Memoir Essays

When you're born with a vagina and a set of boobs, life can be complicated. In this intoxicating collection of essays, writer and college senior Tatiana Pérez explores the complexities of womanhood. From struggling to love her body to putting up with bad sex - Tati writes about it all with shameless candor and a raunchy sense of humor that won't quit. Boys are welcome to listen along, but this one's #forthegirls.

A book to sweep you away from the shore, into a wild world of water, whale, storm, and starlight ― to experience what it’s like to sail for weeks at a time with life set to a new rhythm. As a young girl, Hannah Stowe was raised at the tide’s edge on the Pembrokeshire coast of Wales...

Here is an audiobook that transcends the limits of how-to guides and honors the act of childbirth in the 21st century. Eleanor Henderson and Anna Solomon have gathered true birth stories by women who have made self-expression their business, including Cheryl Strayed, Julia Glass, Lauren Groff, Dani Shapiro, and many other luminaries. In Labor Day, you'll hear about women determined to give birth naturally and others begging for epidurals; women who pushed for hours and women whose labors were over practically before they'd started; women giving birth to twins and to 10-pound babies.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The beloved author of Here for It returns with a collection of “funny and compulsively readable” (Vogue), “hilarious and incisive” (Time) essays about what happens after happily ever after. “How is it possible that I liked this book even more than his last one?...

New York Times bestselling author Ann Leary offers a “zany, relatable essay collection” (Oprah Daily), told from the perspective of a recovering people pleaser. “Ann Leary is a damn delight...Read this book!” —Glennon Doyle Having arrived at a certain age (her prime), Ann Leary casts a...

"Wonderful... Physicans would do well to learn this most important lesson about caring for patients." —The New York Times Book Review Over the years that Victoria Sweet has been a physician, “healthcare” has replaced medicine, “providers” look at their laptops more than at their...

LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST A “vivid, thoughtful and nuanced collection of essays” (Associated Press) that treats women’s friendships as the love stories they truly are, from the critically acclaimed author of Negative Space “A tender, unswerving homage to her found family, but...

From the James Beard Award-nominated author of Tacky, a boldly funny, warts-and-all tour of the bad habits that make Rax King who she is "Most writers are boring people. King, though, seems different: Bettie Page meets Carrie Bradshaw."—Washington Post With Rax King's trademark blend of...

The final work from the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer, actor, and musician, drawn from his transformative last days In searing, beautiful prose, Sam Shepard’s extraordinary narrative leaps off the page with its immediacy and power. It tells in a brilliant braid of voices the story of an...

Now including a foreward by Bill Buford and photographs of Gellhorn with Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Gary Cooper, and others, this new edition rediscovers the voice of an extraordinary woman and brings back into print an irresistibly entertaining classic. "Martha Gellhorn...

One of NPR's Best Books of the Year A New York Times "New & Noteworthy" Book "Want Me is complicated, fun, shocking, and heart-warming all at once." —Jessica Valenti, New York Times bestselling author of Sex Object "Intimate, challenging, and so very smart. Want Me is a gift." —Rebecca...

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.

“Nervous takes the focus from the abstract and does what doctors (and historians) failed to do: makes her story, her pain, and her life as real as any history that proceeded. Nervous gives face and weight to those forgotten women whose suffering has become little more than anecdotal...

Hilarious, candid, and full of shenanigans, YouTube sensation Mamrie Hart—the New York Times bestselling author of You Deserve a Drink—is back with more adventures. When Mamrie simultaneously enters her 30s and finds herself single for the first time since college, the world is suddenly...

'An oracle' DOLLY ALDERTON 'Articulate[s] a universal, feminine wisdom with such ferocity it feels like she's slapping the reader around the face' OBSERVER 'Equal parts self-lacerating, tender and witty' GLAMOUR 'Furious, sharp, funny, honest' iPAPER On the Waterstones Best Books of 2025 List...

Part cultural criticism, part rueful confessional, a reformed brand strategist brings to light the impact of influence on us and our society and offers an escape in this ironically persuasive case for not being so easily influenced anymore. “A weirdly practical approach to some ancient...

From the best-selling author of the National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking: two extended excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks—writings that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer. Joan Didion has always kept notebooks: of...

From Susan Orlean—acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book—Rin Tin Tin is “an unforgettable book about the mutual devotion between one man and one dog” (The Wall Street Journal). He believed the dog was immortal. So begins Susan Orlean’s...

Figuring out who you want to be in life is never easy. In High Points and Lows, Austin Carty traces his own stumbling journey toward adulthood and true faith, drawing on lessons from pop culture and Christianity. In these funny and moving essays that address questions on faith, goals, and vocation, Carty offers an uplifting message for religious and secular audiences alike.

A darkly comic memoir-in-essays about the scam of the American Dream and doing whatever it takes to survive in the Sunshine State—from the award-winning author of High-Risk Homosexual “Relatable, funny and deeply heartfelt, this memoir is one not to miss.”—Today “Edgar Gomez is a young...