Crenshaw's upbringing taught her to value her voice, resulting in her willingness to speak up—to be a "backtalker.” Throughout her life, she has consistently questioned assumptions and advocated for herself and others.

I especially appreciated her focus on the experiences of Black women—especially as they've frequently been left out of conversations not just about about racial justice but also gender equality.

An excellent read from one of the greatest thinkers of our time.

Levings writes about the recovery from religious abuse with openness and conviction, interspersing personal stories with reflections on healing. This felt validating to me and will likely feel even more befitting to readers recovering from authoritarian or high-control environments.

The author offers an invaluable gift: solidarity. This sort of compassion and deep understanding can be hard to find for readers who navigate religious abuse, and I applaud the author's courage and effort in bringing this book into our world.

If you're looking for a “glory days” sports memoir, move right along. “For the Love of the Grind” isn't a retrospective success narrative; it’s an authentic, grounded tale of staying power—into the present—from one of the best in our sport.

Hall’s writing is refreshingly devoid of the need to impress and instead full of genuine integrity.

In an era of sports scandals and dramatic "takedown" memoirs, Hall’s is something I didn't realize I direly needed: a happy story.

I wasn’t sure which genre Smith was aiming for—self-help, memoir, or literary/philosophical exposition. The book opens with a compelling and grounded personal exploration that drew me in.

The central premise is thoughtful: emotions like anger, envy, and shame aren’t problems to eliminate but signals worth paying attention to.

I applaud the author for bringing our darker sides to the foreground without shame.

The most destructive individuals aren't rare outliers blowing up entire environments—they are the ones who strategically bend them until they snap.

In Poisonous People, Leanne ten Brinke insists that people with dark traits are everywhere: embedded, effective, and often rewarded. They don’t need to be extreme to have an outsized impact; they simply need to be positioned well enough to shift incentives in their favor. What sets the book apart, is that it describes these behaviors as things we'd all do—with the volume cranked up to ten.

In “One Sun Only,” Camille Bordas writes about the eccentric, often quiet ways we process grief and trauma. She has a sharp eye for the small, mundane things we do to stay afloat—the details that don't fit into a typical, plot-driven narrative. Instead of treating grief as a problem to be solved or a hurdle to overcome, she writes about it as a space we inhabit, sometimes for a very long time.

As a coach and a long-time runner, I was intrigued by Dimity McDowell’s “The 27th Mile.” Would it be the definitive guide for what comes next? We spend decades working on running more, running better—but we almost never talk about the retirement when it's forced on us by our bodies.

“This Is Not About Running” is a story about the damage our youth incurs when we prioritize competition over mental and physical health.

Mary Cain was once one of the best high school runners of all time—despite enduring persistent bullying and exclusion from her team in Bronxville. At just sixteen, she escapes that environment through an invitation to the exclusive Oregon Project, under the tutelage of then-famed coach Alberto Salazar, backed by the richest shoe company in the world.

Filmmaker Abel Ferrara tells his story of rising to cinematic fame while battling drug addiction. I found the raw, unvarnished street gangster narration hard to read, but perhaps it was simply Ferrara’s Italian heritage in New York that made him recount chilling experiences in a casual, matter-of-fact tone.

That said, I very much enjoyed Ferrara’s humility. Writing a memoir that doesn’t read self-centered is a skill I haven’t encountered often, and this made his main character instantly likeable.

In her memoir, the star from The Secret Life of Mormon Wives offers a candid account of growing up within the rigid structure of the Mormon Church and its stark collision with modern adulthood.

A tennis prodigy raised in an affluent, tightly knit community, Neeley seems destined for the traditional arc expected of young Mormon women: early marriage, motherhood, and quiet devotion. Instead, her journey leads her through trauma, domestic violence, and the kind of moral reckoning her faith conditioned her to avoid.

I thoroughly enjoyed Su Chang’s debut novel, The Immortal Woman —a generational saga set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution and its aftermath. It is a beautiful exploration of personal conflict at the intersection of family, politics, and culture, seen through the eyes of two remarkable women, Lemei and her daughter Lin.

After quitting competitive running in her twenties, Keira D’Amato became a mom and rediscovered running as self-care. She couldn’t run for more than ninety seconds at first, but then, against the odds, broke the American marathon record at age thirty-seven. Her story isn’t linear—it explores grief, motherhood, identity, and resilience.

This humorous, inspirational, and deeply relatable memoir urges women to prioritize their passions, especially those balancing ambition with family and emotional healing.

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner’s biography chronicling the life of Broadway icon Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of “Hamilton,” reaches into the depths of Miranda’s story, from his humble beginnings on the piano in childhood to award-winning fame on the international stage, the reader gets a detailed glimpse into the path that shaped Miranda’s career as an artist.

I really relished this story because it shows an artist who comes from a humble background, making his way towards global fame through passion and hard work.

In her memoir, Tilghman tells us about her ups and downs as a wellness influencer with over 200,000 followers.

Her singular focus on social media leads her to fame and a career but also an exacerbation of her history in addictive behaviors–specifically her eating disorder. It makes me so happy that Tilghman includes the recently coined orthorexia diagnosis in her writings.

A page turner for me, and I’m sure for many of us as we begin to understand the dangers of social media.

An Oral History of Atlantis by Ed Park is a quick but indulging read, hopping from one curious short story to the next. Park writes delightful literary prose that packs subtle humor and everyday societal malheurs.

An all-too familiar, subtle dread accompanies his pieces, and many of us will find ourselves in the faint hopelessness of Park's modern life depiction.

A beautiful read that deviates from the fictional norm. Well done!

From Jeff Hiller, comedian and leading actor in "Somebody, Somewhere," a stunning autobiography.

If you're like me, not all that enthused by gaudy celebrity memoirs, this one might hit home. Hiller has been through life, alright, and it made him into a multifaceted human being with a down-to-earth story to tell. In great humor, I might add!

What a treat to see him in his most authentic light on TV after reading what it took him to make it in front of those cameras.

Melissa Arnot Reid hasn't been up Everest just once, you know, like a “normal” person.

No. Everest was Reid’s backyard. Every single season. And then she was the first American to summit without oxygen.

In her memoir, she tells us how severe neglect led her to leave the world behind, looking at it from the most vertically removed point.

Thank you Melissa Arnot Reid for your powerful modesty, for being a woman who inspires us all.

In “Looking at Women, Looking at War”, writer-turned-war-reporter Victoria Amelina compiled a first-hand account of her war crime documentation in the recent Russo-Ukrainian war. A morbid irony has it that her book was unfinished as she became a victim of the very war she researched, succumbing to the aftereffects of a missile that hit the restaurant she visited. 

Since her death, her oeuvre d’art has been edited meticulously to form a comprehensive collection of stories, some as mundane as the mourning of a farmer’s goats, others detailing the atrocities in horrific narration.

I found myself engrossed in the countless short vignettes Amelina included. The confusion the many names and locations brought on soon became secondary to the overarching theme of despair, of resilience, of her dedication to telling the truth. Who knows if the book would have achieved a more concise narrative arc had the author survived? But one thing is clear–the version honoring her draft provides an almost encyclopedic reference documenting the endless cruelty against Ukrainians–and this book format is an accomplishment perhaps even greater than the expected outcome. An end result to celebrate and disseminate widely, posthumously.

In gratitude to St. Martin’s Press for the Advance Reader’s Copy.

In her celebrity memoir-in-essays with a twist, actress and singer-songwriter Lola Kirke weaves together anecdotes from her eventful childhood in an eccentric rockstar family to her present-day life to form an engaging and entertaining, almost weightless read.

Perhaps just that is what a contemporary reader needs when the market is flooded with stories of the bared hearts and souls of our world.

Well done Lola Kirke!