Memoir Essays

After death, Townes Van Zandt found the success that he sabotaged during life. Diagnosed as bipolar, an alcoholic, and perennially unreliable, Van Zandt died of heart failure at the age of 52 on New Year’s Day in 1997. He released 16 albums during life. Since his death, several more albums have been released, both by and in honor of him.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER We all know the system isn’t working. Our governments are corrupt and the opposing parties pointlessly similar. Our culture is filled with vacuity and pap, and we are told there’s nothing we can do: “It’s just the way things are.” In this book, Russell Brand...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today From the creator of Elle’s “Eric Reads the News,” a heartfelt and hilarious memoir-in-essays about growing up seeing the world differently, finding unexpected hope, and experiencing every awkward...

In a heartbreaking yet hopeful collection of personal essays and prose poems, blending the confessional, political, and literary, Kai Cheng Thom dives deep into the questions that haunt social movements today. With the author's characteristic eloquence and honesty, I Hope We Choose Love proposes heartfelt solutions on the topics of violence, complicity, family, vengeance, and forgiveness.

Anna Prushinskaya explores the deep life shifts of pregnancy, birth and motherhood in the United States, a world away from the author's Soviet homeland. Drawing from inspirations as various as midwife Ina May Gaskin, writer and activist Alice Walker, and frontierswoman Caroline Henderson, Prushinskaya captures the inherent togetherness of motherhood alongside its accompanying estrangement. She plumbs the deeper waters of compassion, memory and identity, as well as the humorous streams of motherhood as they run up against the realities of work and the ever-present eye of social media.

"Colorful, vivid storytelling.... for anyone looking for a road to reinvention." —Kristin Newman A soul-stirring memoir from Colombian immigrant and travel journalist Nikki Vargas, whisking us through the countries that brought her new love, self-discovery, and the inspiration to launch the...

From the New York Times bestselling author of How to Be a Bawse comes an “insightful and charmingly funny” (Rupi Kaur) primer on learning to come home to your truest and happiest self. “I love Lilly’s honest and helpful advice about achieving happiness.”—Mindy Kaling, #1 New York...

Own it, snowflakes: you've lost everything you claim to hold dear. White is Bret Easton Ellis's first work of nonfiction. Already the bad boy of American literature, from Less Than Zero to American Psycho, Ellis has also earned the wrath of right-thinking people everywhere with his...

This program is read by the author, with contributions from Pamela Adlon and Gwen Rainbow. "The production of the audiobook...is so rich with sound effects, additional voice actors and music."—The San Francisco Chronicle "Tart, sassy, and hilariously funny from start to finish, Rainbow’s...

When Richard “Frosty” Hesson was first approached by a young Jay Moriarty in 1990, the skinny kid with a sparkle in his eye only wanted one thing from the icon: His help in becoming a better surfer. Hesson, one of the first to conquer the huge waves off northern California known as Mavericks, recognized that the kid “had a vision.” Jay quickly demonstrated a resolve that reminded Frosty of his younger self, pursuing his goal with a seriousness far beyond his years. His attitude and work ethic earned Frosty’s respect and, eventually, his friendship.

“Still Writing offers up a cornucopia of wisdom, insights, and practical lessons gleaned from Dani Shapiro's long experience as a celebrated writer and teacher of writing. The beneficiaries are beginning writers, veteran writers and everyone in between.” —Jennifer Egan From Dani Shapiro...

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.

In this irresistible memoir, the New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen writes about looking back and ahead—and celebrating it all—as she considers marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, faith, loss, all the stuff in our closets, and more. As she did...

AN EXTRAORDINARY AND UNFORGETTABLE NEW FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT OF D-DAY Seventy-five years ago, he hit Omaha Beach with the first wave. Now Ray Lambert, ninety-eight years old, delivers one of the most remarkable memoirs of our time, a tour-de-force of remembrance evoking his role as a decorated World...

With makeup and an affected Elvis pout, Tucson’s Charlie Schmid was a crude parody of a bad-boy heartthrob. In 1964, he still had a hold on girls who’d follow him anywhere. He murdered three of them. It was the dawn of the free-love movement - perfect for a magnetic madman who’d also foreshadow its end a few years later in the malignant charisma of Charles Manson. The inspiration for a classic story by Joyce Carol Oates, Schmid, the most bizarre serial killer of any era, was the epitome of a narcissist flattered into believing he could get away with murder.

The life of a veterinarian is challenging: keeping up with advances in medical care, making difficult decisions about people's beloved companions, and, in Dr. Doug Mader's case, navigating the social unrest in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. The Vet at Noah's Ark follows Dr. Mader and his staff over the course of a year at Noah's Ark Veterinary Hospital, an inner-city LA area veterinary hospital where Dr. Mader treats not only dogs and cats, but also emus, skunks, snakes, foxes, monkeys, and a host of other exotic animals

“[An] affecting and hilarious meditation on fame and prestige as seen through the lens of an airline loyalty program.” —The AV Club A hilarious and honest new book in which John Hodgman, New York Times bestselling author of Vacationland, leaves vacation behind and gets back to work as a...

A moving, laugh-out-loud memoir from one of today’s best-loved British actors, whose credits include Downton Abbey, Notting Hill, and Paddington. From getting his big break as Third Shepherd in the school nativity play, to mistaking a Hollywood star for an estate agent, Hugh Bonneville creates...

From a Deadpool 2 fan favorite comes a “hilarious, raw” (Rolling Stone) memoir about love, sex, parenthood, work, substance abuse, and everything else that makes life wonderful and/or horrible. Rob Delaney is a comedy superstar. But if you’re ever watched him steal scenes as Peter in...

If you're fat and fail every diet, if you're thin but can't get thin enough, if you lose your job, if your child dies, if you are diagnosed with cancer, if you always end up with exactly the wrong kind of person, if you always end up alone, if you can't get over the past, if your parents are...