November 2024 Books
“While we waited for the tours to finish, my mom loved to go through her dad’s books to understand him better. He was clearly searching for a deeper comprehension of the world-most of the books were spiritual or self-help titles, things like Understanding Who You Are, and Sacred Science of Numbers, and How to Be Happy, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, even Ram Dass’s Be Here Now-really human things. There were also lots of Bibles. Elvis would underline phrases and write things like ‘AMEN!’ next to them.”
From Here To The Great Unknown by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough is hands down my favorite memoir I’ve read this year. I like how it goes back and forth between Riley’s voice and Lisa Marie’s voice which is unusual to see within a memoir. No doubt Lisa Marie Presley had a very tough life losing her dad at a young age, dealing with fame, the loss of her son, drug addiction, etc. Nothing is held back and no raw detail is omitted which makes it very genuine and authentic. Yes Riley’s mother, Lisa Marie, had many good moments in her life, but unfortunately it seemed that tragedy always kept coming knocking at her door.
My favorite parts in the book were the moments and memories they share at Graceland together. After visiting Graceland a couple of years ago, I have an even deeper appreciation for Elvis and the Presley family. I thought it was funny that they would be trapped in Elvis’s bedroom while the tours were going on and how they had staff bring up McDonald’s while they eagerly waited for the last tour of the day to end. The thing I admire most about Elvis which is briefly mentioned in this book, isn’t his music, but his love for reading. Elvis really loved to read deep, spiritual, soul searching, self-help type of books. Not the fictional classics, but the raw real books to get a better grip and understanding on life. I appreciate that about him because Elvis and I have that one thing in common and I admire that about him. Lisa Marie elaborated on his book taste and went on to further add how many of his books in his room had the pages underlined as a way of him outlining his favorite passages of a particular book.