Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Reading List: Memoirs

INTRODUCTION
As with all of the reading lists on this site, this is a living document, meaning I will add to it as I come across books I've omitted, and would love suggestions of any noncelebrity memoir you would highly recommend. As far as the categories, I've done my best--some books fall under multiple categories so I went with the most dominant/specific theme (i.e. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is primarily about Sedaris's childhood, but not entirely, and it's humorous as is Bryson's memoir). I've read many but not all of these, so please let me know if a book belongs under a different heading. If you're interested in travel memoirs, there's a extensive separate reading list posted.

ABUSE MEMOIRS
Please Stop Laughing at Me - Jodee Blanco
Running with Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
Blackbird - Jennifer Lauck
A Child Called It - Dave Pelzer
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Jesus Land  - Julia Scheeres
Lucky - Alice Sebold
The Glass Castle - Jeannete Walls

ANIMAL MEMOIRS
Marley and Me - John Grogan
Seabiscuit - Laura Hillenbrand
Dewey - Vicki Myron
Alex & Me - Irene Pepperberg

CHILDHOOD MEMOIRS
An American Childhood - Annie Dillard
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - Bill Bryson
Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim - David Sedaris

GRIEF MEMOIRS
The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion

HUMOROUS MEMOIRS
Close Encounters of the Third-grade Kind - Phillip Done
A Red State of Mind - Nancy French
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris

INTERNATIONAL MEMOIRS
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
A Long Way Gone - Ishmael Beah
Wild Swans - Jung Chang
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind - William Kamkwamba with Bryan Mealer
Child of the Jungle - Sabine Kuegler
Chinese Cinderella - Adeline Yen Mah
Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi

NATURE MEMOIRS
A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
Life in the Treetops - Margaret D. Lowman

RELIGIOUS & SPIRITUALITY MEMOIRS
Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
Angry Conversations with God - Susan Isaacs
The Year of Living Biblically - A.J. Jacobs
Traveling Mercies - Anne Lamott
Blue Like Jazz - Donald Miller
Shattered Dreams - Irene Spenser

SOCIAL EXPERIMENT MEMOIRS
Black Like Me - John Howard Griffin
The Know-It-All - AJ Jacobs
The Year of Living Biblically - A.J. Jacobs
Living Oprah - Robyn Okrant
Julie and Julia - Julie Powell
The Happiness Project - Gretchen Rubin

OTHER MEMOIRS
Minor Characters - Joyce Johnson

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