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Audio: October 2020

Feature by Anna Zeitlin

A hilarious memoir of single motherhood, a workplace romance and a spooky small-town thriller—what more could you want for this month’s best audiobooks?

★ The Hungover Games

Listening to The Hungover Games: A True Story, written and read by Sophie Heawood, is like having a gossipy brunch with your wittiest friend. British entertainment journalist Heawood takes us on a journey of unexpected single motherhood while living in Los Angeles, from her affair with an immature rocker to her attempts at dating with a baby at home. She takes life advice from the celebrities she profiles and sometimes gets a little too personal with them. Heawood’s narration makes the book even funnier and her experiences even more charming. In particular, her stories from the OB-GYN’s office and some remarkably bad dates left me cackling.

Attachments

Great news for Rainbow Rowell fans: Her charming 2011 novel, Attachments, has finally been released on audio, narrated by Rebecca Lowman. Just before the beginning of the new millennium, Lincoln is hired as an IT guy for a small city paper, where part of his job is to read any internal emails that get flagged by the new security system. He spends most days reading exchanges between Beth and Jennifer, two co-workers he’s never met but feels like he knows. Can there be love before first sight? For a book that mainly follows a man’s perspective, it’s surprising that a woman narrates the audiobook, but it somehow totally works. Lowman makes the email exchanges come alive with humor, and her performance has a down-to-earth quality that’s perfect for the more somber parts of the book.

The Bright Lands

John Fram’s suspenseful debut, The Bright Lands, narrated by Luis Selgas, is a spooky, queer thriller set in a small Texas town ruled by high school football. After a decade in New York, Joel returns to his conservative hometown to help his younger brother, Dylan, a football star who seems to be in trouble. Shortly after Joel arrives, Dylan turns up dead, and Joel’s visit becomes a murder investigation. Selgas is the perfect narrator for a mystery, as it feels like he’s always holding a little something back. He also performs a solid mix of Western accents for the side characters, adding to the book’s overall sense of place.

A hilarious memoir of single motherhood, a workplace romance and a spooky small-town thriller—what more could you want for this month’s best audiobooks?
NonfictionFictionChildren's & YASatireMiddle GradeMemoir

The Hold List: Books that legitimately made us laugh out loud

Feature by the editors of BookPage

They say it’s harder to make people laugh than it is to make them cry. Maybe this is why finding a book that makes you laugh—and we’re talking full-on guffaw here—is so difficult. We’ve done the hard work for you, so sit back and get ready to chuckle.

Priestdaddy

Usually when a poet pens a memoir, I buckle up for lyrical vignettes, a loose, dreamy structure and descriptions of open fields. But Patricia Lockwood isn’t your average poet, and Priestdaddy isn’t your average memoir. It’s as dense with bizarre observations about her father’s underwear as it is with beautiful turns of phrase about her father’s underwear. When Lockwood’s husband needed unexpected eye surgery, the pair returned to the Midwest to live with Lockwood’s parents in their rectory. Her father, you see, is a Catholic priest, despite his wife and five children. The rest of the book zigzags between this weird family reunion and Lockwood’s even weirder Catholic upbringing, filtered through the mind of someone who is herself breathtakingly weird. The resulting memoir is at once brilliant, irreverent, extraordinarily observed and precisely rendered.

—Christy, Associate Editor

The Wednesday Wars

I’ve never laughed harder at a book than I did at The Wednesday Wars, Gary D. Schmidt’s 2008 Newbery Honor-winning tale of seventh grader Holling Hoodhood, set in the late 1960s. In one chapter, Holling’s teacher, Mrs. Baker, assigns The Tempest. Holling is so impressed by Caliban’s “cuss words” that he decides to memorize them. He employs them in situations ranging from the cafeteria, where he deems his bologna sandwich “strange stuff,” to chorus, where he retorts, “Blind mole, a wicked dew from unwholesome fen drop you” after getting teased for singing soprano, to an encounter with his older sister. “A southwest blow on ye and blister you all o’er,” he tells her. Holling doesn’t mind that he doesn’t know exactly what he’s saying: “It’s all in the delivery anyway.”

—Stephanie, Associate Editor

The Sellout

There’s dark humor, and then there’s black hole-dark humor, and from that deep, crushing vacuum comes the biggest joke of all, a “post-racial” America. Paul Beatty’s Booker Prize winner is perhaps the greatest satirical novel of our lifetime, if not the greatest ever. The absurdity is beyond anything you’ve ever read; the wordplay is the cleverest, and Beatty’s irreverence the farthest star from political correctness. After the death of his father, our farmer hero, whose name is Me, finds himself as a crisis interventionist for the Black residents of Dickens, a town on the outskirts of Los Angeles that has been erased from the map. Despite Me’s protestations, an old Dickens resident (and former “Little Rascals” star) begs to be Me’s slave, punishments and all, and all he wants for his birthday is resegregation. Laugh to keep from crying, or cry to keep from laughing.

—Cat, Deputy Editor

China Rich Girlfriend

Kevin Kwan’s frothy novels of Asia’s ultrarich would just be compendiums of designer labels and other assorted decadences if not for his willingness to lovingly mock the society he invites the reader into. This is perfectly encapsulated by Colette Bing, a bundle of nervous energy swaddled in haute couture who darts through the second book of Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians series, China Rich Girlfriend. Colette is on a relentless quest to perfect every aspect of her existence. She named her dogs after Kate and Pippa Middleton and has the uniquely chaotic attitude of a person who has never encountered a problem she couldn’t buy her way out of. Kwan revels in her precisely orchestrated decadence and lampoons her absurdity in equal measure, creating a character you’ll love as much as laugh at.

—Savanna, Associate Editor

When in French

Think David Sedaris meets Jhumpa Lahiri, and you’ve got the gist of this smart, hilarious and tender memoir from New Yorker writer Lauren Collins. How did a woman from Wilmington, North Carolina, end up married to a Frenchman “who used Chanel deodorant and believed it to be a consensus view that Napoleon had lost at Waterloo because of the rain”? The story of their romance and Collins’ journey to fluency in French sits companionably alongside a thoughtful inquiry into the history of language. Pairing these two elements gives Collins’ experience universal resonance and intellectual weight, but there’s also a laugh on nearly every page as she recounts various linguistic misadventures, like informing her mother-in-law that she has given birth to a Nespresso machine. Lovers of language, romance and fish-out-of-water comedies shouldn’t miss it.

—Trisha, Publisher

They say it’s harder to make people laugh than it is to make them cry. Maybe this is why finding a book that makes you laugh—and we’re talking full-on guffaw here—is so difficult. We’ve done the hard work for you, so sit back and get…

NonfictionMemoir

Book Clubs: November 2020

Feature by Julie Hale

Four memoirs explore family tensions and long-held secrets that ripple across generations.

Acclaimed memoirist Dani Shapiro was very close to her father, Paul, who died when she was 23. After a DNA test revealed that Paul wasn’t her real father, Shapiro’s world was turned upside down. In Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love, Shapiro writes about searching for her biological father, who donated sperm to a clinic that her parents visited for fertility treatments. It’s an electrifying story, and Shapiro uses it as a springboard into explorations of identity and selfhood, family ties and the human need for closure. Honest, tender and moving, her memoir combines a stranger-than-fiction plotline with insights readers will savor.

Ariana Neumann provides a riveting account of her Jewish family’s experiences during World War II and the extraordinary life of her father, Hans Neumann, in When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains. Hans spied for the Allies in Berlin before going on to make his fortune in Venezuela as an industrialist, but the author didn’t learn about Hans’ past until after his death. Her book is at once a suspenseful tale of survival and a poignant tribute to her father.

In A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father, David Maraniss tells the story of his father, Elliott Maraniss, who led a unit of Black soldiers during World War II and was accused of being a communist in the 1950s. Maraniss was under FBI surveillance and was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, losing his journalism job as a result. In crafting a moving narrative of his father’s life during an era of fear, the author explores themes of patriotism and loyalty, racism and activism. He blends history with personal narrative to create a richly rewarding memoir.

Megan Phelps-Roper came of age in the conservative Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. As a zealous member of the congregation, she opposed homosexuality, espoused anti-Semitic views and became known for engaging critics on Twitter. But after her viewpoints shifted, she broke away from the church, a journey she documents in Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving Extremism. Phelps-Roper writes with unflinching honesty about questioning long-held beliefs and the process of building a new life. Book clubs will encounter substantial topics for discussion in her courageous, hopeful narrative.

Four memoirs explore family tensions and long-held secrets that ripple across generations.
NonfictionAudioSocial ScienceNatureMemoirBiography

Audiobooks: Don’t know what to listen to next? We’ve got some ideas

Feature by bookpagedev

Calling all runners, crafters, road warriors and vigorous house-cleaners: If you’re in need of a new audiobook, read on for some of the best new nonfiction productions. All true stories, all extraordinary listens.

All Creatures Great and Small (15.5 hours)

It’s been more than 50 years since James Herriot’s beloved stories were published, stealing hearts with his humorous tales about the 1930s Yorkshire Dales, where he served the memorable townsfolk as a young country veterinarian. This January, fans will settle in for PBS Masterpiece’s adaptation of the series, but this tie-in, read by star Nicholas Ralph, will transport you while you wait. Is there anything better than cozy stories told in a Scottish accent? Don’t be surprised if, while walking your dog, for example, you’re stopped by a stranger across the street who asks what you’re listening to because you just look so dang happy.

Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee (7.5 hours)

Shannon Lee, daughter of kung fu master Bruce Lee, shares the stories behind her father’s guiding philosophy to “be water,” to accept oneself rather than try to go against one’s nature. As Lee explains, water is “soft yet strong, natural yet able to be directed, detached yet powerful, and above all, essential to life.” Lee’s book entertains as it inspires, and she sounds like an old pro as its narrator, confidently inviting us to join in this philosophy of self-acceptance.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (14.5 hours)

Robin Miles narrated Isabel Wilkerson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Warmth of Other Suns, and she delivers another smooth, energetic performance for Caste, Wilkerson’s latest masterpiece. In Caste, Wilkerson spins years of research into an accessible yet profound case for an unacknowledged caste system within the United States. More than race, more than class, Wilkerson believes that the language of caste best describes the hierarchy of power in our country, and she thoroughly demonstrates this claim through insights about the similar caste systems in India and Nazi Germany and through personable anecdotes from her own personal experience. These stories, brought to life by Miles’ trademark clarity, warmth and gravitas, provide readers with a new lens on the world that, once peered through, will change the way they see things forever.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Discover more of our most highly recommended audiobooks.

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X (18 hours)

For a listener seeking a full immersion in history, we recommend you download this monumental, National Book Award-winning biography from Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Les Payne, a 30-year project completed after Payne’s death by his daughter, Tamara Payne. This book embroiders the full canvas surrounding the story of Malcolm X, providing a total sense of context, complete with corrected historical records and rewind-that-back-and-listen-again revelations. Award-winning narrator Dion Graham is one of the finest in the business, and he commands your attention, warmly but firmly demanding, Listen up—this is the story of Macolm X like you’ve never heard before.

I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are (5 hours)

Funny woman and TV genius Rachel Bloom (you know her from “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”) narrates her own memoir about awkwardness and fame, and it’s everything you could hope for. Her writing runneth over with personality, and her audiobook nearly explodes with it. She does hilarious voices, she makes audio-related asides to translate a text-only quip, and she cannonballs through her most irreverent jokes with such glee such that you have no choice but to laugh till it hurts.

Memorial Drive (5 hours)

Former U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey narrates her debut memoir, Memorial Drive, with both steady skill and heart-wrenching tenderness. As a poet, she understands the subtle power of phrasing, emphasis and a well-timed pause. Yet as she tells the story of her mother’s murder by Trethewey’s ex-stepfather when Trethewey was 19, there is an understandable rawness just below the surface. Her voice catches with deep emotion as she recounts the story of why it took her 35 years to turn this harrowing story of fear, loneliness and loss into a memoir. The content is tragic, but Trethewey’s lingering Mississippi inflection is soothing as she lays out her tale, and listeners will feel totally at ease as they tune in to hear a master at work.

Notes on a Silencing (11 hours)

How do you talk about something that you’ve been forced to stay silent about? Lacy Crawford does the seemingly impossible in her memoir: She tells the full story of her rape by two boys while at a New England boarding school, and then narrates it for the audiobook. Her clear voice provides her younger self with a level of truth that has too long been withheld and offers moments of levity amid the darkness. The younger Lacy is likable and bold as she navigates her trauma and the cruelty of her school. This memoir is a masterful depiction of how to tell a story, especially the hardest one you could ever think to write.

★ Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America (12 hours)

The history of immigration in America gets a personal and, through author Maria Hinojosa’s narration, supremely entertaining and moving treatment in this part memoir, part work of social science. Hinojosa’s family immigrated to the United States from Mexico when she was an infant, and she tangles her history with the nation’s to offer one of the finest audiobooks of the year.

Hinojosa is the anchor and executive producer of "Latino USA" on NPR, and she knows how to spin a story, boldly capturing moments of triumph and pain, and performing voices that conjure the unexpected strength of her mother, that mock the unjust or the racist and that transport the listener to each and every event she recounts here. She understands exactly what America offers and how it has failed immigrants, and she packages the story in journalistic objectivity and an arresting, honest performance.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Maria Hinojosa reveals what it was like to narrate her memoir: “I am the character, she is me!”

Vesper Flights (10.5 hours)

Helen Macdonald’s collection of nature essays offers a balance of comfort and clear-eyed concern, Some of the essays are short and sweet (a vignette on her father and a goat is laughably brief), but her pieces that connect her love of nature to the wider world are when this book really shines. She draws threads between migraines and climate change, between nostalgia for the natural world and Brexit, and between flocks of birds and our own relationship to the changing environment. With deep affection and a frank yet gentle tone, she shares her wide knowledge and unique perspective like the gifts that they are.

Where I Come From: Stories From the Deep South (7.5 hours)

For Southern listeners, to hear Rick Bragg narrate his own missives from the Deep South is to be transported to a porch on a summer evening. This collection combines some of his finest columns from Southern Living and Garden & Gun, in which he explores down-home topics such as Tupperware, trucks and the importance of a good knife. There’s nothing quite so calming as a rhythmic Southern drawl, capturing the most romantic bits of a rural life.

Calling all runners, crafters, road warriors and vigorous house-cleaners: If you’re in need of a new audiobook, read on for some of the best new nonfiction productions. All true stories, all extraordinary listens.
NonfictionMemoirBody, Mind & Spirit

Gifts for gentle growth

Feature by Susannah Felts

In this strange and difficult year, we’ve all learned how to seek out and find silver linings. Here’s one: At a moment when we could all use a gift that says “Everything is going to be OK,” these five books thoughtfully send that message.

Get Out of My Head

Sized perfectly for a stocking or a shoulder bag, Meredith Arthur’s Get Out of My Head is like a soothing visit with a therapist who’s there to take your call at any time. This one is for the overthinkers, those of us who let our thoughts take us down the wrong rabbit holes. People can experience physical symptoms like headaches, dizziness, shortness of breath and nausea as a result of stress and anxiety. The challenge, which this little book gently helps us meet, is to recognize the signals of a stress-based physical reaction, then deploy specific moves like visualization, breathing techniques and other thought and sensory controls. Maybe lasting calm is more difficult to achieve, but trust me, this book has the right idea. Leah Rosenberg’s cheerful illustrations are the perfect accompaniment to this digestible and portable guide.

The Panic Button Book

Taking a different but no less tidy approach to stress, anxiety and typical relational woes, The Panic Button Book is set up as a series of flowcharts in response to questions like “Do you and your partner have different standards when it comes to housework/ambition/money/other?”, “Are you dreading an upcoming event?” and “Are your muscles feeling tense?” The questions, which author Tammi Kirkness organizes into categories such as work, socializing, relationships and parenting, pinpoint both difficult feelings and physical concerns while reminding us that there’s a shared awkwardness to being human, and we can take some solace in simply acknowledging that commonality. There’s also comfort to be found in paging through this book and thinking, nope, that’s not my problem right now. When you find a question that rings true to your current concern, the facing page will guide you, step by step, in coping constructively so you can move on.

★ Wintering

There are times in life, however, when you may just have to sit with the struggle. This is what writer Katherine May calls a wintering, “a fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider.” May tells the story of one such period in her life in Wintering, which begins when her husband falls ill with appendicitis, setting off a chain of events that leaves her sidelined from work and her usual industrious lifestyle. In beautiful prose, she shows us that there are benefits to leaning in to these difficult times, even though our culture is set up to resist them. “An occasional sharp wintering would do us good,” she writes. “We must stop believing that these times in our life are somehow silly, a failure of nerve, a lack of willpower. . . . We must learn to invite the winter in.”

May’s story follows the course of the actual winter months, so that it’s about both a time of loneliness and the challenge of the chilliest, most barren season. She is a poetic observer of the natural world, and quotable lines abound. “The cold renders everything exquisite,” she writes of a morning frost. “Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season when the world takes on a sparse beauty and even the pavements sparkle. It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order.” I want to share Wintering with all my friends who experience the winter blues, and keep a copy close at hand for the inevitable winterings of my own life.

Plant Therapy

One thing that brings me cheer during winter is my collection of happy houseplants, and science backs me up on this. Plant Therapy dives deep into research that shows we could all stand to be more connected to the natural world; indeed, distance from it may be one of the chief causes of our discontent. Bringing some green into our homes is one small but significant step toward nourishing a relationship with nature. Therapist Katie Cooper begins by presenting the environmental, physiological, cognitive and affective benefits of proximity to plants, then shows us how making houseplants part of our indoor lives is a study in positive reciprocity: As we care for them, they will care for us.

Be Water, My Friend

Once you’ve got your new plant buddies positioned nearby, consider curling up with Be Water, My Friend from Shannon Lee, daughter of Bruce Lee. The martial arts icon is remembered and revered for his philosophy as much as for his physical prowess, and here, readers are given the opportunity to learn from the legend. “The idea of being like water is to attempt to embody the qualities of fluidity and naturalness in one’s life,” Lee writes. “Water can adjust its shape to any container, it can be soft or strong, it is simply and naturally always itself, and it finds a way to keep moving and flowing.” Lee shares stories from her father’s life and her own to illuminate how curiosity and a graceful flexibility can serve us all, no matter what life throws our way.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Love audiobooks? Check out Be Water, My Friend and other nonfiction audiobook picks.

At a moment when we could all use a gift that says “Everything is going to be OK,” these five books thoughtfully send that message.
NonfictionMemoirFilmBiography

Book Clubs: December 2020

Feature by Julie Hale

Entertaining yet substantial, briskly paced yet informative, these celebrity memoirs and biographies are perfect for the busy month of December.

In Inside Out, actor Demi Moore comes to terms with her troubled past. As the daughter of alcoholic parents, Moore had an unstable and traumatic childhood, and her early career as a model left her feeling insecure about her appearance. Although she went on to achieve success in Hollywood, starring in such films as St. Elmo’s Fire and Ghost, she struggled for years with drug addiction. Throughout this candid, accomplished memoir, Moore is upfront about her marriages to Bruce Willis and Ashton Kutcher, and she provides fascinating insight into the movie business.

Esteemed actor Sally Field shares her personal story in her memoir, In Pieces. Born in Pasadena, California, in 1946, Field opens up about her solitary childhood, her alcoholic mother and the stepfather who abused her. She began acting as a teen, going on to star in blockbusters including Norma Rae and Forrest Gump. With sensitivity and a wonderful command of narrative, she reflects on important past relationships, including her romance with Burt Reynolds, and on the impulses that drive her acting. The result is a well-rounded, well-written portrait of an artist that will appeal to anyone who loves a good celebrity memoir.

Written by bestselling biographer Sheila Weller, Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge is an illuminating study of an American icon. Carrie Fisher, perhaps best known for portraying Princess Leia in the Star Wars films, was the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actor Debbie Reynolds. In this well-researched biography, Weller chronicles Fisher’s Hollywood up-bringing, her rise as an actor, her marriages and her experiences with bipolar disorder and drugs. Fisher’s intelligence and strength shine through in this lively narrative, which is rich with movie history and personal anecdotes, as well as themes of family and feminism.

Illustrator and author Edward Sorel revisits the golden age of Hollywood in Mary Astor’s Purple Diary: The Great American Sex Scandal of 1936. Sorel explores the life of actor Mary Astor, star of The Maltese Falcon and other classics, who kept a diary of her sexual affairs. In the 1930s, her ex-husband discovered the diary and used it against her during his legal battle for custody of their daughter. Sorel digs in to weighty topics including public image, the power of journalism and the female experience in show business, and his nifty illustrations add to the book’s appeal.

Entertaining yet substantial, briskly paced yet informative, these celebrity memoirs and biographies are perfect for the busy month of December.

In Inside Out, actor Demi Moore comes to terms with her troubled past. As the daughter of alcoholic parents, Moore had an unstable and traumatic…

NonfictionTechnologyMemoir

Book Clubs: January 2021

Feature by Julie Hale

Four fresh takes on work and life in the digital age.

In Uncanny Valley, Anna Wiener chronicles her career at a Silicon Valley startup. After an unrewarding stint in New York publishing, Wiener was ready to give the San Francisco tech world a try, but the behind-the- scenes reality of the industry took her by surprise. Wiener tells of a patriarchal culture of wealth and ambition that left her disenchanted and in search of answers about her own life. Written with humor and intelligence, this briskly paced memoir explores gender in the workplace, the millennial mindset and the uses and abuses of power by influential companies. It’s a tech industry tell-all that’s both riveting and relevant.

Gretchen McCulloch delivers an intriguing study of the terminology, grammar and symbolism that shape online communication in Because Internet. McCulloch is a linguistics whiz who writes clearly and comprehensively for the lay reader about her area of expertise. In Because Internet, she delves into the development and diffusion of online slang, the power of memes and the inspiration behind emoji. Trends in online vocabulary and the progression of language are among the subjects up for debate, providing reading groups with meaty material for discussion.

Jia Tolentino critiques digital-age trends and attitudes in her acclaimed debut essay collection, Trick Mirror. Over the course of the book’s nine pieces, Tolentino examines the impact of social media and the internet, the American dream of perfectionism and other timely topics. She also shares personal stories, including an essay on her brush with reality TV. (She appeared on “Girls v. Boys: Puerto Rico.”) Funny, savvy and insightful, the collection establishes Tolentino as a vital millennial voice. Complex topics including self-image in the era of Instagram and the risks and rewards of social media make this collection a terrific pick for any book club.

Of the moment and utterly fascinating, Victoria Turk’s Kill Reply All explores the unique and multifaceted challenges of digital communication. Turk, who is a features editor at Wired UK, offers valuable advice about how to communicate online with confidence, whether that’s through chatting in a dating app or answering emails at work. Bringing a comic flair to the proceedings, she covers important topics like online friendships, the uses of emoji and the finer points of text messaging. There’s plenty for reading groups to debate and discuss in Turk’s thoughtful yet lighthearted guide to being polite in your online life.

Four fresh takes on work and life in the digital age that are also fantastic conversation starters for your reading group.

NonfictionMemoirBiography

Book Clubs: March 2021

Feature by Julie Hale

Celebrate Women’s History Month with terrific nonfiction titles spotlighting female pioneers and groundbreakers.

Adam Hochschild’s spirited biography Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes chronicles the life of Rose Pastor Stokes (1879–1933), a Russian refugee of Jewish descent who married millionaire James Graham Phelps Stokes. The two became members of the Socialist Party and mixed with figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois and anarchist Emma Goldman. Hochschild’s enthralling narrative shines a light on Pastor Stokes’ work as a champion of the working class and of the feminist cause. Pick this one if your group is ready for a dynamic discussion of social justice, women’s rights and the often overlooked history of American activism during the early 20th century.

In Horror Stories, musician Liz Phair—perhaps best known for her 1993 release Exile in Guyville—looks back at some painfully formative moments in her life. She writes with vibrancy and honesty about being unfaithful to her first husband, getting into a street brawl in Shanghai and giving birth to her son after 32 hours of labor. She's refreshingly upfront about her own personal shortcomings, but she's also compassionate about them, allowing her to connect with readers who've experienced their own missteps. Book groups will appreciate Phair’s skills as a memoirist and find rich topics for conversation, including the female experience in the music industry and riot grrrl-era feminism. 

Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century by John Loughery and Blythe Randolph provides an in-depth look at a legendary lady. Dorothy Day (1897–1980) was a noted journalist, pacifist and advocate for labor and women’s rights. A Brooklyn native, she was also part of the Greenwich Village scene that included poet Hart Crane and playwright Eugene O’Neill. This lively biography documents her personal and political evolution in wonderful detail. Brimming with history and discussion topics related to religion and progressivism, it’s an inspired choice for Women’s History Month.

In her brave, probing memoir Recollections of My Nonexistence, essayist and activist Rebecca Solnit recounts her coming-of-age as a writer. Solnit settled in San Francisco as a teenager during the 1980s. While in grad school, she entered the writing world—an arena dominated by men—and worked to overcome gender barriers and find her place as an artist. Solnit’s astute observations of the literary life and the San Francisco art scene make for fascinating reading, and her evolving sense of her own identity and empowerment will prompt lively conversation among readers.

Celebrate Women’s History Month with terrific nonfiction titles spotlighting female pioneers and groundbreakers.

NonfictionMemoirMedicine

Good advice for grads entering the new normal

Feature by Carly Nations

When I graduated from high school in 2008, the U.S. was plummeting into a financial collapse that tanked the rest of the world’s economy as well. By the time I graduated from college in 2012, the descriptions of most entry-level positions began, “Must have at least five years of relevant experience.” And no one really had any advice about what to do with the massive, overwhelming problem that was and is student debt.

In 2021, as graduates face not only economic hardship but also the pandemics of poverty, racism and COVID-19, good advice is equally hard to find. The past year has taught them that stability is the illusion, while change and upheaval are the norm. Facing an uncertain future means figuring out how to navigate big changes.

In Letter to a Young Female Physician: Notes From a Medical Life, author Suzanne Koven explores her own personal crises and growth, weaving them within the story of her practice as an internist, or doctor of internal medicine. Koven discusses her struggles with image, identity, sexuality and weight and sees these things as inextricably tied to her desire to be someone important: a doctor. Yet, what Koven discovers is that despite succeeding and becoming a doctor, she failed to overcome the impostor syndrome that plagued her even before she held others’ lives in her hands.

In this way, Koven’s story speaks to the impostor in all of us. Koven writes that “even the most blameless patient, the victim of an accident or a random illness in no way related to anything that person did and in no way preventable by them, feels shame.” We’re all victims of senseless suffering—an economic collapse, a pandemic. These shared traumas reveal our shame; but Koven advises us not to ignore or try to defeat it but rather to allow it to shape us into better, more empathetic people.

By contrast, Your Turn: How to Be an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims falls into the more traditional, practical advice category. With frank, straightforward counsel and to-do list chapter titles, Your Turn gives advice that all of us—adults, young adults and children—need to hear.

Citing the work of bestselling psychology researchers and writers like Lori Gottlieb and Brené Brown, Lythcott-Haims’ book advises young people to take chances and find what makes them happy, rather than following a prescribed path to success. Perhaps the most moving passages are the “don’t just take it from me” stories collected from various friends, acquaintances and pen pals. In a world that feels so isolating, reading these deeply intimate stories reminds us why we long to live in community with one another and how doing so truly helps us survive and thrive.

The greatest takeaway from both of these books isn’t the advice they provide but their acknowledgement that we all need each other. Alone, we’re more susceptible to our own shame and self-doubt. Yet here we are, longing not for some sort of undefinable success but simply to be in each other’s presence again. To be sure, many obstacles still stand in the way of our ideal lives; for example, no one envisions a pandemic as the perfect start to adulthood. But sharing our stories is the first step forward, as these tender, inspiring books make clear.

The greatest takeaway from both of these books for burgeoning adults isn’t the advice but the acknowledgement that we all need each other.
NonfictionMemoir

What to read after ‘Wild’

Feature by Kate Pritchard

Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, Wild, about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail after the death of her mother and the dissolution of her marriage, was one of 2012’s biggest and best books. Even Oprah thought so; she made it her first pick when she relaunched her book club! With its clear-eyed portrayal of Strayed’s all-consuming sorrow and loneliness, and the incredible story of her (some might say foolhardy) determination to seek answers in an unforgiving landscape, Wild was #2 on the BookPage editors’ Best of 2012 list.

Strayed’s memoir encompasses so many different themes—grief, adventure, the healing power of nature, the journey to forgiveness and growth, discovering a community of like-minded misfits—that each reader takes away something different. If you’re longing for something in a similar vein, try one of the following.

Let's Take the Long Way Home by Gail CaldwellLet’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell

Like Wild, Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a heartbreaking but beautifully told memoir of living through loss. When Gail Caldwell met Caroline Knapp, the two formed a quick, deep bond over such shared experiences as the joys and frustrations of writing, long walks with their beloved dogs and their self-destructive, alcoholic pasts. Knapp was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2002 and died a few short months later; Caldwell’s grief over the loss of her friend knocked her flat. Her book is a powerful testament to a close friendship and the person she has become in its wake.
 

Claiming Ground by Laura BellClaiming Ground by Laura Bell

Laura Bell’s life has taken many unexpected turns. After graduating college in the 1970s, she had a hard time figuring out who, or what, she wanted to be. So she turned to what she knew to be real and true—her love of animals and the land—and moved to Wyoming to become a sheepherder. It was not an easy job, especially for a young woman, but she learned to face her failures and celebrate her strengths, all the while reveling in the harsh splendor of the Western landscape. Over the years, she turned to different jobs (forest ranger, masseuse) and different people for companionship, surviving divorce and agonizing loss along the way. Inspiring in the best way, Bell’s memoir chronicles a lifetime of learning how to be herself.

Townie by Andre Dubus IIITownie by Adre Duhus III

The working-class neighborhoods of Lowell, Massachusetts, are no place for a young boy to admit to any weakness. In such an environment, Andre Dubus III grew up poor and, by age 11, the child of an acrimonious divorce. After years of enduring taunts and violence against his family, he fought back, transforming himself into a strong, vicious boxer and brawler. Eventually, he turned to writing as a way to lift himself out of misery and the dead-end life he was living, and also to untangle his relationship with his father after a serious injury. Light reading it is not, but readers who loved Wild for its unflinching look at Strayed’s sad and troubled family will appreciate the portrait of love and loneliness that Dubus paints in Townie.

Fire Season by Philip ConnorsFire Season by Philip Connors

Philip Connors has spent many summers as a fire lookout in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico, a job that allows him to attune himself deeply to the natural world around him. Though the work is not as physically demanding as hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, it requires long hours of solitude and the close, thorough observation of the forest. With nothing but the sights and sounds of the woods to distract him, Connors can achieve a sort of meditative peace that lends itself well to the daily practice of writing. When he observes that natural fires (caused by lightning strikes) are often beneficial, even necessary, to the survival of the forest’s ecosystem, readers will realize that the truths he uncovers on the mountain may have meaning in their own lives as well.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill BrysonA Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

If you’re looking for a lighter take on the experience of long-distance hiking, Bill Bryson’s modern classic A Walk in the Woods is essential reading. Like Strayed, Bryson is not exactly prepared for the rigors of the journey when he sets out to hike the Appalachian Trail, and his bumbling efforts and dry humor make for an irresistible combination. Along the way, he learns about the history and allure of the AT and meets a number of curious characters—including his traveling companion, a cranky, monosyllabic and somewhat rundown friend from his high school days.

 

Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs by Heather LendeTake Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs by Heather Lende

Heather Lende, columnist for the Anchorage Daily News, has been compared to writers such as Anne Lamott and Annie Dillard for her gentle but deep-seated spirituality and her love of the natural world—in this case, the mountainous beauty of her Alaska home. In this collection of essays and observations, Lende writes with grace and humor about challenges and triumphs both personal and communal, and captures the spirit of community that infuses her small town. Like Strayed, Lende struggles with big questions, and finds inspiration in the beautiful but unforgiving landscape around her.

Strayed's memoir encompasses so many different themes that each reader takes away something different. If you're longing for something in a similar vein, try one of the following.
Memoir

Poetic realms of James Merrill

Review by Julie Hale

Knopf has begun republishing the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Merrill, widely considered one of the leading American poets of the 20th century. The first title on tap, Collected Poems, is a lavish, 885-page volume that spans Merrill's 50-year career, documenting the evolution of an artist. The book contains the whole of Merrill's published lyric poems, excluding (because it was too lengthy) , The Changing Light at Sandover, an epic work based on the poet's famous experiments with a Ouija board. Merrill, who probed both the worldly and spiritual realms the here and the hereafter seemed interested in everything: music and theater, history and myth, and, always, the act of writing itself. A poet of consistent elegance, Merrill, it seems, never missed a beat. In the years to come, Knopf will bring out Merrill's novels, plays and nonfiction, as well as a biography. For now, the man himself is immortalized in a new book by novelist Alison Lurie. Familiar Spirits: A Memoir of James Merrill and David Jackson chronicles Lurie's friendship with Merrill and his partner, David Jackson. Lurie, who knew Merrill for more than 40 years, covers a lot of territory in this little book, remembering Merrill's life with Jackson in New York, Athens and Key West, and ruminating on the supernatural forces that lay behind the composition of the mystical, mammoth Sandover. A mix of analysis and fresh insight, Familiar Spirits is sure to lend new dimension to an already multi-faceted figure.

Knopf has begun republishing the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Merrill, widely considered one of the leading American poets of the 20th century. The first title on tap, Collected Poems, is a lavish, 885-page volume that spans Merrill's 50-year career, documenting the evolution of…

Memoir

Photojournalist tells all

Review by Deanna Larson

Brassier than Gloria Steinem in the NOW era, Deborah Copaken Kogan, an international photojournalist who wielded her camera throughout the '80s and part of the '90s, has written a vivid, spirited account of the remarkable career that took her around the world. A rollercoaster ride of a read, Shutterbabe: Adventures in Love and War is an accomplished narrative told with the wisdom of a woman who lived many lives in a single decade. A Harvard graduate whose work has appeared in Time and Newsweek, Kogan shot everything from the wars in Pakistan and Afghanistan to the collapse of the Romanian government. Shutterbabe follows the course of her career a succession of extraordinary assignments interspersed with intense, sometimes simultaneous, love affairs. Indeed, a veritable United Nations of men appear in the narrative, some of whom accompanied Kogan on her travels and aided in her transformation from girl to woman. It's hard to say what is more remarkable about this memoir the lively adventures of Kogan or the reasoned look at history she presents via her reckless personal experiences. By book's end, she struggles to balance the responsibilities of work and motherhood perhaps her toughest assignment yet.

Brassier than Gloria Steinem in the NOW era, Deborah Copaken Kogan, an international photojournalist who wielded her camera throughout the '80s and part of the '90s, has written a vivid, spirited account of the remarkable career that took her around the world. A rollercoaster ride…

Pop CulturePhotographyMemoirHistoryArts & Culture

Battles for the bookshelf

Review by James Webb

If you're searching for a gift for a member of the greatest generation, this season's offerings of World War II books provide an exciting range of choices. With the phenomenal popularity of Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation as an incentive, publishers have combed archives and other sources to produce books that give new, eye-opening accounts of the war to readers young and old still fascinated by this pivotal event in world history.

What better place to start than Page One: The Front Page History of World War II as Presented in The New York Times. This is a compilation of selected issues of the nation's greatest newspaper covering our nation's greatest crisis and it makes for fascinating reading. Each front page is reproduced in its entirety, and you can't help but take note of the way the headlines grow in point size as the years go on. The smaller stories of the war can be just as fascinating as the headlines. Not many people know that the U.S. mainland the Aleutian Islands in Alaska was actually attacked twice in the summer of 1942, which a careful reading of these front pages will reveal.

A similar approach can be found in The Second World War: An Illustrated History of World War II, Volume I, edited by the writer and literary critic Sir John Hammerton. This is a massive set of books that reprint the journal The War Illustrated, a popular British publication that covered the war practically from its inception. For the true aficionado of WWII memorabilia, this is as close to source materials as you're likely to get. Where else would you find the verbatim dispatch of a Russian journalist as he waits in Moscow, listening to the sound of German guns only 70 miles from the city? Or the account of an RAF bomber crew, shot down over the Atlantic, who survived nine days in a life raft before finally being rescued? Maybe you'll want to get the volume covering the beginnings of the war, or perhaps the one concerning America's entry into the conflict. A truly interested reader will want to have them all.

Another excellent entry is Our Finest Hour: Voices of the World War II Generation. While it contains only a fraction of the vast archives of Life's World War II photographs, every picture included here is superb. In truth, words aren't needed, but contemporaneous material from the magazine enhances the photographs. Photographers for Life have always had a knack for capturing a story on film. Whether it's a colonel kneeling before the flag-draped body of his son on Okinawa, or the mute exhaustion of a foot soldier after D-Day, words aren't even necessary; each photo conveys a wealth of information and emotion.

Five years after its original publication Andy Rooney's My Warhas been reissued in a gift edition with a new forward by Tom Brokaw. Rooney was a young sergeant writing for Stars and Stripes during the war, and he was eyewitness to some of the most momentous events in this nation's history. He focuses not on the planning sessions or the summit meetings or even the crucial battles though he was present at many of these things but rather on the experiences of the common soldier. Whether it be the pilots who bombed Germany despite their horrendous casualty rate, or the foot soldiers who plodded across Europe, Rooney tells their story. Drafted at the war's beginning, he began as a member of an artillery company, but used his writing background to gain a position with the Army's newspaper. Rooney tells his story in such an appealing, matter-of-fact style that the reader feels like he is part of a private conversation. An excellent, funny and moving book, My War makes a worthy addition to any World War II bookshelf.

Now if you're wondering, Which of these books should I buy my Granddad? we have a surprising answer for you. If he's a veteran of the war, he'd enjoy any of these selections, but we would be willing to bet that Max Allen Collins' For The Boys: The Racy Pin-Ups of World War IIwould put the biggest grin on his face. This is a full color collection of the arty and racy pin-ups and posters that ended up on the walls and jackets and bombers of the soldiers of the war. It may be politically incorrect, but it's history. Just don't give it to him while the great-grandkids are around!

A personal favorite among the new World War II books is one of the most unusual books on the war I've ever seen. While we all have been raised to think of the war as one fought in black and white, in newsreels and grainy photographs, The Second World War In Color by Stewart Binns and Adrian Wood is just that a collection of color photographs of the war. Adolph Hitler lounges in a smartly cut blue pin-stripe suit and olive bombers warm up with brown beaches, blue skies and green palm trees in the background. This book is at times jaw-droppingly amazing; somehow the color makes the impact of the war more immediate.

From funny posters to heartbreaking photographs, these new books bring to life the experience of World War II and provide fascinating reading for the veterans who were there and for those who want a revealing glimpse of history in the making.

If you're searching for a gift for a member of the greatest generation, this season's offerings of World War II books provide an exciting range of choices. With the phenomenal popularity of Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation as an incentive, publishers have combed archives and…

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