Marchetto

The young-woman-with-cancer-retains-her-humor genre seems to be a growing one. This is, of course, unfortunate for the young women but often fortunate for readers. In Cancer Vixen, cartoonist Marisa Acocella Marchetto retains her humor and her style as well. Her graphic memoir portrays her life as a “shoe-crazy, lipstick-obsessed, wine-swilling, pasta-slurping, fashion-fanatic, single-forever, about-to-get-married big-city girl cartoonist with a fabulous life.” Plus breast cancer. Minus health insurance.

If you find you dig the whole cancer comic thing, you should also read Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person: A Memoir in Comics by Miriam Engelberg.