Memoir Essays

Morris waxes on the ironies of modern life in all their resonant glories and inevitable stupidities - from her daily exercise (a "statutory thousand paces of brisk walk") to the troubles of Brexit; her enduring yet complicated love for America; and honest reflections on the vagaries and ailments of aging. Both intimate and luminously wise, Thinking Again is a testament to the virtues of embracing life, creativity, and above all, kindness.

Trying to crawl inside the television set to get her parents' attention, she got blocked by all the tubes and wires. So, she had to go the long way around to get herself onscreen. In a series of essays and stories, Chartoff explores her ambition, artistry, and love blunders in her hilarious, heartbreaking, and hopeful new memoir Odd Woman Out.

Welcome to essayist Kimberly Harrington’s poetic and funny world of motherhood, womanhood, and humanhood, not necessarily in that order. It’s a place of loud parenting, fierce loving, too much social media, and occasional inner monologues where timeless debates are resolved such as Pro/Con: Caving to PTO Bake Sale Pressure (“Pro: Skim the crappiest brownies for myself. Con: They’re really crappy.”) With accessibility and wit, she captures the emotions around parenthood in artful and earnest ways.

When Paul Auster was asked to join NPR's Weekend All Things Considered program to tell stories, he turned the proposition on its head: he would let the stories come to him. He invited listeners to submit brief, true-life anecdotes about events that touched their lives.

As a young woman, Kate Betts nursed a dream of striking out on her own in a faraway place and becoming a glamorous foreign correspondent. After college—and not without trepidation—she took off for Paris, renting a room in the apartment of a young BCBG (bon chic, bon genre) family and throwing herself into the local culture. She was determined to master French slang, style, and savoir faire, and to find a job that would give her a reason to stay.

Oliver Sacks died in August 2015 at his home in Greenwich Village, surrounded by his close friends and family. He was 82. He spent his final days doing what he loved: playing the piano, swimming, enjoying smoked salmon - and writing. As Dr Sacks looked back over his long, adventurous life his final thoughts were of gratitude. In a series of remarkable, beautifully written and uplifting meditations, in Gratitude Dr Sacks reflects on and gives thanks for a life well lived and expresses his thoughts on growing old, facing terminal cancer and reaching the end.

Plato recorded the final days of his mentor, Socrates, who was tried and condemned in Athens in 399 B.C. on trumped-up charges of being a heretic and corrupter of the young. This collection comprises 4 books: Euthyphro, in which Socrates engages Euthyphro in a debate on the steps of the courthouse where he is to stand trial, The Apology, in which Socrates argues on his own behalf, Crito, in which Socrates's friends and supporters visit him in prison and urge him to recant.

Begun in 1797, when William was at the height of his poetic powers, The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals provide invaluable insight into the daily lives of Dorothy and William Wordsworth, William’s friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the incidents that inspired some of his greatest poems. Richly immersive and intimately domestic, the Journals transport the listener to life in the Lake District 200 years ago as Dorothy describes the Lake District countryside, her garden and neighbours, keeping house, going on walks, and the people she meets along the way

A spiritual aspirant’s journey is sprinkled with many battles overcoming mind over matter through different sadhanas (spiritual practices). One such sadhana is going on a pilgrimage, which provides challenges for the body, mind, and intellect.

Though celebrated playwright Wendy Wasserstein was firmly rooted in New York's cultural life, her appeal is universal. Shiksa Goddess collects her urbane, inspiring, and deeply empathetic essays, all written when she was in her forties, and all infused with her trademark irreverent humor. The full range of Wasserstein's mid-life obsessions are covered in this eclectic collection— everything from Chekhov, politics, and celebrity to family, fashion, and real estate.

In her debut book, Everybody Come Alive, Marcie Alvis Walker invites listeners into a deeply intimate and illuminating memoir comprising lyrical essays and remembrances of being a curious child of the seventies and eighties, raised under the critical and watchful eye of Jim Crow matriarchs who struggled to integrate their lives and remain whole. This is a coming-of-age journey touching on the bittersweet pain and joy of what it takes to become a person who embraces being Black, a woman, and holy in America.

It happens to us all: We think we’ve settled into an identity, a self, and then out of nowhere and with great force, the traces of our parents appear to us, in us - in mirrors, in gestures, in reaction and reactivity, at weddings and funerals, and in troubled thoughts that crouch in dark corners of our minds. In this masterful collection of new essays, the apple looks at the tree.

Michelle Obama is unlike any other First Lady in American History. From her first moments on the public stage, she has challenged traditional American notions about what it means to be beautiful, to be strong, to be fashion-conscious, to be healthy, to be First Mom, to be a caretaker and hostess, and to be partner to the most powerful man in the world. What is remarkable is that, at 52, she is just getting started.

Helen Garner visits the morgue, and goes cruising on a Russian ship. She sees women giving birth, and gets the sack for teaching her students about sex. She attends a school dance and a gun show. She writes about dreaming, about turning 50 and the storm caused by The First Stone. Her story on the murder of the two-year-old Daniel Valerio wins her a Walkley Award.

In this “inspiring, determined work of personal narrative and cultural criticism” (Saeed Jones, author of How We Fight for Our Lives), essayist and award-winning voice actor Tajja Isen explores the absurdity of living in a world that has grown fluent in the language of social justice but doesn’t always follow through.

Alongside their personal stories, the writers -decorated novelists, poets, and essayists - address the history of the C-section as well as its risks, social inequities, impact on the body, and psychological aftermath. My Caesarean is a heartfelt meditation, offering much-needed comfort through shared experience.

What made FDR a more successful leader during the Depression crisis than Hoover? Why was Eisenhower more effective as supreme commander during World War II than he was as president? Why was Grant one of the best presidents of his day, if not in all of American history? What drove Bobby Kennedy into the scrum of electoral politics? Find the surprising and revelatory answers to these questions and more in this collection of new essays by great historians.

The international sensation that illuminates the experiences women are supposed to hide - from addiction, anger, sexual assault, and infertility to joy, sensuality, and love. In this dazzling debut, Emilie Pine speaks to the events that have marked her life - those emotional disruptions for which our society has no adequate language, at once bittersweet, clandestine, and ordinary. She writes with radical honesty on the unspeakable grief of infertility, on caring for an alcoholic parent, on taboos around female bodies and female pain, on sexual violence and violence against the self.

From the author of the popular newsletter That’s What She Said, Nobody Cares is a frank, funny personal essay collection about work, failure, friendship, and the messy business of being alive in your 20s and 30s. As she shares her hard-won insights from screwing up, growing up, and trying to find her own path, Anne T. Donahue’s debut book offers all the honesty, laughs, and reassurance of a late-night phone call with your best friend.

自分に自信がない西川きよし師匠から、悪口をエネルギーに突き進む山里亮太、スケールのデカいバカぶりを発揮するピース綾部、恐ろしいほどの執念で紫綬褒章まで行き着いた宮川大助・花子まで……。毒舌を吐き続けても絶対に嫌われない男による「吉本バイブル」、ここに誕生