Memoir Essays

Celebrated as the "greatest descriptive writer of her time" (Rebecca West), Jan Morris has been dazzling fans since she burst on the scene with her on-the-spot reportage of the first ascent of Everest in 1953. Now, the beloved 92-year-old, author of classics such as Venice and Trieste, embarks on an entirely new literary enterprise - a collection of daily diaries, penned over the course of a single year. 

Flailing in jobs, failing at love, getting addicted and un-addicted to people, food, and drugs - I'll Tell You in Person is a disarmingly frank account of attempts at adulthood and all the less than perfect ways we get there. Chloe Caldwell has an unsparing knack for looking within and reporting back what's really there, rather than what she'd like you to see.

This book will make you laugh! In these tense times of uncertainty and division, this remarkable book is just what the doctor ordered! The book is filled with hilarious and humorously told stories. A self-described nerd, the author recounts his experiences growing up in the '50s and the endless predicaments he has found himself in throughout his life. From spending formative years as a missionary in Japan to learning life lessons in Las Vegas, Mancini's antics seem never-ending. His days looking for love, as he says in all the wrong places, are very funny. You will surely laugh at the ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A GLAMOUR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A hilarious new essay collection from Samantha Irby "engages readers with her characteristic combination of laugh-out-loud moments, heartfelt passages and plenty of awkward experiences.... Quietly Hostile will delight established...

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author's manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation's history.

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In this rowdy, frank reflection on illness, fame, sex, and everything in between, the remarkable mind behind the hit series Girls and the bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl asks whether fulfilling her creative ambitions has been worth the pain...

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER From one of our most iconic and influential writers, the award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking: a timeless collection of mostly early pieces that reveal what would become Joan Didion's subjects...

NARRATED BY THE AUTHOR! The star of the legendary HBO series The Sopranos and podcast co-host with Christina Applegate, Jamie Lynn Sigler opens up about the vicissitudes of life, from early stardom to heartache and love, motherhood, and illness, offering readers an unflinchingly vulnerable...

Zelda Fitzgerald was the mythical American Dream Girl of the Roaring Twenties who became, in the words of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, "the first American flapper." Their romance transformed a symbol of glamour and spectacle of the Jazz Age. When Zelda cracked up, not long after the stock market crash of 1929, Scott remained loyal to her through a nightmare of later breakdowns and final madness.

NARRATED BY THE AUTHOR. By one of the fastest runners of her generation, an affecting, brutally honest memoir of elite sports gone wrong—and a clear-eyed call for how parents, coaches, and young athletes themselves can build a healthier youth sports culture. Few women have ever run 800 meters...

A Finalist for the NAACP Image Award Longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay An NPR Best Book of the Year A Washington Independent Review of Books Favorite of the Year From the cofounder of VerySmartBrothas.com, and one of the most read writers on race and...

In this autobiography, woven from personal pieces composed over the course of a celebrated writing life of more than 50 years, you'll meet William Buckley the boy, growing up in a family of 10 children; Buckley the daring young political enfant terrible, whose debut book, God and Man at Yale, was a shocking New York Times best seller; Buckley the editor of National Review, widely hailed as the founder of the modern conservative movement; and Buckley the husband and father.

From the author of the bestselling and award-winning Matterhorn comes a brilliant nonfiction book about war and the psychological and spiritual toll it takes on those who fight. “I wrote this book primarily to come to terms with my own experience of combat. So far—reading, writing...

Bestselling author and renowned professor Mary Karr offers a master class in the essential elements of great memoir delivered with her signature wit, insight, and candor. Credited with sparking the current memoir explosion, Mary Karr s The Liars Club spent more than a year at the top of the...

GRAMMY NOMINEE Audie Award, Humor, 2015 Amy Poehler is hosting a dinner party and you're invited! Welcome to the audiobook edition of Amy Poehler's Yes Please. The guest list is star-studded with vocal appearances from Carol Burnett, Seth Meyers, Michael Schur, Patrick Stewart, Kathleen Turner...

Television writer, producer, and bestselling author of the acclaimed The Broke Diaries and Mixed charts her unexpected role as her terminally ill mother's caretaker in this funny, moving, and unforgettable memoir. Angela Nissel always wanted her mother’s approval. But two defining events...

Scourge: An Exemplar Essay on the Life and Legacy of Lt Col William E. Dyess In Scourge, Paul J. Ferguson examines the life and legacy of Lieutenant Colonel William E. Dyess—not as a story of suffering alone, but as a study in responsibility carried forward under extreme conditions. Dyess endured captivity during the Second World War under circumstances that stripped away comfort, authority, and certainty. Survival would have been sufficient. Instead, Dyess chose what followed—speaking truth without accusation, returning to service without exemption, and continuing to carry obligation ...

Audiobook read by Grammy award-winning author, Blair Underwood In this moving biography and memoir, Blair Underwood, acclaimed star of film, stage, and television, pays homage to his mother, sharing her well-lived life, and key lessons learned as a fashion designer, mother, and soldier’s wife...

In this exuberantly praised book - a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner - David Foster Wallace...

An intimate journey across America, as told by one of its most beloved writers To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had...