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Some the books on this list are helpful how-to-write books, while others are memoirs or true stories. All are recommended to help you learn about the art and craft of memoir writing. Enjoy!

Adams, Kathleen        The Write Way to Wellness

Allende, Isabel            Paula

Allison, Dorothy         Bastard Out of Carolina (a novel adapted from true life)

Angelou, Maya           I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings & other works

Ball, Edward               Slaves in the Family

Arenas, Reinaldo        Before Night Falls

Baker, Russell             Growing Up

Balakian, Peter            Black Dog of Fate

Barron’s                      1001 Pitfalls in English Grammar

Barrington, Judith       Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art; Lifesaving                                       

Bateson, Catherine      Composing a Life; Through a Daughter’s Eye

Bragg, Rick                 All Over But the Shoutin’; Ava’s Man                                   

Brande, Dorothea       Becoming a Writer     

Brautigan, Ianthe        You Can’t Catch Death

Brittain, Vera              Testament of Youth

Cameron, Julia            The Artist’s Way

Chandler, Marilyn       A Healing Art: Regeneration Through Autobiography

Chernin, Kim              My Mother’s House & other works

Conroy, Frank             Stop Time

Conway, Jill Kerr        When Memory Speaks

                                    The Road from Coorain and other books

Day, Dorothy              The Long Loneliness

DeBeauvoir, Simone   Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter  first of a three part autobio

De Caro, Frank           A Boy Named Phyllis

De Salvo, Louise         Writing as a Way of Healing

De Silver, Albert          Beamish Boy

Diski, Jenny                Skating to Antarctica

Eggers, David             A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Elbow Peter                Writing with Power; Writing Without Teachers                                 

Fox, John                    Poetic Medicine

Fremont, Helen           After Long Silence

Gebler, Carlo               My Father and I

Gates, Henry Louis     Colored People

Gilmore, Mikal            Shot in the Heart

Goldberg, Natalie       Writing Down the Bones (and other books)

                                    Thunder & Lightning—newest book

Gordon, Mary             Shadow Man

Gornick, Vivian          Fierce Attachments

Gunther, John             Death Be Not Proud

Hale, Constance          Sin and Syntax

Harrison, Catherine     The Kiss

Heilbrun, Carolyn       Writing a Woman’s Life

Herron, Rachael         A Life in Stitches

Hoffman, Eva             Lost in Translation

Jamison, Kay               An Unquiet Mind

Jung, Carl                    Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Kamenetz, Rodger      Terra Infirma: A Memoir of My Mother’s Life in Mine

Karlen, Barbro                        And the Wolves Howled

Karr, Mary                  The Liar’s Club;   Cherry; Lit                           

L’Engle, Madeleine    The Summer of the Great-Grandmother

Lamott, Anne              Traveling Mercies; Bird by Bird                                  

Lauck, Jennifer           Blackbird; Still Waters                                  

Lawrence, T. E.           Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Ledoux, Denis             Turning Memories into Memoirs

Lessard, Suzanne        The Architect of Desire

Lyden, Jacki                Daughter of the Queen of Sheba

MacDonald, Michael All Souls: A Family Story from Southie

Mason, Bobbie Ann    Clear Springs

Mairs, Nancy               Remembering the Bone House

Marafioti, Oksana       American Gypsy

Maynard, Isabelle       China Dreams: Growing Up Jewish in Tientsin

Maynard, Joyce           At Home in the World

McBride, James          The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother

McCarthy, Mary         Memories of a Catholic Girlhood

McCourt, Frank           Angela’s Ashes; Tis                              

McCourt, Malachy      Monk Swimming

                                    Singing my Him Song

Mead, Margaret          Blackberry Winter

Merton, Thomas          Seven Story Mountain; Diaries and Journals                                 

Neruda, Pablo             Memoirs

Newman, Janis Cooke The Russian Word for Snow

Norris, Kathleen          Dakota: A Spiritual Geography; Cloister Walk

Novotny, Dawn            Ragdoll Redeemed

O’Faolin, Nuala          Are You Somebody?

Pennebaker, James      Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions

Perel, Solomon            Europa, Europa

Rainer, Tristine            Your Life as Story; The New Diary                          

Reichl, Ruth                Tender at the Bone

Rhodes, Richard         A Hole in the World

Roessle, Denise           Second-Chance Mother

Ryan, Terry                 The Prizewinner of Defiance Ohio

Santos, John Phillip     Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation

Sarton, May                Journal of a Solitude; Plant Dreaming Deep & other books   

Scott-Maxwell, Florida  The Measure of my Days

See, Carolyn                Dreaming

Sharples, Madeline      Leaving the Hall Light One

Stegner, Wallace         Wolf Willow

Strayed, Cheryl           Wild

Strunk & White           The Elements of Style

Ueland, Brenda           If You Want to Write

Vincent, Eleanor         Swimming with Maya

Walls, Jeannette           Glass Castle

Weisel, Elie                 The Night Trilogy

Welty, Eudora             One Writer’s Beginnings

Williams, Terry Tempest         Leap; Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place                                              

Wolff, Geoffrey          The Duke of Deception

Wolff, Tobias              This Boy’s Life

Woolf, Virginia           Moments of Being; Letters

                                   

 

 

 

 

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