A Pretty Long List of the Best Memoirs I Have Read, Sorted by Categories

Here is a pretty long list of the best memoirs I have read, sorted into categories. 

I've highlighted my ten favorites. 

The links take you to my reviews.

BOOKISH LIVES

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo by Paula Huntley

DIVERSITY

Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas

Geisha: A Life by Mineko Iwasaki

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa by Peter Godwin

Crying in the Bathroom by Erika L. Sánchez

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

FOODIE

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley

The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks by Kathleen Flinn

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell

Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl

Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl

FRANCE

Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik

My Life in France by Julia Child

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Paris in Winter: An Illustrated Memoir by David Coggins

LOSS

Name All the Animals: A Memoir by Alison Smith

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year by Anne Lamott

Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett

MEDICAL

Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

My Own Country: A Doctor's Story by Abraham Verghese

Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth

NATURE

H is for Hawk by Helen McDonald

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriott

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

WILL NEVER BE ASKED TO BE ON JERRY SPRINGER

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson

A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Hypocrite in a Pouffy Dress: Tales of Growing Up Groovy and Clueless by Susan Jane Gilman

OVERCOMING

Lit by Mary Karr

The Tender Bar by J. R. Moehringer

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me by Ellen Forney

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealey

Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson

Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: An Introvert's Year of Living Dangerously by Jessica Pan

What I Thought I Knew by Alice Eve Cohen

Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses by Claire Dederer

My Year with Eleanor by Noelle Hancock

Riding the Bus with My Sister by Rachel Simon

Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year by Esmé Raji Codell

I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell

ROUGH CHILDHOODS

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Educated by Tara Westover

The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok

Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner

The Liar's Club by Mary Karr

QUIRKY FAMILIES

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreath

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

The Egg and I by Betty McDonald

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Just Mercy: A Story of Mercy and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

March, Book 1, Book 2, Book 3 by John Lewis

The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border by Francisco Cantu

Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora

The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande

TRAVEL

Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon

River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler

WAR

Night by Elie Wiesel

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

Other lists of memoirs I've compiled in the past:

A Comprehensive List of the World's Best Memoirs of Bookish Lives of Readers

Books that Make Me Hungry: The Best Memoirs About Learning to Cook and Bake

Armchair Foodie Travel Books

Do you have any favorite memoirs I've not included here?

Please share them in the comments.

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.     

The Sunday Salon: A Week in Which I Finish (But Continue to Think About) Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Bittersweet

 

It sounds ridiculous, but I read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek four times this year. I listened to it as an audiobook. Then I read it as an ebook. I listened to it again. And then I read it again. 

I saved so many quotes from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek that I think I'm going to have to do a post to share them all. For now, let me just share one:

"I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds, upstream and down."

Bittersweet was excellent, too. I believe Bittersweet is the best book I've ever read that deals with handling loss. I am still thinking about the story author Susan Cain shares about Kafka and the girl who lost her doll. You can read about Kafka and the doll here.

Daily Rituals tells about the daily habits of more than 150 novelists, poets, playwrights, painters, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians. I found it fascinating.

And Remarkably Bright Creatures is a novel about loss and finding a way of dealing with loss. 

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (Nature)

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain (Happiness)

Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey (Writing)

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Novel)

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (Classic)

The Little Book of Lent: Daily Reflections from the World's Best Spiritual Writers (Spirituality)

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevado (YA Fiction)

A Thirsty Land: The Fight for Water in Texas by Seamus McGraw (Naturalist Book Club)

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz (Fiction)

The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien (Classic)

A Country Year by Sue Hubbell (Nature Nonfiction)

George Eliot: The Last Victorian by Kathryn Hughes (Biography)

Last week I posted here at Readerbuzz:

My 15th Blogoversary is Coming in June! How Shall We Celebrate? 

Books About Amazingly Strong Women I've Read Recently

The Sunday Salon: Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries and Rhododendron Pie

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz

Your Place or Mine?

A main character named Deb(bie) who loves to read?

A character who wants to be an author and one who wants to be an editor?

People who actually discuss what they are reading in the movie?

Quite lovely, I thought, for us readers.

Good Thing #1

Summer haircut!

Good Thing #2

I counted thirty bird species 

during the Great Backyard Bird Count 

in one day last weekend.

Good Thing #3

Planted the garden:

Tomatoes, green peppers,

cucumbers, kale, spinach,

rosemary, basil, and thyme.

I'm happy you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. Sunday Salon is a place to link up and to share what we have been doing during the week. It's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

Some of the things we often talk about at the Sunday Salon:

• What was your week like?
• Read any good books? Tell us about them.
• What other bookish things did you do? 
• What else is going on in your life?

Other places where you may like to link up over the weekend are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

My linkup for Sunday Salon is below. 

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz

Today's Featured Book 

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz

Genre: Fiction

Published: September 13, 2022

Page Count: 191 pages

Summary: 

Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life. Over the course of twelve sessions, Cara recounts her tempestuous love affairs, her alternately biting and loving relationships with her neighbor Lulu and her sister Angela, her struggles with debt, gentrification and loss, and, eventually, what really happened between her and her estranged son, Fernando. As Cara confronts her darkest secrets and regrets, we see a woman buffeted by life but still full of fight.

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City Reader. What book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.

"My name is Cara Romero, and I came to this country because my husband wanted to kill me."

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Freda's Voice and visit others in the linky. 

"The new manager of our building came this morning to inspect the apartment. This is what they do, supposedly document repairs that have to be done. But I know the truth: it's to find reasons to throw us out."

The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.    

February 24th - March 2nd - What is the significance of your blog header? (submitted by Elizabeth @ Silver's Reviews)

I found the original Readerbuzz librarian on a site with copyright-free clip art about ten years ago. The colors were dark and drab, but over the years I've decorated it a bit.

"Me gusta leer" is "I love to read" in Spanish and it reflects my love for languages. Now and then I replace "Me gusta leer" with "J'adore lire" which means the same thing in French.