Writers and Editors

As time permits, I'll post reading lists of memoirs of interest in various categories -- both as good reading material and as models for those who are practicing life writing. Let me know if any other titles are good candidates, or if any titles appear on the wrong lists. Happy reading.

"So much happens to us all over the years. So much has happened within us and through us. We are to take time to remember what we can about it and what we dare. That's what taking the time to enter the room (called "Remember") means, I think. It means taking time to remember on purpose. It means not picking up a book for once or turning on the radio, but letting the mind journey gravely, deliberately, back through the years that have gone by but are not gone. It means a deeper, slower kind of remembering; it means remembering as a searching and finding. The room is there for all of us to enter if we choose."
~~ Frederick Buechner , “A Room Called Remember” from the book Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons

Compelling Stories, if Not Literature (Abigail Zuger, MD, NYTimes, on the nature, benefits, uses, limits, and appeal of personal health-or illness-related memoirs, including tales of survival)

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COMING-OF-AGE MEMOIRS
• Allison, Dorothy. Bastard Out of Carolina (semi-fictionalized)
• Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
• Baker, Russell. Growing Up
• Baldwin, James. Notes of a Native Son
• Barber, Phyllis. How I Got Cultured: A Nevada Memoir (a Mormon childhood in Nevada)
• Barnes, Kim. In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country (a warm remembrance of growing up in 1970s Idaho, rebelling against her Pentecostal Christian parents as a teen)
• Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
• Beard, Jo Ann. The Boys of My Youth
• Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Graphic (comic) coming-of-age memoir of comic strip artist whose father was high school school teacher, director of the family-owned funeral home (hence Fun Home), and closeted homesexual.
• Benjamin, David. The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked (nostalgic memoir of the joys of boyhood in 1950s Wisconsin)
• Caplan, Cynthia. Why I'm Like This: True Stories
• Carr, Mary. The Liar’s Club
• Charyn, Jerome. The Dark Lady of Belorusse (the Bronx in the 1940s)
• Coetzee, J. M.. Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life (South Africa)
• Cofer, Judith Ortiz. Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood
• Conroy, Frank. Stop-Time A Memoir
• Conway, Jill Ker. The Road from Coorain
• Cunningham, Laura Shaine. Sleeping Arrangements
• Dillard, Annie. An American Childhood, available as a collection of her three most popular works: Three by Annie Dillard: The Writing Life, An American Childhood, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (beloved of many who write about nature)
• Edise, Faith & Nina Sichel, Eds.. Unrooted Childhoods: Memoirs of Growing Up Global
• Ellroy, James. My Dark Places (crime writer explores mother’s murder)
• Fisher, Antwone Q. Finding Fish: A Memoir
• Fowler, Connie May. When Katie Wakes: A Memoir
• Fuller, Alexandra. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
• Gates, Henry Louis. Colored People: A Memoir
• Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Wait Till Next Year (the historians 50s girlhood, bonding with her father over the Brooklyn Dodgers and her mother over books)
• Hampl, Patricia. The Florist's Daughter. "Nothing is harder to grasp than the relentlessly modest life," writes Hampl, about her parents.
• Hickam, Homer. Rocket Boys (luminous memoir of 14-year-old in late 1950s who saw building rockets as a way out of a West Virginia mining town--made into a movie)
• hooks, bell. Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood
• Hotchner, A.E.. King of the Hill (St. Louis during the Depression)
• Jordan, June. Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood
• Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• Kalish, Mildred Armstrong. Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression
• Kimmel, Haven. A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana (a funny, tender ode to childhood in a tiny town), followed by She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana
• Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
• Knopp, Lisa. Flight Dreams: A Life in the Midwestern Landscape
• Lauck, Jennifer. Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found
• Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
• Lyden, Jackie. Daughter of the Queen of Sheba (NPR journalist's memoir of her mother's manic-depressive episodes)
• Mathebane, Mark. Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth’s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa
• McCarthy, Mary. Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
• McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes (Irish poverty)
• McLain, Paula. Like Family: Growing Up in Other People’s Houses (foster care)
• Monette, Paul. Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story
• Moody, Anne. Coming of Age in Mississippi (black in the South in the 1940s and 1950s)
• Murphy, Dervla. Wheels Within Wheels (an only child with a crippled mother and an urgent desire to travel; she wrote many books about her travels, too)
• Nabokov, Vladimir. Speak Memory
• Rios, Alberto. Capirotadas: A Nogales Memoir (an Arizona border town with an interesting cultural mix)
• Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez
• Ryan, Terry. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less
• Sartor, May. Miss American Pie: A Diary of Love, Secrets and Growing Up in the 1970s
• Simon, Kate. Bronx Primitive (growing up in a Jewish immigrant family)
• Stevens, lan. On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language (how language and literature shape identity)
• Strauss, Jean. Beneath a Tall Tree (about adoption)
• Stringer, Lee. Sleepaway School )(about his years at Hawthorne Cedar Knolls, a school for kids at risk)
• Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle
• Webber, Thomas. Flying Over 96th Street: Memoir of an East Harlem White Boy
• Wolff, Geoffrey. The Duke of Deception: The Memories of My Father (about their con-man father Duke Wolff)
• Wolff, Tobias. This Boy’s Life (about life with his abusive stepfather)
• Wright, Richard. Black Boy

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MEMOIRS AND PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF
VOCATION, AVOCATION, OCCUPATION, PROFESSION, "CALLING"
• Abbott, Shirley. The Bookmaker’s Daughter: A Memory Unbound
• Ashton-Warner, Sylvia. Teacher (most memorable scenes: teaching children how to read)
• Baryshnikov, Mikhail. Baryshnikov at Work
• Cherry, Mike. On High Steel
• Conover, Ted. Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing
• Conroy, Pat. The Water Is Wide (early Conroy nonfiction, about teaching Gullah children on a South Carolina island)
• Cowser, Robert. Dream Season: A Professor Joins America’s Oldest Semi-Pro Football Team
• Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (a journalist’s account of trying to live on what she makes as a waitress, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart employee)
• Gandhi, Mahatma. Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth
• Gawande, Atul. Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science
• Gawande, Atul. Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
• Griffin, Gail. Calling: Essays on Teaching in the Mother Tongue
• Grim, Pamela. Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives: Tales of Life and Death in the ER
• Groopman, Jerome. Second Opinions: Stories of Intuition and Choice in the Changing World of Medicine
• Hamper, Ben. Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line (a shoprat’s life on the General Motors assembly line)
• Kirkland, Gelsey. Dancing on My Grave (about her life as a ballerina and her struggles with eating disorders and drug addiction)
• Kirkland, Gelsey. The Shape of Love: The Story of 'Dancing on My Grave' (about her return to dancing--you can find used copies)
• Konner, Melvin. Becoming a Doctor: A Journey of Initiation in Medical School
• Lynch, Thomas. The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade
• Lynn, Loretta, with George Vecsey. Coal Miner’s Daughter (from her childhood in Butcher Holler to a life in country music)
• Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (as told to Alex Haley)
• Moody, Ralph. Little Britches, Man of the Family
• Moody, Ralph. Horse of a Different Color: Reminiscences of a Kansas Drover (ranching in the early 20th century)
• Neville, Susan. Iconography: A Writer’s Meditation
• Ofri, Danielle. Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue
• Rafkin, Louise. Other People’s Dirt: A Housecleaner’s Curious Adventures
• Reichl, Ruth. Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table
• Reichl, Ruth. Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise (memoirs of the New York Times food critic)
• Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
• Seltzer, Richard. Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery; Confessions of a Knife
• Smith, Dennis. Firefighters: Their Lives in Their Own Words
• Sterling, Joy. A Cultivated Life: A Year in a California Vineyard
• Stone, John. In the Country of Hearts: Journeys in the Art of Medicine
• Teresa of Avila. The Way of Perfection
• Unger, Zak. Working Fire: The Making of a Fireman (a rookie’s year in the Oakland Fire Department)
• Vertosick, Frank. Why We Hurt: The Natural History of Pain

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Food Memoirs and Biographies

• Abu-Jaber, Diana. The Language of Baklava (growing up partly in Jordan)
• Apple, Jr., R.W.. Far Flung and Well Fed
• Bemelmans, Ludwig. Hotel Bemelmans (behind-the-scenes account of a great hotelby a writer who worked at the Ritz and who wrote the Madeline books)
• Bociurkiw, Marusya. Comfort Food for Breakups: The Memoir of a Hungry Girl
• Bourdain, Anthony. Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.)
• Boyle, T.C.. Talk Talk (a novel about identity theft that some criticize for too much food writing--not a problem for foodies!)
• Buford, Bill. Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
• Child, Julia. My Life in France (delicious!)
• Child, Julia about: Noel Riley Fitch, Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child; Nancy Verdi Barr, Backstage with Julia: My Years with Julia Child; and Julie Powell, Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
• Claiborne, Craig. A Feast Made for Laughter
• Colwin, Laurie. Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen
• Ehrlich, Elizabeth. Miriam's Kitchen: A Memoir
• Ephron, Nora. Heartburn (Memoir, disguised as novel, with recipes and outrage)
• Epstein, Jason. Eating: A Memoir
• Ferrary, Jeannette. Out of the Kitchen: Adventures of a Food Writer
• Fisher, M.F.K.. The Art of Eating (brings together the wonderful Fisher’s Serve it Forth, Consider the Oyster, How to Cook a Wolf, The Gastronomical Me, and An Alphabet for Gourmets)
• Fussell, Betty. My Kitchen Wars
• Greene, Gael. Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess
• Guinta, Edvige. The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture
• Haney, John. Fair Shares for All: A Memoir of Family and Food (growing up hungry in London’s East End
• Jaffrey, Madhur. Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India
• Jones, Judith. The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food (Knopf’s legendary cookbook editor)
• Kingsolver, Kingsolver. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (about the year they lived without processed foods)
• Liebling, A.J.. Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris
• Maisto, Michele. The Gastronomy of Marriage
• Mayle, Peter. A Year in Provence; French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew
• McNamee, Peter. Alice Waters and Chez Panisse
• Mitchell, Joseph. Up in the Old Hotel (especially “All You Can Hold for Five Bucks”)
• Mones, Nicole. The Last Chinese Chef: A Novel (a novel, but a great gift for foodies)
• Orwell, Joseph. Down and Out in Paris and London (you will never feel the same about a restaurant meal again)
• O’Neill, Molly. Mostly True: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Baseball
• Pepin, Jacques. The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen
• Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (this is bigger than a memoir) and The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
• Reichl, Ruth. Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table (the early years); Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table, and Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
• Richman, Alan. Fork It Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater
• Roberts, Doris. Are You Hungry, Dear? Life, Laughs, and Lasagna
• Sedaris, David. Me Talk Pretty One Day (he’s funny, and there’s a food story)
• Sheraton, Mimi. Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life
• Slater, Nigel. The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen with Nigel Slater and Toast
• Steingarten, Jeffrey. The Man Who Ate Everything
• Trillin, Calvin. The Tummy Trilogy (or any of his books)
• Villas, James. Between Bites: Memoirs of a Hungry Hedonist
• West, Michael Lee. Consuming Passions: A Food-Obsessed Life

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Anthologies:

• Bodger, Lorraine. Eater's Digest: 400 Delectable Readings about Food and Drink
• Hesser, Amanda. Eat, Memory: Great Writers at the Table (essays from the New York Times, with recipes)
• Hughes, Holly. Best Food Writing 2008
• In My Mother's Kitchen: 25 Writers on Love, Cooking, and Family (contributions by Maya Angelou, Jennifer Appel, Holly Clegg, M. F. K. Fisher, Rosemary Gong, Tina Miller, Kitty Morse, Michel Nishan, - Christina Orchid, Ruth Reichl, Julie Sahni, Nigel Slate, Walter Staib, James Villas, Joyce White
• Miller, Leslie. Women Who Eat: A New Generation on the Glory of Food
• Witherspoon, Kimberly and Andrew Freidman. Don't Try This At Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Chefs

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