Fine memoirs and works of creative & narrative nonfiction
Among too many good books to list, these are important—or thrilled me to my toes:
Alexie, Sherman. You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me (Reviewed)
Baldwin, James. The Devil Finds Work (Watching movies while black. Reviewed.)
——. Notes of a Native Son (Discussed and Discussed and Discussed.)
Beard, Jo Ann. The Boys of My Youth
Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Birkerts, Sven. The Art of Time in Memoir (Reviewed.)
Bradbury, Ray. Zen in the Art of Writing (Inspiring essays on craft.)
Bragg, Rick. All Over But the Shoutin’
Caldwell, Gail. Let’s Take the Long Way Home (Noted & Noted & Noted.)
Chapman, Matthew. Trials of the Monkey: An Accidental Memoir (Funny & poignant stealth memoir. Reviewed)
Chee, Alexander. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel (Brave, searching, elegiac essays)
Christman, Jill. Darkroom: A Family Exposure
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me (Distressing, cynical about America, important. Reviewed.)
Crews, Harry. A Childhood: The Biography of a Place (Reviewed. Discussed. And major review and reconsideration for River Teeth.)
DeSalvo, Louise. Chasing Ghosts: A Memoir of a Father, Gone to War
Dillard, Annie. An American Childhood (Noted.)
——. For the Time Being (Reviewed.)
——. Living by Fiction (Reviewed.)
——. The Writing Life ( Reviewed.)
Dubus, Andre III. Townie (A gripping masterpiece.)
Dyer, Geoff. Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D. H. Lawrence (Absurd, brilliant, hilarious.)
——. Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It (essays)
Eggers, Dave. Zeitoun (Reviewed.)
Franzen, Jonathan. The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History
Gilbert, Richard. Shepherd: A Memoir (See book page for review links.)
Gopnik, Adam. Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life (Reviewed.)
Gornick, Vivian. Fierce Attachments (Reviewed.)
——. The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir (Reviewed.)
Grealy, Lucy. The Autobiography of a Face (Noted.)
Griffin, Susan. A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War (Reviewed.)
Griffith, David. A Good War is Hard to Find: The Art of Violence in America (Reviewed.)
Grimes, Tom. Mentor (Q&A)
Hampl, Patricia. Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime (Reviewed.)
Huber, Sonya. Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays From a Nervous System (Review and author interview)
Iversen, Kristen. Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats (Memoir braided with journalistic investigation; an important book.)
Jahren, Hope. Lab Girl
Jung, Carl. Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Kalanithi, Paul. When Breath Becomes Air (Reviewed)
Karr, Mary. Lit (Reviewed.)
Kimball, Kristen. The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love (Compelling story; beautifully written.)
Kimmel, Haven. A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Moreland, Indiana (Discussed.)
Kitchen, Judith. Distance and Direction (Reviewed.)
Klinkenborg, Verlyn. A Few Short Sentences About Writing (Reviewed with The Rural Life.)
——.The Rural Life (Reviewed.)
Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild
Kusz, Natalie. Road Song: A Memoir (reviewed.)
Laing, Olivia. The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
Laymon, Kiese. Heavy: An American Memoir
Lethem, Jonathan. The Disappointment Artist (“The Beards” is perfect.)
Larson, Thomas. The Sanctuary of Illness: A Memoir of Heart Disease (Review and Author Interview.)
Manguso, Sarah. The Two Kinds of Decay
Martin, Lee. From Our House (A top-five memoir. Reviewed.)
——. Such a Life (Memoir essays. Review, Interview.)
Moody, Rick. The Black Veil
Moore, Dinty W. Between Panic and Desire (A postmodern peach.)
Nabokov, Vladimir. Speak, Memory (Reviewed.)
Naughton, Lara. The Jaguar Man (Inspiring, uplifting, humbling.)
Offutt, Chris. My Father, the Pornographer: A Memoir
O’Rourke, Meghan. The Long Goodbye: A Memoir (Reviewed.)
Orr, Gregory. The Blessing (Reviewed, Q&A and Orr’s Guest Post on memoir.)
Patchett, Ann. Truth and Beauty
Perry, Michael. Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time (A portrait of small-town America and its first-responders by one up to his eyeballs in both. Oh, and he’s a bone-crushingly good writer. Reviewed.)
Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World
Prum, Richard O. The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—and Us (Thrilling, important. Reviewed.)
Rankine, Claudia. Citizen (Reviewed.)
Rapp, Emily. Poster Child (A physical disability but an inner transformation. Reviewed.)
Ray, Janisse. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
Richard, Mark. House of Prayer No. 2: A Writer’s Journey Home (Discussed.)
Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters to a Young Poet (Discussed.)
Roorbach, Bill. Temple Stream: A Rural Odyssey (Reviewed.)
Roth, Philip. Patrimony
Ruta, Domenica. With or Without You: A Memoir (Great on time shifts, writer “now.”)
Schrand, Brandon R. Works Cited: An Alphabetical Odyssey of Mayhem and Misbehavior (Reviewed & Discussed.)
Schulz, Kathryn. Lost and Found: A Memoir
Sedaris, David. Me Talk Pretty One day
——When You are Engulfed in Flames
Shapiro, Dani. Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life (Essential inspiration. Discussed.)
Shields, David. The Thing About Life is That One Day You’ll Be Dead (Discussed.)
——How Literature Saved My Life (Or: Reality Hunger II. Or maybe his actual manifesto . . . )
Silverman, Sue William. The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew
Slater, Lauren. Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir
Smith, Alison. Name All the Animals (A top five memoir. Reviewed and Discussed.)
Smith, Patti. M Train (Reviewed.)
Solnit, Rebecca. The Faraway Nearby (Reviewed & Discussed & Discussed & Discussed.)
Stephens, Liz. The Days are Gods (Reviewed, Q&A.)
Strauss, Darin. Half a Life (Truly a great book—a top five memoir. Reviewed.)
Strayed, Cheryl. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail (Analysis.)
Tolle, Eckhart. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (a remarkable religious synthesis. Discussed.)
Updike, John. Self-Consciousness (A classic on the order of Nabokov’s, though Updike is much more likable. Reviewed.)
Urrea, Luis Alberto. The Devil’s Highway: A True Story (Reviewed.)
Welty, Eudora. One Writer’s Beginnings (Discussed.)
White, E.B. One Man’s Meat (Discussed.)
Winterson, Jeanette. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (Reflective, expository; distilled rigor; still-raw pain. Reviewed.)
Wood, Monica. When We Were the Kennedys: A Memoir from Mexico, Maine (Stellar. Lovely, heartbreaking—a top five memoir. Reviewed and Q&A.)
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own (Reviewed.)
——. Moments of Being (Noted & Noted.)
Wolff, Tobias. In Pharaoh’s Army
——. This Boy’s Life
Wright, Richard. Notes of a Native Son
——. Black Boy