Category: True Story

Darrel’s mother escapes a residency school where the nuns were incredibly abusive to the Native children there, adding to the generational trauma that Darrel’s family had already experienced. The majority of the memoir focuses on his own childhood and adolescence, including moving around from house to house as his mother struggles with addiction and he discovers more about his sexuality. Just as a heads up, there is violence and sexual assault of women and children in this memoir.

This book is one of my favorite hidden gems. It won the Stella Prize a few years ago but has somehow still flown under the radar. I especially love the Australian audiobook, which Vicki Laveau-Harvie performs herself. The Erratics follows Vicki Laveau-Harvie as she flies back home to Canada to care for her elderly parents after her mother’s fall. When she arrives, Vicki discovers that her mother has been starving her father. What follows is her account of trying to navigate care for her parents while coming to terms with her difficult childhood.

Westover grew up in a very conservative Mormon family. Her father believed in living separate from the world, refusing to let his family go to the hospital and choosing to not educate his children in any real way. Tara survives her childhood and, with the encouragement of her older brother, studies and takes her exams to get into college. Westover shares her experience of enduring emotional and physical abuse while still loving her family very deeply.

Danielle Geller starts off the memoir with her mother’s death from alcohol withdrawal. As Geller sorts belongings, she begins to piece together her mother’s life. She learns how decisions her mother made stemmed from numerous challenges she faced throughout her life. Eventually, Geller heads to her mother’s homeland, the Navajo Nation, to reconnect with the community and culture. Full of discussions around mothers and daughters and the inheritance our parents leave behind, Dog Flowers is a beautiful testament of her mother’s life.

In this gorgeous memoir, Michelle Zauner shares her experience growing up as the only Asian American kid in Eugene, Oregon. She grew up with a white American father and a Korean mother, which has always made her feel not part of either world. When her mother dies, she finds herself in an Asian grocery store, reminded of her mother and crying in the aisles. Beautifully written and full of quick wit and insight, Crying in H Mart has to be one of the best memoirs in the last few years.

What Doesn’t Kill You is part memoir, part how-to book. This book follows the author’s own experience navigating the U.S. health system with Crohn’s disease and all that it entails. She also writes guides for other disabled folks, which is especially great for those new to being chronically ill. This book gives a great insight into what it really means to be chronically ill and the daily ins and outs of living with incurable disease.

The Good Immigrant first had a UK edition. And after much acclaim, Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman took on the task of editing a U.S. edition. The anthology features essays of immigrants from around the world who have now made their homes in the United States. They each write about the array of challenges they and their families have faced making their home in America. I really appreciated the wide range of writers represented in the anthology.

Back when Nicole Chung was the editor of Catapult Magazine, she noticed that there were a lot of essays around the themes of immigration. She teamed up with fellow editor Mensah Demary and they brought together 20 essays by first and second generation immigrants. The writers share the complex experience that moving to the U.S. has brought. Each writer describes their experiences living between cultures and how that has impacted their sense of self.

In this essay collection, Kai Cheng Thom writes letters to people in her life. Whether it’s to ex-boyfriends or fellow trans women, Thom writes each letter with care. In one letter, she writes to J.K. Rowling, asking Rowling to show compassion. In one letter addressed to those who have hurt her, she repeats the phrase, “I forgive you” over and over again. On the audiobook, Thom performs each “I forgive you” differently, adding layers of meaning to ideas of forgiveness when you’ve experienced harm. At the end of each letter, Thom gives readers an action item, inspiring her readers to explore how they view their relationship with those around them.

Sometimes the very concept of a book catches my eye and I have to read it ASAP. That’s what happened with Wolfish, a book where Erica Berry delves into societal ideas around wolves. What do wolves symbolize to human civilization? How has that perception impacted society today? These are just a couple of the big questions that Berry examines. Lessa Lamb (yes, her real name) deftly performs the audio edition, making the listening experience fly by, even in sections that I imagine might be a little dry to read in print. I loved every second of Lamb’s performance.

I remember that I read Persepolis for one of my very first Women in Translation Month celebrations. This graphic memoir follows Marjane Satrapi through the Iranian Revolution and her flight to France. She goes to school in Paris for a few years, but eventually, she returns home to Iran and finds it completely changed. Satrapi’s illustrations capture your attention from the first page, and her memoir is a testament to her love of Persian culture and the grief she experienced as she no longer can live in her home country.

I loved Jhumpa Lahiri’s work in English. The way she writes her characters and delves into their relationships with each other is astounding. But when I read that she was writing essays in Italian and having someone else translate them back into English, I could not get my hands on that book fast enough. In Other Words is her story of learning Italian, living in Italy, and engaging in a whole new literary community there. In my edition, the Italian and English versions sit side by side on the page. I love how this format invites readers to engage with her writing in both languages.

I love Diana Wynne Jones’s writing. She has such an incredible way of making complex novels for kids look so easy. Whether it’s a walking house on chicken legs or kids with nine lives, she has an incredible eye for detail and a beautiful way of creating characters and their bonkers stories. Jones’ essays are a great pause in the world to take a moment and think about the art of writing and what that means for her.

Matthew Salesses wants readers to rethink the way that we teach writing. Everything from MFAs to writing workshops were all created with white men in mind. In Craft in the Real World, Salesses reimagines the fiction workshop to take Black, Indigenous, and people of color’s experiences into account. A more inclusive way of teaching writing fosters an environment that is a more inclusive creative environment.

This book is one of my favorite memoirs of 2023. In these short, lyrical chapters, Smith describes the breakdown of her marriage, the little things that all added up to their separation and divorce. She has a poet’s eye for prose. She creates these gorgeous images, describing her house in such rich and lovely ways. The memoir is structured into short chapters, each a different piece of the whole. Together, they create a snapshot of her life, a glimpse into Maggie Smith’s world. At the same time, Smith stays with the reader, explaining why she won’t describe certain parts of her story or telling the reader where there are gaps in her memory. It’s a stunning book, and devastatingly hopeful.

This is one of the most celebrated memoirs of 2022. It follows Hsu through his college years as he makes friends with Ken, another college student. Besides the fact that they’re both Asian American, Hsu doesn’t seem to have anything in common with Ken. Still, they become great friends. But when Ken is killed in a carjacking, Hsu’s world seems to have turned upside down. The memoir is beautifully written, every page perfectly crafted. It’s easy to see how this book has won over so many judging panels.

Similar to the U.S. and Canada, Australia has a violent history of colonization and destruction of Indigenous communities. Dr. Anita Heiss has done a masterful job of editing this collection of writing by Indigenous peoples. There are pieces by people who lived through the separation of their families by the Australian government. There are pieces by people who didn’t realize that they were Indigenous until later in life and are on the journey of reconnecting with their Native Nation. Together, the essays tell the story of the unique histories and present day lived experiences of Indigenous peoples across the continent.

Every country has a different healthcare system, which means that disabled people’s experiences vary widely. Disability rights advocate Carly Findlay has brought together disabled, chronically ill, Deaf and neurodivergent authors from diverse backgrounds and experiences. There are athletes, authors, and actors. Some of the contributors have been disabled from birth while others became disabled later in life. Growing Up in Australia is one of the best disability anthologies that I’ve ever read, and I can’t recommend it enough.

Save Me the Plums was my first book by former Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl. She’s so well known for her food-related memoirs; I’m kind of shocked that I had never read her work before, but I think Save Me the Plums was a great place to start. In this memoir, Reichl writes about her experience becoming the last editor-in-chief of one of America’s oldest food magazines. I love getting a behind-the-scenes look into how magazines are made. It’s a fascinating world of taste-making, photo shoots, and epic magazine covers. I flew through this book in one day. It’s just that fun to read.

In Twitty’s first book, he takes a few different DNA tests and takes us around the world as he researches the different countries and cultures — and their food — that make up his heritage. I loved learning about Twitty’s process, his love for learning, and his passion for all things cuisine. He shares his experiences traveling, tasting new food, and all the cooking he does in the process. This is every food nerd’s dream book as Twitty connects how food directly connects us to our cultures.