Memoir Essays

A stunningly lyrical firsthand account of a life spent hunting, studying, and living alongside caribou, A Thousand Trails Home encompasses the historical past and present day, revealing the fragile intertwined lives of people and animals surviving on an uncertain landscape of cultural and climatic change sweeping the Alaskan Arctic. Author Seth Kantner vividly illuminates this critical story about the interconnectedness of the Iñupiat of Northwest Alaska, the Western Arctic caribou herd, and the larger Arctic region.

Riveting, elegant, and humorous, New York Times bestseller Year of the Monkey is a moving and original work, a touchstone for our turbulent times. Following a run of new year’s concerts at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz...

Albert Camus (1913-1960) is unsurpassed among writers for a body of work that animates the wonder and absurdity of existence. Personal Writings brings together, for the first time, thematically-linked essays from across Camus's writing career that reflect the scope and depth of his interior life. Grappling with an indifferent mother and an impoverished childhood in Algeria, an ever-present sense of exile, and an ongoing search for equilibrium, Camus's personal essays shed new light on the emotional and experiential foundations of his philosophical thought....

"This book feels like a real conversation. When we enter Retta's world we are at the best party and in the hands of a gracious, self-perceptive, and deeply hilarious host." — Amy Poehler This program is read by the author. In this hilarious audiobook essay collection, Parks and Recreation star...

The warmly welcomed memoir by one of the most influential and beloved musicians of our time In Herbie Hancock: Possibilities, the legendary jazz musician and composer reflects on an extraordinary life and a thriving career that has spanned seven decades. A true innovator who has spent a...

A moving memoir of a life spent in the company of animals—a veterinarian sheds light on the universal experience of loving, healing, and losing our beloved pets, and the many ways they change our lives. The pursuit of a childhood dream has taken Suzy Fincham-Gray on a journey in veterinary...

Vir Sanghvi's has been an interesting life - one that took him to Oxford, movie and political journalism, television and magazines - and he depicts it with the silky polish his readers expect of him. In A Rude Life, he turns his dispassionate observer's gaze on himself, and in taut prose tells...

From Internet sensation Anna Akana comes a candid and poignant collection of essays about love, loss, and chasing adulthood. In 2007, Anna Akana lost her teen sister, Kristina, to suicide. In the months that followed, she realized that the one thing helping her process her grief and begin to...

USA TODAY BESTSELLER The fan favorite alumna of the Bravo hit series Southern Charm offers a witty and candid collection of essays on dating, pregnancy, and parenthood. Growing up in South Carolina with a family that goes back ten generations, Cameran Eubanks knew from a young age that Southern...

A resilient Turkish writer's inspiring account of his imprisonment that provides crucial insight into political censorship amidst the global rise of authoritarianism. The destiny I put down in my novel has become mine. I am now under arrest like the hero I created years ago. I await the decision...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER For readers of Kristine Barnett's The Spark, Andrew Solomon's Far From the Tree and Ian Brown's The Boy in the Moon, here is a heartfelt, funny and surprising memoir about one year spent driving a bus full of children with special needs. With his last novel, Cataract City...

A group of notable writers - including UK poet laureate Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, Margaret MacMillan, and Jenny Uglow - celebrate our fascination with the houses of famous literary figures, artists, composers, and politicians of the past.

Dani Alpert is an expert on the fortitude and delusion required to pursue childhood dreams that just won’t drop dead. Her experiences are a case study in the human spirit’s tenacity and its unwavering ability to keep going in the face of crushing rejection. After years toiling in the entertainment industry, hearing “Almost,” “So close,” or “Not quite” on a loop, she turned rejection into fuel and humor into a survival tool.

To mark the anniversary of his historic win at the 1997 Masters, Tiger Woods will for the first time reflect on the record-setting win both on and off the course. In 1997, Tiger Woods was already among the most-watched and closely examined athletes in history. But it wasn't until the Masters...

This stunningly personal document and extraordinary history of the turbulent '60s and early '70s displays James Baldwin's fury and despair more deeply than any of his other works. In vivid detail he remembers the Harlem childhood that shaped his early consciousness, the later events that scored his heart with pain - the murders of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, his sojourns in Europe and in Hollywood, and his return to the American South to confront a violent America face-to-face.

This definitive collection of beloved Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's finest speeches covers topics as varied as the law, faith, virtue, pastimes, and his heroes and friends. Featuring a foreword written and narrated by longtime friend Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and an intimate...

Bee Quammie invites women and girls everywhere to embrace the power of possibility in this intimate and empowering collection. A successful Black woman in media, Bee Quammie often finds herself being cast as a role model for young women—and especially Black women and other women of colour. But...

If your funny older sister were the former deputy chief of staff to President Barack Obama, her behind-the-scenes political memoir would look something like this . . . Alyssa Mastromonaco worked for Barack Obama for almost a decade, and long before his run for president. From the then-senator's...

This program is read by the author. A lightning-strike dispatch of hilarious, intimate, luminous essays from the brain (and voice!) of Emmy Award-nominated actress and writer Betty Gilpin. Oh. Hi. *takes six long gulps of water during which you’re like, may I help you?* My name is Betty. I...

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.