This past Saturday, August 31st, was National We Love Memoirs Day – and, as the memoir is one of the genres I most enjoy, I decided to share some of my favorites that I have read recently.

Right now, including print books, ebooks, and audiobooks, my Goodreads Reading Challenge total for the year is at 175 (this little word nerd is always reading or listening to something ❤ ) – the vast majority of those non-fiction – so I decided not to try to rank them or anything, but rather just to choose some of my favorites. ❤

(Even so, it was tough to narrow it down to just these few.)

First, Dave Grohl’s The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music. His honest, funny, moving memoir of his entire life – his childhood through Nirvana to Foo Fighters up to 2020 is wonderful. It is a joy however you read it, but it is best as an audiobook, read by Dave himself. ❤

For another project I’m working on, I’ve read several of Peter Mayle’s memoirs about his life as he and his wife moved from their home in Britain to build a life in Provence, France. I can honestly say that I have enjoyed them all and would recommend any of them. For our purposes here, I choose his work, My Twenty-Five Years in Provence: Reflections on Then and Now. It is delightful.

Also, as part of the same project – though I’ve read much Papa Hemingway – I had not read his memoir of his early life in Paris, A Moveable Feast – and I absolutely loved it.

A book I mentioned when I wrote about Carolyn Bessette Kennedy I found to be a wonderful memoir overall is Carole Radziwill’s What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love. This is a beautiful and deeply moving look at Carole’s life and her loved ones lost too soon.

Another book I have mentioned here that I loved was Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart. Michelle writes about growing up as one of the few Asian students in her community, struggling under the weight of her mother’s expectations – and the strained relationship with her mother as a result, moving away to create her own life, and eventually facing the loss of her mother – and finally coming back to her culture. This memoir spoke to my heart.

Next, I know I’ve shared here about my love of Rachel Held Evans – I was deeply grieved when she passed away at only 37 suddenly – and I revisited one of her best known memoirs earlier this year, Searching for Sunday. In it, she shares her life, growing up evangelical and then finding herself with many questions, wandering and seeking. Rachel was a kindred spirit, she and I having even literally attended the same evangelical elementary school in Birmingham, Alabama – and I love the honesty and vulnerability with which she shares her story here..

Dear Mr. You by Mary Louise Parker, written as a series of letters to the men in her life, is just stunning. I was not expecting it to be so good – but it is absolutely one to read.

A *much* heavier read – that is absolutely necessary – is Esther Safran Foer’s I Want You to Know We’re Still Here: A Post-Holocaust Memoir. In it, Esther shares the story of her life, growing up in a family scarred deeply by the trauma of the Holocaust – as both of her parents were the only survivors of their own families and were unable to speak of their unfathomable losses. As a adult, she learned that her father had actually lost his first wife and child in the horrors – and she traces her family’s history, visiting the sites and piecing together their story. I believe this book should be required modern high school reading.

My last two suggestions are much lighter.

First, for my ladies, I’ve recommended this one before and I always will: Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. I *love* this book – and I think all of my friends of, ahem, a certain age with me, will also feel seen here. ❤

Finally, just a joyful book – that I also think is best on the read-by-author audiobook: Matthew McConaughey’s Greenlights. This book just makes me happy – and it probably will you too. 🙂

Wishing you all a Happy Wednesday and happy reading. ❤

Be well, everybody. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Grace and Blessings.