There are perhaps few Danish writers with such a prolific career as the poet and writer Tove Ditlevsen (1917-76), who published eleven poetry collections, seven novels, and four short fiction collections. Just this year her incredible trio of memoirs, The Copenhagen Trilogy, initially published separately through the 1960s and early 70s, has been translated into… Continue reading The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen
Category: Memoir
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Listeners of Japanese Breakfast, the musical project of Michelle Zauner, will not be surprised that this lyrically gifted and creative artist has now also dipped her feet into the literary space. Zauner’s memoir, Crying in H Mart, is a grief memoir in the style of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, but with Korean… Continue reading Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
A Promised Land by Barack Obama
The first installment of Barack Obama’s presidential memoirs, A Promised Land, has finally reached its long awaited release date almost a full presidential term after President Obama left the White House in January of 2017. For a less capable writer, this long lead time could render the book outdated or irrelevant, especially after the particularly… Continue reading A Promised Land by Barack Obama
The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
Sarah M. Broom’s National Book ward-winning debut memoir is many things at once. It is not only a personal memoir, but also a comprehensive family history, a history of the city of New Orleans, a mediation on natural disaster, and an exploration of America’s divestment from its black communities. Broom begins the story with her… Continue reading The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
The Beauty in Breaking by Michele Harper
Purchase a copy for yourself here! In a recent interview with NPR, Dr. Michele Harper discussed her impetus for becoming an emergency room doctor: “…Because of the pain I saw and felt in my home, it was also important for me to be of service and help to other people so that they could find… Continue reading The Beauty in Breaking by Michele Harper
Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit
Purchase a copy for yourself here! Recollections of My Nonexistence begins as a meditation on place—specifically the small but elegant apartment that Solnit moved into in her early 20s, where she began the academic and artistic research that would come to define her work in the following decades. Solnit was a resident of a mostly… Continue reading Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit
The Memoir Edit
Disclaimer: This is not meant to be any sort of authoritative list of the ten best memoirs ever, but rather an edit of ten memoirs that I feel embody the best of the genre. I wanted to capture the diversity of the memoir space, and thus I’ve included lighthearted celebrity memoirs, deeply moving activist memoirs,… Continue reading The Memoir Edit
Hunger by Roxane Gay
Purchase a copy for yourself here! “When I was twelve years old I was raped and then I ate and ate and ate to build my body into a fortress,” writes Roxane Gay in her 2017 bestseller, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. From the very first pages, it is clear that Hunger is an… Continue reading Hunger by Roxane Gay
In the Land of Men by Adrienne Miller
Purchase a copy for yourself here! In 1997, Adrienne Miller became the first female literary editor of the venerable Esquire magazine at the early age of 25. By this time Esquire had published fiction from some of America’s most distinguished literary voices, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Norman Mailer. In her new memoir,… Continue reading In the Land of Men by Adrienne Miller
Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
Purchase a copy for yourself here! Perhaps no geographic area in the United States holds as much cultural cache as the northern California region, Silicon Valley. The Valley has become more than just a place, but a signifier of the big tech movement, where college dropouts who can’t legally drink can become billionaires overnight. On… Continue reading Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener