WHILE I HAVE no required reading list for my classes, I always ask what people are reading. And, at some point, I’ll pass around a list of books that have informed my work. Would you like to see it?
Here it is:
- “Home Cooking,” Laurie Colwin
- “West with the Night,” Beryl Markham
- “The Hare with Amber Eyes,” Edmund de Waal
- “She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders,” Jennifer Finney Boylan
- “Dream Season,” Bob Cowser
- “Green Fields,” Bob Cowser
- “Fun Home,” Alison Bechdel
- “And I Shall Have Some Peace There,” Margaret Roach
- “The War of Art,” Stephen Pressfield
- “What I Thought I Knew,” Alice Eve Cohen
- “The Center of the Universe,” Nancy Bachrach
- “Perfection,” Julie Metz
- “Going Gray,” Anne Kreamer
- “The Gift of an Ordinary Day,” Katrina Kenison
- “About Alice” Calvin Trillin
- “Travels with Alice,” Calvin Trillin
- “Let Me Finish,” Roger Angell
- “The Rural Life,” Verlyn Klinkenborg
- “Manhattan, When I was Young,” Mary Cantwell
- “Patrimony,” Philip Roth
- “The Dog that Bit People,” James Thurber, in the book “My Life and Hard Times”
- “Between Meals,” A.J. Liebling
- “So Long, See You Tomorrow,” William Maxwell
- “Ancestors,” William Maxwell
Related posts:
Just tweeted this list to my followers. I love it that there is no overlap between your list and the ones I have posted on my website. May I add this list under my Top Memoirs tab? I’ll link back to you, of course.
Of course, Shirley. How kind. Thank you. And congratulations again on the relaunch of your beautiful, intelligent, provocative blog. I love your list of 100 memoirs. How interesting that there is no overlap. I love that. Looking forward to more correspondence between us.
I’d like to suggest another book for your memoir list:
Mark Salzman’s just-published “The Man in the Empty Boat.”