More Autobiography Talk

This past week, I finished up both of Carol Burnett's books: One More Time & This Time Together. I enjoyed both of them.

One More Time originally started in the mid 80's as a letter to her three daughters. It became a memoir of her early childhood up through her rise to fame. After moving from Texas at age seven, she grew up in a depression-ridden part of Hollywood, raised by her grandmother because her divorced parents were alcoholics. Despite all the trials & tribulations she faced, she grew up to be one of the most loved female comedy artists of all time, in my opinion.

I read This Time Together in just two days. I started it on Saturday afternoon & finished it early Sunday evening. Her style of writing in this book was a bit different. During the 11 year run of The Carol Burnett Show, she would warm up the audience w/ a Q&A session. Continuing that in later years, she would travel around the country just doing the Q&A shows. That is where this book comes in. It is a collection of essays in response to the most common questions asked about her childhood & family, the stars she encountered over the years, how Tim, Vicky, & Harvey ended up on her show, etc.

Back in the comments to THIS POST, my friend Lawgirl asked what I thought of Julie Andrews' memoir, Home. She had read it after reading This Time Together & liked Carol Burnett's better. I really liked Julie's memoir, but did find it a bit slow at times. Now that I've read both of Carol's books, I feel that I can only compare Julie's to Carol's first book, One More Time. Both detailed their early childhoods up their big breaks is show business. (This Time Together didn't seem as much of a memoir to me. It was more a collections of essays or mini stories about the people & events in her life.) So, if I had to choose whose memoir I preferred, I'd have to pick Julie's.

Also in that post, I mentioned that I was going to read the biography of Shel Silverstein. Once I got the copy from the library, I read the cover summary & decided that I didn't want to read it after all. I've had several of his books since childhood & love them. However, his lifestyle did not fit the view of him that I had in my mind. I prefer to think of him as a writer of great children's stories & poems, not the adventurous man he was.