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Climbing Mountains, Crossing Borders: Three Powerful Women's Memoirs

Group camping on a grassy hill with mountains in the background. Text reads: Climbing Mountains, Crossing Borders: Three Powerful Women's Memoirs.

Curated by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books)


Since we're in the midst of May—the perfect month to dive into some memoirs!—I thought I'd share a few books that we haven't highlighted as much on the blog. Each of these women's stories offers a compelling deep dive into a life that may be very different from our own (one of my favorite elements of reading memoirs!) Click on the title to see the full review.



"Silvia Vasquez-Lavado's In the Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage chronicles the author's journey as she attempts to summit Mount Everest. This memoir, read on audio by the author, is one of the most powerful books I've read in a long time. I listened to this one thanks to Libro.fm and their ALC program.


"In this beautiful and raw personal exploration, Silvia Vasquez-Lavado moves seamlessly between the present time—her attempt to summit Mount Everest—and her complex past, which led her to the present moment. " Click to read the full review.


"How am I supposed to keep going when there is nobody to guide me? Will I be strong enough to carry myself?” (34).

"Maggie Downs’s memoir opens with a return to Cairo. She had gone home briefly–mid-way through her year-long trip around the world–to bury her mother, a victim of Alzheimer’s disease for ten years. Now she’s back, to finish this globe-spanning tribute to her mother’s dreams." Click to read the full review.



"If you listen to the pod, you know I love a good memoir. We have talked about Ruth Wariner's The Sound of Gravel several times on the show, and I thought I would share my complete review of this fantastic memoir. In fact, I would say that this book is the book that lit the fire for my love of memoirs and my compulsion to read as many as I can get my hands on.


"Written by Ruth Wariner (known predominantly as Ruthie in the book), this book chronicles Ruthie's life with her family in a polygamist colony in Mexico. Ruth and her siblings live in poverty with her mother and her stepfather (who is shared between multiple wives) in a house that is barely livable." Click to read the full review.


(A note to our readers: click on the hashtags above to see our other blog posts with the same hashtag.)


Interested in what else we're reading? Check out our Featured Books page.


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