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If you liked Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, try these:
by Melissa Febos
Published Jun 2026
Read ReviewsFrom the national bestselling author of Girlhood, an examination of the solitude, freedoms, and feminist heroes Melissa Febos discovered during a year of celibacy. A wise and transformative look at relationships and self-knowledge.
by Jeanette Winterson
Published Jan 2026
Read Reviews"One of the most daring and inventive writers of our time" (Elle) weaves together memoir, manifesto, and a feminist reimagining of One Thousand and One Nights in this impassioned exploration of the power of reading.
by Tara Westover
Published Feb 2022
Read ReviewsWinner of the 2018 BookBrowse Nonfiction Award
An unforgettable memoir about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University.
by Carmen Maria Machado
Published Dec 2020
Read ReviewsA revolutionary memoir about domestic abuse by the award-winning author of Her Body and Other Parties.
by Jeanette Winterson
Published Sep 2020
Read ReviewsWhat will happen when homo sapiens is no longer the smartest being on the planet? In fiercely intelligent prose, Jeanette Winterson shows us how much closer we are to that future than we realize. Funny and furious, bold and clear-sighted, Frankissstein is a love story about life itself.
by Glen David Gold
Published Jun 2019
Read ReviewsFrom the best-selling author of Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside, a big-hearted memoir told in three parts: about growing up in the wake of the destructive choices of an extremely unconventional mother.
by Dawn Davies
Published Jan 2019
Read ReviewsDiscovered by Michael Ondaatje, Davies' dazzling literary memoir has shades of Mary Karr, Anne Lamott, and Jenny Lawson.
by Roxane Gay
Published Jun 2018
Read ReviewsFrom the New York Times best-selling author of Bad Feminist, a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.
by Keggie Carew
Published Mar 2018
Read ReviewsA spellbinding journey into surprising and shady corners of twentieth-century politics, a rackety English childhood, the poignant breakdown of a family, the corridors of dementia and beyond.
by Glennon Doyle Melton
Published Sep 2017
Read ReviewsThe highly anticipated new memoir by bestselling author Glennon Doyle Melton tells the story of her journey of self-discovery after the implosion of her marriage.
A 2016 Oprah Bookclub Selection
by Garrard Conley
Published Feb 2017
Read ReviewsA beautiful, raw and compassionate memoir about identity, love and understanding.
by Helen Macdonald
Published Mar 2016
Read ReviewsWinner of the 2015 BookBrowse Nonfiction Award
Obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir from an outstanding literary innovator.
by Scott Stossel
Published Feb 2015
Read ReviewsA riveting, revelatory, and moving account of the author's struggles with anxiety, and of the history of efforts by scientists, philosophers, and writers to understand the condition.
by Olivia Laing
Published Oct 2014
Read ReviewsWhy is it that some of the greatest works of literature have been produced by writers in the grip of alcoholism, an addiction that cost them personal happiness and caused harm to those who loved them?
by Jenny Offill
Published Oct 2014
Read ReviewsDept. of Speculation is a portrait of a marriage. It is also a beguiling rumination on the mysteries of intimacy, trust, faith, knowledge, and the condition of universal shipwreck that unites us all.
by Joy Harjo
Published Jul 2013
Read ReviewsIn this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo, one of our leading Native American voices, details her journey to becoming a poet.
by Sophia Al-Maria
Published Nov 2012
Read ReviewsThe Girl Who Fell to Earth heralds the arrival of an electric new talent and takes us on the most personal of quests: the voyage home.
by Kim Noble
Published Oct 2012
Read ReviewsTaking the reader through an extraordinary world where the very nature of reality is different, this personal narrative tells the story of one woman's terrifying battle to understand her own mind.
by Gabrielle Hamilton
Published Jan 2012
Read ReviewsBlood, Bones & Butter is an unflinching and lyrical work. Gabrielle Hamilton's story is told with uncommon honesty, grit, humor, and passion. By turns epic and intimate, it marks the debut of a tremendous literary talent.
by Mira Bartok
Published Aug 2011
Read ReviewsThe Memory Palace is a breathtaking literary memoir about the complex meaning of love, truth, and the capacity for forgiveness among family.
by Margaret Drabble
Published Sep 2010
Read ReviewsAn original and brilliant work. Margaret Drabble weaves her own story into a history of games, in particular jigsaws, which have offered her and many others relief from melancholy and depression.
by Jennifer Finney Boylan
Published Oct 2008
Read ReviewsFrom the bestselling author of She's Not There comes another buoyant, unforgettable memoirI'm Looking Through You is about growing up in a haunted house...and making peace with the ghosts that dwell in our hearts.
by Jeannette Walls
Published Jan 2006
Read ReviewsA tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that, despite its profound flaws, gave the author the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.
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