Memoir

As a literary genre, a memoir (from the French: mémoire from the Latin memoria, meaning "memory", or a reminiscence), forms a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable in modern parlance. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir.

Memoirs are structured differently from formal autobiographies which tend to encompass the writer's entire life span, focusing on the development of his/her personality. The chronological scope of memoir is determined by the work's context and is
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No One Tells You This
Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession
I Can't Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I've Put My Faith in Beyoncé
Jell-O Girls: A Family History
You're on an Airplane: A Self-Mythologizing Memoir
The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast
My Life as a Goddess: A Memoir through (Un) Popular Culture
South Toward Home: Adventures and Misadventures in my Native Land
Killing It: An Education
Now My Heart is Full: A Memoir
My Family Divided: One Girl's Journey of Home, Loss, and Hope
A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety
Driven: A White-Knuckled Ride to Heartbreak and Back
Godspeed: A Memoir
Boob Job: Confessions of a Professional Bra Fitter

Giveaways

  • Daemon Voices by Philip Pullman
    Daemon Voices: On Stories and Storytelling
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    Release date: Sep 18, 2018
    From the internationally best-selling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, a spellbinding journey into the secrets of his art--the narratives tha ...more
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    Availability: 15 copies available, 1536 people requesting

    Giveaway dates: Aug 11 - Sep 10, 2018

    Countries available: U.S.

  • Welcome Home by Lucia Berlin
    Welcome Home
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    Release date: Nov 06, 2018
    Enter for a chance to win one of 45 advance copies of WELCOME HOME, a compilation of Lucia Berlin's sketches, photographs, and letters, and an essenti ...more
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    Availability: 45 copies available, 266 people requesting

    Giveaway dates: Aug 18 - Sep 08, 2018

    Countries available: U.S.

  • Kick-Ass Kinda Girl by Kathi Koll
    Kick-Ass Kinda Girl: A Memoir of Life, Love and Caregiving
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    Release date: Oct 09, 2018
    When her husband, Don, called on his way to the hospital, Kathi Koll had no idea how dramatically their lives would change--or how her loving heart an ...more
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    Availability: 15 copies available, 911 people requesting

    Giveaway dates: Aug 04 - Aug 19, 2018

    Countries available: U.S.

  • Educated: A Memoir
    This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
    Calypso
    Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
    When Breath Becomes Air
    Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
    The Tenth Island: Finding Joy, Beauty, and Unexpected Love in the Azores
    Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime
    The Last Black Unicorn
    Spilled Milk
    Stray: Memoir of a Runaway
    A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership
    Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between)
    Between the World and Me
    The Princess Diarist
    The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas AdamsThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas AdamsCatch-22 by Joseph HellerLamb by Christopher MooreA Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
    Best Humor Writing
    574 books — 700 voters

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    Humorous Memoirs and Non-Fiction
    607 books — 1,052 voters
    Stiff by Mary RoachThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca SklootThe Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver SacksOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken KeseyThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
    Medicine and Literature
    1,343 books — 1,692 voters

    The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne FrankNight by Elie WieselBeing and Time by Martin HeideggerHiroshima by John HerseyThe Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
    Must Read Non-Fiction
    2,056 books — 2,153 voters

    The Glass Castle
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    Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
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    The Diary of a Young Girl
    Yes Please
    Night (The Night Trilogy, #1)
    Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)
    Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
    Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt, #1)
    Running with Scissors
    Me Talk Pretty One Day
    When Breath Becomes Air
    The Year of Magical Thinking
    Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

    Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

    Author of The Fact of a Body

    Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is the author of THE FACT OF A BODY: A Murder and a Memoir, which will be published by Flatiron Books (Macmillan) in May 2017. It is also forthcoming from publishers internationally. A National Endowment for the Arts fellow and Rona Jaffe Award recipient, she has twice been a fellow at both MacDowell and Yaddo. Her essays appear in The New York Times, Oxford American, Iowa Review, and many other publications, and were recognized “notable” in Best American Essays 2013, 2015, and 2016.

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