Memoir Books
Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa
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“I think I first realized something was wrong when our next-door neighbor, oom Piet Oberholzer, was murdered. I must have been about six then.”
A Widow’s Story
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Joyce Carol Oates, in my experience, is a writer you either love or hate (love because of how effortlessly and incisively she maps out the terrain inside her character’s minds, or hate because of her compulsive, neurotic
Blood, Bones & Butter
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Hamilton has written a smart, funny book that stands out in the glutted chef/memoirist category in that she writes about her life—her childhood in rural New York, working on an MFA in fiction,
Coming of Age in Mississippi
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I saw this for sale in the textbook section of a university bookstore and bought it because (apart from the obvious reason that that it’s a coming-of-age memoir from the point of view of a young girl,
Let’s Take the Long Way Home
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Let’s Take the Long Way Home is Caldwell’s story of her friendship with the writer Caroline Knapp who died of cancer in 2002. Their shared experiences—both were recovering alcoholics, writers,
House of Happy Endings
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The title of this memoir refers to Garis’s grandfather’s stories for children (Uncle Wiggily, as well as Tom Swift and hundreds of others) in which each tale about Uncle Wiggily, the rabbit,
Turning Stones
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This is the memoir of a caseworker for Emergency Children’s Services in New York City. The stories the author tells of the children and families he meets are unforgettable—tragic, depressing, inspiring and at times very funny.
This Boy’s Life
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In This Boy’s Life, Wolff writes about growing up in the 1950s, moving from state to state with his mother as she tries to escape a violent boyfriend. His mother eventually marries and Wolff becomes a stepson to Dwight (Dwight might be able to beat Augusten Burroughs’s lunatic psychiatrist for the Craziest Abusive Parental Figure Award), who torments Wolff throughout the book.
A Charmed Life
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Cawdor Castle is fifteen miles east of Inverness, Scotland, an area with countless castles both standing and in various stages of ruin (nearby Loch Ness, to the southwest of Inverness, is the locale for many of them,
All Souls
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The six kids on the cover of this book (the photo wraps around to the back) are only the beginning of the story—the author and four more siblings are yet to be born! This is not, however,