Hi and welcome to the reading world!
Today I’m sharing a book list about some non-fiction, specifically memoirs. These are ones I’ve read in either physical copy or audiobook. Memoirs are one of the area of non-fiction I especially enjoy reading, so I’d love to have some recommendations of your favorites in the comments!
Let’s get into the list.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “beautiful and eye-opening” (Jacqueline Woodson), “hilarious and heart-rending” (Celeste Ng) graphic memoir about American identity, interracial families, and the realities that divide us, from the acclaimed author of The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing. ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Chicago Tribune, The New York Public Library, Publishers Weekly • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Time, BuzzFeed, Esquire, Literary Journal, Kirkus Reviews LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/OPEN BOOK AWARD “Jacob’s earnest recollections are often heartbreaking, but also infused with levity and humor. What stands out most is the fierce compassion with which she parses the complexities of family and love.”—Time
Good Talk by Mira Jacob
Published by Random House Publishing Group on March 24, 2020
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs, Comics & Graphic Novels / Nonfiction / Biography & Memoir, Humor / Topic / Marriage & Family
Pages: 368
“How brown is too brown?”
“Can Indians be racist?”
“What does real love between really different people look like?”
Like many six-year-olds, Mira Jacob’s half-Jewish, half-Indian son, Z, has questions about everything. At first they are innocuous enough, but as tensions from the 2016 election spread from the media into his own family, they become much, much more complicated. Trying to answer him honestly, Mira has to think back to where she’s gotten her own answers: her most formative conversations about race, color, sexuality, and, of course, love.
Written with humor and vulnerability, this deeply relatable graphic memoir is a love letter to the art of conversation—and to the hope that hovers in our most difficult questions.
“Good Talk uses a masterful mix of pictures and words to speak on life’s most uncomfortable conversations.”—io9
“Mira Jacob just made me toss everything I thought was possible in a book-as-art-object into the garbage. Her new book changes everything.”—Kiese Laymon, New York Times bestselling author of Heavy
#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • One of the most acclaimed books of our time: an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University
Educated by Tara Westover
Published by Random House Publishing Group on February 20, 2018
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography / Religious, Biography & Autobiography / Women
Pages: 352
“Extraordinary . . . an act of courage and self-invention.”—The New York Times
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • BILL GATES’S HOLIDAY READING LIST • FINALIST: National Book Critics Circle’s Award In Autobiography and John Leonard Prize For Best First Book • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award • Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
“Beautiful and propulsive . . . Despite the singularity of [Westover’s] childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?”—Vogue
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, O: The Oprah Magazine, Time, NPR, Good Morning America, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, The Economist, Financial Times, Newsday, New York Post, theSkimm, Refinery29, Bloomberg, Self, Real Simple, Town & Country, Bustle, Paste, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, LibraryReads, Book Riot, Pamela Paul, KQED, New York Public Library
From the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist: a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself. “I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. . . . I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe.” In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she explores her past—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself. With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved—in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.
Hunger by Roxane Gay
Published by HarperCollins on June 12, 2018
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography / Women, Family & Relationships / Abuse / General
Pages: 320
2020 ALA Alex Award Winner In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere. "It’s also a great resource for those who identify as nonbinary or asexual as well as for those who know someone who identifies that way and wish to better understand." — SLJ (starred review)
Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe
Published by Oni Press on May 28, 2019
Genres: Comics & Graphic Novels / General, Comics & Graphic Novels / LGBT, Comics & Graphic Novels / Nonfiction / Biography & Memoir
Pages: 240
2020 Stonewall — Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book
A revolutionary memoir about domestic abuse by the award-winning author of Her Body and Other Parties In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming. And it’s that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope—the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman—through which Machado holds the events up to the light and examines them from different angles. She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships. Machado’s dire narrative is leavened with her characteristic wit, playfulness, and openness to inquiry. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek, and Disney villains, as well as iconic works of film and fiction. The result is a wrenching, riveting book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be.
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
Published by Graywolf Press on November 5, 2019
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / LGBTQ, Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs
Pages: 224
Is there anything spookier than a silent feline, eyes glinting, stalking you in the night...IN YOUR OWN HOME?? Master of horror Junji Ito turns his twisted eye on his own life in this comedic graphic memoir about becoming a cat owner, now reissued in a deluxe hardcover featuring an exclusive interivew with Ito and a NEW cover illustration by the author that GLOWS IN THE DARK! The perfect gift for the slightly-twisted cat lover in your life. Reigning king of horror manga Junji Ito presents a series of hissterical tales chronicling his real-life trials and tribulations of becoming a cat owner. Junji Ito, as J-kun, has recently built a new house and has invited his financée, A-ko, to live with him. Little did he know...his blushing bride-to-be has some unexpected company in tow--Yon, a ghastly-looking family cat, and Mu, an adorable Norwegian forest cat. Despite being a dog person, J-kun finds himself purrsuaded by their odd cuteness and thus begins his comedic struggle to gain the affection of his new feline friends.
Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu Collector's Edition by Junji Ito
Published by National Geographic Books on November 9, 2021
Genres: Comics & Graphic Novels / Manga / Horror, Comics & Graphic Novels / Manga / Humorous, Comics & Graphic Novels / Manga / Nonfiction
Pages: 128
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living? NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • People • NPR • The Washington Post • Slate • Harper’s Bazaar • Time Out New York • Publishers Weekly • BookPage Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational Memoir At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir. Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Published by Random House Publishing Group on January 12, 2016
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs, Philosophy / Mind & Body, Social Science / Death & Dying
Pages: 256
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life. Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income. In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants. Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.
I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Published by Simon and Schuster on August 9, 2022
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts, Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs, Family & Relationships / Dysfunctional Families, Family & Relationships / General
Pages: 320
#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
Finalist for the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction A hilarious and whip-smart collection of essays, offering an intimate look at bisexuality, gender, and, of course, sex. Perfect for fans of Lindy West, Samantha Irby, and Rebecca Solnit—and anyone who wants, and deserves, to be seen. If Jen Winston knows one thing for sure, it’s that she’s bisexual. Or wait—maybe she isn’t? Actually, she definitely is. Unless…she’s not? Jen’s provocative, laugh-out-loud debut takes us inside her journey of self-discovery, leading us through stories of a childhood “girl crush,” an onerous quest to have a threesome, and an enduring fear of being bad at sex. Greedy follows Jen’s attempts to make sense of herself as she explores the role of the male gaze, what it means to be “queer enough,” and how to overcome bi stereotypes when you’re the posterchild for all of them: greedy, slutty, and constantly confused. With her clever voice and clear-eyed insight, Jen draws on personal experiences with sexism and biphobia to understand how we all can and must do better. She sheds light on the reasons women, queer people, and other marginalized groups tend to make ourselves smaller, provoking the question: What would happen if we suddenly stopped? Greedy shows us that being bisexual is about so much more than who you’re sleeping with—it’s about finding stability in a state of flux and defining yourself on your own terms. This book inspires us to rethink the world as we know it, reminding us that Greedy was a superpower all along.
Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much by Jen Winston
Published by Simon and Schuster on October 5, 2021
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / LGBTQ, Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs, Social Science / Essays
Pages: 336
Winner of 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction • #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Samantha Irby, beloved author of We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, a rip-roaring, edgy and unabashedly raunchy new collection of hilarious essays. The essays in this collection draw on the raw, hilarious particulars of Irby's new life. Wow, No Thank You. is Irby at her most unflinching, riotous, and relatable.
Wow, No Thank You. by Samantha Irby
Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group on March 31, 2020
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs, Humor / Form / Essays
Pages: 336
“Stay-up-all-night, miss-your-subway-stop, spit-out-your-beverage funny.... irresistible as a snack tray, as intimately pleasurable as an Irish goodbye.” —Jia Tolentino
Irby is forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin despite what Inspirational Instagram Infographics have promised her. She has left her job as a receptionist at a veterinary clinic, has published successful books and has been friendzoned by Hollywood, left Chicago, and moved into a house with a garden that requires repairs and know-how with her wife in a Blue town in the middle of a Red state where she now hosts book clubs and makes mason jar salads. This is the bourgeois life of a Hallmark Channel dream. She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with "tv executives slash amateur astrologers" while being a "cheese fry-eating slightly damp Midwest person," "with neck pain and no cartilage in [her] knees," who still hides past due bills under her pillow.
The bestselling graphic novel acclaimed as "the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust" (Wall Street Journal) and "the first masterpiece in comic book history" (The New Yorker) - PULITZER PRIZE WINNER - One of Variety's "Banned and Challenged Books Everyone Should Read" Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author's account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma.
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Published by Pantheon Books on November 20, 1986
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / Historical, Comics & Graphic Novels / Nonfiction / General
Pages: 159
Here is the paper back boxed set, in its original two-volume format, re-released to include a sixteen-page booklet designed by the artist.
A brutally moving work of art--widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written--Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author's father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An intimate, behind-the-scenes, richly illustrated celebration of beloved The Office co-stars Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey’s friendship, and an insiders' view of Pam Beesly, Angela Martin, and the iconic TV show. Featuring many of their never-before-seen photos. Receptionist Pam Beesly and accountant Angela Martin had very little in common when they toiled together at Scranton’s Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. But, in reality, the two bonded in their very first days on set and, over the nine seasons of the series’ run, built a friendship that transcended the show and continues to this day. Sharing everything from what it was like in the early days as the show struggled to gain traction, to walking their first red carpet—plus exclusive stories on the making of milestone episodes and how their lives changed when they became moms—The Office BFFs is full of the same warm and friendly tone Jenna and Angela have brought to their Office Ladies podcast.
The Office BFFs by Jenna Fischer, Angela Kinsey
Published by HarperCollins on May 17, 2022
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts, Biography & Autobiography / Women, Family & Relationships / Friendship, Family & Relationships / Parenting / Motherhood, Humor / Topic / Celebrity & Popular Culture
Pages: 336
Tillie Walden's Eisner Award winning graphic memoir Spinning captures what it’s like to come of age, come out, and come to terms with leaving behind everything you used to know. Weekends were spent in glitter and tights at competitions. Perform. Smile. And do it again. She was good. She won. And she hated it. For ten years, figure skating was Tillie Walden’s life. She woke before dawn for morning lessons, went straight to group practice after school, and spent weekends competing at ice rinks across the state. Skating was a central piece of her identity, her safe haven from the stress of school, bullies, and family. But as she switched schools, got into art, and fell in love with her first girlfriend, she began to question how the close-minded world of figure skating fit in with the rest of her life, and whether all the work was worth it given the reality: that she, and her friends on the team, were nowhere close to Olympic hopefuls. The more Tillie thought about it, the more Tillie realized she’d outgrown her passion—and she finally needed to find her own voice. This title has Common Core connections. A New York City Public Library Notable Best Book for Teens
Spinning by Tillie Walden
Published by First Second on September 12, 2017
Genres: Young Adult Fiction / Comics & Graphic Novels / General, Young Adult Fiction / LGBTQ, Young Adult Fiction / Sports & Recreation / Winter Sports, Young Adult Nonfiction / Biography & Autobiography / LGBTQ, Young Adult Nonfiction / Comics & Graphic Novels / Biography, Young Adult Nonfiction / Sports & Recreation / Winter Sports
Pages: 395
It was the same every morning. Wake up, grab the ice skates, and head to the rink while the world was still dark.
A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2017
A 2018 YALSA Great Graphic Novel
A 2017 Booklist Youth Editors' Choice
What are some memoirs you would recommend? Feel free to let me know in the comments.
Thanks for stopping by!
Rae