Memoir Essays

Entre biographie et essai, le livre de Jean-Pierre Rioux, salué par la critique et succès d'édition, évoque l'orateur hors pair, le philosophe, l'intellectuel et l'historien, le défenseur des droits de l'homme, l'homme de la paix, l'adversaire du colonialisme. Les questions d'aujourd'hui auxquelles le premier mort de l'été 1914 avait donné sa réponse continuent de nous hanter. Comment ne pas trahir quand on est au pouvoir ? Comment lire une société d'inégalités ? Comment récuser le désordre établi si l'on n'assume pas l'histoire et l'héritage ? Que serait un avenir sans morale et sans religion ?

In 1956, Caedmon had the great fortune to record Eudora Welty reading some of her finest stories. In her sweetly vibrant Mississippi drawl, Ms. Welty deftly draws the listener in to the uproariously multilayered "Why I Live at the P.O.", the spontaneous "Powerhouse", and the insightful voice of women's truths in "Petrified Man". Ms. Welty's reading brings immediacy and resonance to these wonderful tales.

In this “vivid…lovely and inviting” (The New York Times) coming-of-age memoir—the “best piece of nature writing since H Is for Hawk” (Neil Gaiman)—a young man saves a baby magpie as his estranged father is dying, only to find that caring for the bird saves him. This is a story of...

Since Andrew Hudgins was a child, he was a compulsive joke teller, so when he sat down to write about jokes, he found that he was writing about himself — what jokes taught him and mistaught him, how they often delighted him but occasionally made him nervous with their delight in chaos and sometimes anger. Because Hudgins’s father, a West Point graduate, served in the US Air Force, his family moved frequently; he learned to relate to other kids by telling jokes and watching how his classmates responded. And jokes opened him up to the serious, taboo subjects that his family didn’t talk about openly — religion, race, sex, and death. Hudgins tells and analyzes the jokes that explore the contradictions in the Baptist religion he was brought up in, the jokes that told him what his parents would not tell him about sex, and the racist jokes that his uncle loved, his father hated, and his mother, caught in the middle, was ambivalent about. This audiobook is both a memoir and a meditation on jokes and how they educated, delighted, and occasionally horrified him as he grew.

When the wild strips everything away, what’s left is who you are. In the raw, untamed wilds of Alaska—where the wind howls, predators hunt, and the sun disappears for months—only a rare few figure out how to survive. Sue Aikens, the breakout star of National Geographic’s long-running TV...

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Slate “Reading this book is a joy . . . much to say about the trans journey and will undoubtedly become a standard for those in need of guidance. ” —The Washington Post...

Sandra Brown revisits two pivotal Christmases from her own past in this heartfelt and intimate essay. One needn't be familiar with Brown's previous works to be deeply moved by this personal reflection on the meaning of family, faith, celebration, and generosity: but fans will find it a unique and special insight into the New York Times best-selling author's life and values.

In the four biggest American sports leagues, 124 franchises vie for the crown of greatest of all. Only one can sit atop the throne. Now for the first time ever, Got Your Legends ranks all of the franchises and explains which teams are legendary, or unique, or exciting, or tragic . . . or laughable.

Three years before David Bowie died, he shared a list of 100 books that changed his life. His choices span fiction and nonfiction, literary and irreverent, and include timeless classics alongside eyebrow-raising obscurities. In 100 short essays, music journalist John O'Connell studies each book on Bowie's list and contextualizes it in the artist's life and work. Heartfelt, analytical, and totally original, Bowie's Bookshelf is one part epic reading guide and one part biography of a music legend.

La cocaina: la merce più usata, trafficata, desiderata del nostro tempo. Le infinite vie del narcotraffico, dal Messico alle spiagge di Miami, dalla Colombia alla Russia, dall'Africa alle strade di Milano, New York, Parigi. Il viaggio di un grande scrittore nei gironi infernali del mondo contemporaneo, dove la ferocia dilaga incontrastata ma i boss hanno imparato tutte le regole più sofisticate del business. Uno straordinario romanzo-verità.

My Life on the Run chronicles the heatstroke and frostbite, heartache and triumphs he's experienced while competing in more than 1,000 competitive races on all seven continents. With the wit and wisdom of a seasoned insider, Yasso tells runners what they need to know to navigate the logistics of running in an unfamiliar country. He also offers practical guidance, such as 5-K, 10-K, half-marathon, and marathon training schedules, including his innovative technique known as the Yasso 800s for beginner, intermediate, and advanced runners.

Named a Best Memoir of 2025 (So Far) by BookPage and Real Simple * “A beautiful story about an extraordinary mother’s gift of love and hope.” —Jeannette Walls, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle * “Candid...Heartbreaking...Illuminating.” —Oprah Daily From “a...

At the heart of every essay in Elisabeth Sharp McKetta’s lively collection is the same question: How does one grow up without losing oneself? McKetta braids deceptively simple stories of her own life with the rich undercurrent of familiar childhood tales to reveal things personal, universal, and as close to the truth as possible.

Love in the Time of Covid is a memoir in fifty short essays written during the Covid era between 2020 and 2024. The essays describe the author's responses to media reports, debates, and public commentaries on a range of current affairs during the course of the pandemic. His primary focus is on the poisoning of social discourse during this period, when there was 'no love lost' in conflicts between adversarial parties

A "Proustian minimalist on the order of Lydia Davis" ( Kirkus Reviews), Sarah Manguso is one of the finest literary artists at work today. To hear her work is to witness acrobatic acts of compression in the service of extraordinary psychological and spiritual insight. 300 Arguments, a foray into the frontier of contemporary nonfiction writing, is at first glance a group of unrelated aphorisms.

When physical disability from combat wounds brought about Jim Stockdale's early retirement from military life, he had the distinction of being the only three-star officer in the history of the navy to wear both aviator wings and the Congressional Medal of Honor. His writings have been many and varied, but all converge on the central theme of how man can rise with dignity to prevail in the face of adversity.

A spirited and revealing memoir by the most celebrated editor of his time After editing The Columbia Review, staging plays at Cambridge, and a stint in the greeting-card department of Macy's, Robert Gottlieb stumbled into a job at Simon and Schuster. By the time he left to run Alfred A. Knopf a...

In this sharp and darkly funny new essay collection from the New York Times bestselling author, Cazzie David explores the irony and existential crises of leaving youth behind. With her thirtieth birthday fast approaching, Cazzie reflects on the delusions that laid waste to her twenties and...

“A wise, mild and enviably lucid book about a chaotic scene.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times “Memoirs of fatherhood are rarely so honest or so blunt.” —Daniel Engber, The Atlantic “An instant classic.” —M. C. Mah, Romper NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2022 BY LIT HUB &...

“The really important things in life are your family and friends. And what will people say about you at your funeral—that you won an Emmy once, or that you were a good person, kind and generous? Well, as for me, I hope it's the latter. And the fact that I recently commissioned an Emmy-shaped...