READING RECOMMENDATIONS

*PLEASE NOTE: This is by no means a ‘Best Memoirs of All-Time’ list, but rather a list of books used and referenced in the Memoir Writing Ink course. More than anything, these books offer a range of styles, subjects and approaches to memoir, and the idea is to offer an overview of the terrain and a wide range of possibilities. I recommend choosing one or two books that immediately inspire you, as well as one that is not the kind of thing you normally read.

MEMOIRS about CHILDHOOD/COMING OF AGE:
Educated by Tara Westover [USA]
Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller [then-Rhodesia, Malawi, Zambia]
Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson [UK]
Too Afraid to Cry by Ali Cobby Eckermann [Australia]
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov [Russia]
Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje [Sri Lanka/Canada]
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou [USA]
Too Close to the Falls by Catherine Gildiner [Canada]
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt [Ireland]
This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff [USA]
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls [USA]
The Liar's Club by Mary Karr [USA]

MEMOIRS about LOSS/GRIEF:
The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander
Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken
Nocturne by Helen Humphreys

MARRIAGE/RELATIONSHIPS:
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith [the American poet, not the British actor!]
Hourglass by Dani Shapiro [marriage]
Know the Night by Maria Mutch [austistic child]
Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett [friendship]

MEMOIRS about JOURNEYS or PLACE:
Island Home by Tim Winton [Australia]
Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr [Italy]

EXQUISITE HARD-TO-CATEGORISE MEMOIRS:
Birds Art Life by Kyo Maclear [in praise of a quiet ordinary life]
There is a Season by Patrick Lane [recovery from a lifetime of addiction]
Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley
My Year of Spiritual Living by Anne Bokma [from fundamentalist childhood to spiritual adulthood]
Belonging by Isabel Huggan [musings on the theme of belonging]
Conundrum by Jan Morris [first-ever transgender memoir; a classic]
The Bookseller at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw [adventures of a Kiwi bookseller]

MEMOIRS ABOUT ILLNESS:
Where Memories Go by Sally Magnusson [the author’s experience of caring for her mother with dementia]
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi [becoming a doctor & saving lives; becoming a patient & facing death]
I Met Death on the Avenue Road Bus by Samantha Albert [long-term illness; living the life we have rather than the one we hoped for]
Between Two Kingdoms: A Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad [a woman’s cancer journey]
The In-Between Days by Teva Harrison [personal essay & comic illustration; metastatic breast cancer]

PERSONAL ESSAY or SHORT MEMOIR COLLECTIONS:
These Precious Days or This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett [varied and brilliant]
I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O'Farrell [subtitled Seventeen Brushes with Death]
Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley [listed earlier as well, but only because this is Such a Great Book]
A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott [essays on trauma, legacy, oppression and racism in North America]
What Comes Next and How to Like it or Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas
Any book by Annie Dillard

LGBTQ MEMOIRS
We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib describes her childhood in Pakistan, her family’s move to Canada, and how she’s learned to embrace her identity as a queer woman and an Ahmadi Muslim.

Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote recounts their past as a diffident yet free-spirited tomboy, and maps their journey through treacherous gender landscapes and a maze of labels that don’t quite stick, to a place of self-acceptance and strength.

Native Country of the Heart by Cherríe Moraga unravels her mother’s narrative as well as her own, as Moraga embraces her sexual identity as a lesbian, becomes an activist, and learns more about her mother’s history.

Save Yourself by Cameron Esposito chronicles her coming-of-age, from her Catholic school upbringing to becoming a lesbian comedian.

How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones about being a Black gay man in the South. It’s also a love letter to the single mother who raised him and to the poetry that gave him hope.

MEMOIRS ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE (not the author):
Hidden Lives by Margaret Forster [memoir of the women in her family]
This is Not the End of Me by Dakshana Bascaramurty [memoir of a friend]
Swing Low: A Life by Miriam Toews [memoir of a father]

GRAPHIC MEMOIRS (aka comic books, but do not underestimate the power of these books!):
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi [Iran]
Rosalie Lightning by Tom Hart [loss of a child]
Fun Home by Alison Bechtel [coming of age in a complicated family — and much more]

Please don't feel overwhelmed by that list! Reading (or having read) even ONE of those books is enough to get started. 

I am often asked if I can recommend books about the writing process, so I have begun to assemble a list of those books as well. This is HIGHLY OPTIONAL and by no means necessary. I didn't read a single book about writing until after my second book was published, so only reach for one of these if you are so inclined. Having said that, these are all excellent books and they might have saved me time and agony:

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Still Writing by Dani Shapiro
Thinking About Memoir by Abigail Thomas
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
On Writing by Stephen King [yes, really!]