September Theme: The Stories We Carry
Big Question: Why do certain stories stay with us?
Week 2: Memory and Storytelling
Adding memoirs to our TBR (to-be-read) piles of books is the best way to bookend our week exploring Memory and Storytelling as we continue to discuss The Stories We Carry this month. If you see some of your favorites missing from the list that follows, let us know in the comments!
Before we comb through the memoirs we want to read next, however, let’s take a few moments to talk about the memoir we’re reading now, our current book club pick, Educated by Tara Westover— a memoir that explores the complicated relationship between memory, family, identity, education, and the stories we inherit about ourselves.
📖Memoir I’m Currently Reading
I’m still reading this week’s book club pick, Educated by Tara Westover, but already know it’s a memoir I’ll never forget.
According to Storygraph, Educated is for a reader “who is drawn to stories of overcoming adversity and the transformative power of self-discovery,” which is probably what has made it one of the most widely read memoirs in the past five to eight years. That, and its simple, straightforward and honest accounts of harrowing yet sometimes tender personal moments that transformed Westover’s life, the stories she believed, carried, and decided to ultimately tell.
From the very first page, I have been wincing at all the accounts Westover shares about her childhood and how her father’s presumed independent fearlessness and strength was often pure paranoid recklessness centered around a misguided sense of control, devoutness, and mental instability, and how her mother’s docile nature and submissiveness led to extremely unsafe situations and confusion for Westover as well as her overall sense of ambition and femininity. I also found myself empathizing with Westover’s stories about her abusive, volatile older brother, who would outright torture her one second and be genuinely kind the next, and how heartbreakingly confusing and unstable such a relationship with someone you love can be.
Most of all, however, I empathized with Westover’s stories of attending college, where she not only felt like a fish out of water academically but had people back home actively rooting against her and her plight to educate herself due to their willful ignorance, insecurities, and undiagnosed mental struggles. And I truly applaud her for doing the tough and honest work of writing about these moments in a way that was vulnerable yet ultimately honest, often catching herself when she didn’t remember a story accurately or pausing to reflect on where there are conflicting accounts of the stories she was sharing about her past.
While I still have about a fifth of the book left to read, I am impressed by this memoir and how Westover remains both emotionally and intellectually honest throughout it. Sure, the more educated she becomes in the book, the angrier she becomes at her family for depriving her of an education and constantly putting her in harm’s way, even mortal danger… nonetheless, she seems to genuinely care about her family and their stories, and captured their influence on her and her life’s story in a way that seems intense yet emotionally honest overall.
💬Memorable Quotes and Passages from the First Half of the Book
✨Opening quote by Virginia Woolf: “The past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, & thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.”
“My strongest memory is not a memory. It’s something I imagined, then came to remember as if it had happened. The memory was formed when I was five…” (p.3)
✨ The accounts of both car accidents, why they happened, the severe injuries they caused, and the motorcycle crash, included in the first half of the book.
“All my life those instincts had been instructing me in this single doctrine— that the odds are better if you rely only on yourself.” (p.102)
✨ All the nearly fatal burns and brain injuries her family members sustained, and survived, even without proper medical care, included throughout the book.
“This moment would define my memory of that night, and of many nights like it, for a decade. In it I saw myself as unbreakable, as tender as stone. At first I merely believed this, until one day it became the truth. Then I was able to tell myself, without lying, that it didn’t affect me, that he didn’t affect me, because nothing affected me. I didn’t understand how morbidly right I was. How I had hollowed myself out. For all my obsessing over the consequences of that night, I had misunderstood the vital truth: that it’s not affecting me, that was its effect.” (p.111)
✨All the accounts in the first half of the book regarding her unknown date of birth, as it was never recorded, and how challenging it was to get proof of proper identification and live outside of where her family lived because of that.
“The advanced algebra was still indecipherable— it came from a world beyond my ability to perceive— but the trigonometry had become intelligible, messages written in a language I could understand, from a world of logic and order that only existed in black Ink and on white paper.” (p.131)
✨How she learns about the Holocaust and then the Civil Rights Movement in college and how that fundamentally changes how she uses language and views her family.
“I bought my own copy, hoping it would teach me about history or literature, but it didn’t. It couldn’t, because I was unable to distinguish between the fictional story and the factual backdrop. Napoleon felt no more real to me than John Valjean. I had never heard of either.” (p.150)
✨ The power of the word ‘whore’ in the story she tells herself about who she is perceived as, compared to who she truly is.
“Not knowing for certain, but refusing to give way to those who claim certainty, was a privilege I had never allowed myself. My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.” (p.197)
🗣️Discussion Questions
Tara frequently includes footnotes where her memories diverge sharply from those of her brother Richard or her mother and others. How do these conflicting accounts shape your understanding of ‘truth’ in a memoir? Can a memory be inaccurate but still hold emotional truth?
When Tara begins checking her memories against old emails, journals, and family accounts, her perspective shifts. How does the act of written documentation alter or validate the internal stories we carry?
In what ways does the trauma Tara experiences because of her brother Shawn affect her ability to trust her own mind? How does gaslighting and her family’s denial of certain events force her to reconstruct her past?
Gene Westover constructs a powerful narrative about God, the government, and the end of days that dictates his family’s reality. How do the stories our families tell us about the world shape our initial identity, and how difficult is it to unlearn them?
Tara notes that ‘education’ wasn’t just about learning facts, but about gaining the ability to see her own life from multiple perspectives. How does access to history, literature, and science help her rewrite the story of who she is?
To stay connected to her family, Tara is asked to accept their version of reality (e.g., that Shawn is not abusive and that her mother is a healer). What does the book say about the cost of carrying a story that isn’t yours just to keep the peace?
By the end of the memoir, Tara has changed her relationship with her past. She may not have changed the facts of her childhood, but she changed the story she tells herself about it. Is true education the ability to choose which stories define you?
👇 Drop your thoughts, reading progress updates, and favorite quotes from the book below! Or join our Buddy Read in Storygraph to share your thoughts there based on where you are in the book. I can’t wait to see what everyone thinks of this book so far! 👇
Memoirs I Recommend
The following memoirs are memoirs I’ve read within the past five years or so, which I still think about from time to time. Let me know if you’ve read any of them, and or what memoirs you’re constantly recommending so we can chat about the memoirs that have had an impact on us. I’m sure I’ll be adding Educated by Tara Westover to this list in the future, as well.
📘Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016) by Trevor Noah
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.
Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.
The eighteen personal essays collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love.”
⭐Why I recommend it: Noah pairs heavy, real-world lessons about systematic oppression with a very accessible, conversational writing style that is also hilarious at times, making this work not only entertaining but deeply human and relatable. The best parts of the book include the stories he shares about his mother and grandmother, women you can tell he deeply loves and respects, especially his mother who literally risked her life to protect and raise him. Many readers specifically suggest the audiobook version because Noah narrates it himself, performing authentic accents and languages. If you’ve seen him on The Daily Show or enjoyed some of his standup, you won’t want to miss this book.
📕A Hymn to Life: Shame has to Change Sides (2026) by Gisèle Pelicot with Natasha Lehrer (Translator), Ruth Diver (Translator)
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “In 2024, Gisèle Pelicot inspired millions of people with her astonishing courage and dignity as she chose to waive her right to anonymity in her legal fight against her husband and the fifty men accused of her sexual assault. By the time Dominique Pelicot and the dozens of men accused were found guilty, Gisèle had become a global icon in the campaign against sexual violence, galvanizing a movement that triggered protests and demonstrations around the world in her support. “I hear lots of women, and men, who say you’re very brave,” she addressed the courtroom. “I say it’s not bravery, it’s will and determination to change society.”
Gisèle Pelicot’s call for shame to change sides in cases of sexual abuse, and the solidarity she has shown survivors, have generated an extraordinary public response and moved both women and men all over the world. On December 19, 2024, when Pelicot walked down the steps of the Avignon courthouse at the culmination of the biggest rape trial in French history, she spoke to a cheering crowd of hundreds of people: “When I opened the doors to this trial on 2 September, I wanted society to be able to take part in this debate. I have never regretted that decision,” she continued. “I have confidence in our ability to collectively grasp a future in which everyone, women and men alike, can live in harmony, with mutual respect and understanding.””
⭐Why I recommend it: This memoir is one of the most difficult memoirs I have ever read or will ever read. But it’s also surprisingly bittersweet, as Gisèle refuses to let what her husband did to her define her, her memories, or her future. After reading this memoir, it’s crystal clear why she earned so much recognition for her role in updating rape laws in France, and how pivotal her unprecedented case was in calling attention to the widespread stigma survivors of rape and sexual abuse often encounter across the globe.
I would recommend this memoir to survivors of sexual violence who want to feel less alone and more optimistic about the future, though all readers should be forewarned that there are graphic scenes in this book that could trigger unwanted memories and feelings. I would also recommend this memoir to those who want to be reminded that perseverance, and even love, are possible amid unexpected, horrendous tragedy and betrayal. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention what a phenomenal job Emma Thompson does narrating the audiobook version of this memoir. Read my full book review here.
📗Patriot (2024) by Alexei Navalny with Stephen Dalziel (Translator), A. L. Tait (Translator), Arch Tait (Translator)
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “Alexei Navalny began writing Patriot shortly after his near-fatal poisoning in 2020. It is the full story of his life: his youth, his call to activism, his marriage and family, his commitment to challenging a world super-power determined to silence him, and his total conviction that change cannot be resisted—and will come.
In vivid, page-turning detail, including never-before-seen correspondence from prison, Navalny recounts, among other things, his political career, the many attempts on his life, and the lives of the people closest to him, and the relentless campaign he and his team waged against an increasingly dictatorial regime.
Written with the passion, wit, candor, and bravery for which he was justly acclaimed, Patriot is Navalny’s final letter to the world: a moving account of his last years spent in the most brutal prison on earth; a reminder of why the principles of individual freedom matter so deeply; and a rousing call to continue the work for which he sacrificed his life.
“This book is a testament not only to Alexei’s life, but to his unwavering commitment to the fight against dictatorship—a fight he gave everything for, including his life. Through its pages, readers will come to know the man I loved deeply—a man of profound integrity and unyielding courage. Sharing his story will not only honor his memory but also inspire others to stand up for what is right and to never lose sight of the values that truly matter.” —Yulia Navalnaya ”
⭐Why I recommend it: This is a memoir that will stay with me for a long time. And it saddens me to know that it will be dismissed by so many people across the world due to the growing influence of authoritarian leaders and their pervasive state-run propaganda machines. Though there will also be many modern readers for which it will act as a wake-up call, as long as they are able to access it, read it, and discuss its content. I am now so accustomed to hearing about so many of the things that Navalny discusses in this book regarding corrupt governments and their henchmen in modern everyday life, that I almost tuned out entirely when I first started reading it. Almost. But I am so glad that I didn’t.
Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who needs to feel as if they aren’t alone in this world, or going completely crazy, when they notice all the changes in media and propaganda and the plight of modern-day authoritarians and tyrants. You are not alone, as Alexei Navalny reminds us. There are millions of brilliant people in the world who want the same things as you do. Now we only need to find one another and get to work muting the propaganda machines of the world. Read my full book review here.
📙Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age (2025) by Vauhini Vara
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “When it was released to the public in November 2022, ChatGPT awakened the world to a secretive project: teaching AI-powered machines to write. Its creators had a sweeping ambition—to build machines that not only could communicate but also could do all kinds of other activities, and better than humans ever could. But was this goal actually achievable? And if reached, would it lead to our liberation or our subjugation?
Vauhini Vara, an award-winning tech journalist and editor, had long been grappling with these questions. In 2021, she asked a predecessor of ChatGPT to write about her sister’s death, resulting in an essay that was both more moving and more disturbing than she could have imagined. It quickly went viral.
The experience, revealing both the power and the danger of corporate-owned technologies, forced Vara to interrogate how these technologies have influenced her understanding of herself and the world around her—from discovering online chat rooms as a preteen to using social media as The Wall Street Journal’s first Facebook reporter to asking ChatGPT for writing advice—while compelling her to add to the trove of human-created material exploited for corporate financial gain. Interspersed throughout this investigation are her own Google searches, Amazon reviews, and the other raw material of internet life—including the viral AI experiment that started it all.
Searches illuminates how technological capitalism is both shaping and exploiting human existence while proposing that by harnessing the collective creativity that makes humans unique, we might imagine a freer, more empowered relationship with our machines and, ultimately, with one another.”
⭐Why I recommend it: Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age by Vauhini Vara is a unique book I highly recommend reading at the dawn of AI innovation. It’s been a while since I’ve read a piece of nonfiction as poignant and creative as this, as it is as informative and interesting as it is vulnerable and inspiring. If you want to read a more nuanced, personalized, and creative take on AI and our (or your) relationship with it, I highly recommend this book. Unlike other books about AI, it neither fiercely lauds nor condemns AI and its potential. Instead, it invites us humans to understand AI and take responsibility for how we want to continue to evolve and use it in the future. Read my full book review here.
📘The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After (2018) by Clemantine Wamariya with Elizabeth Weil
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbors began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were “thunder.” It was 1994, and in 100 days more than 800,000 people would be murdered in Rwanda and millions more displaced. Clemantine and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, ran and spent the next six years wandering through seven African countries searching for safety—hiding under beds, foraging for food, surviving and fleeing refugee camps, finding unexpected kindness, witnessing unimaginable cruelty. They did not know whether their parents were alive.
At age twelve, Clemantine, along with Claire, was granted asylum in the United States—a chance to build a new life. Chicago was disorienting, filled with neon lights, antiseptic smells, endless concrete. Clemantine spoke five languages but almost no English, and had barely gone to school. Many people wanted to help– a family in the North Shore suburbs invited Clemantine to live with them as their daughter. Others saw her only as broken. They thought she needed, and wanted, to be saved. Meanwhile Claire, who had for so long protected and provided for Clemantine, found herself on a very different path, cleaning hotel rooms to support her three children.
Raw, urgent, yet disarmingly beautiful, The Girl Who Smiled Beads captures the true costs and aftershocks of war: what is forever lost, what can be repaired, the fragility and importance of memory, the faith that one can learn, again, to love oneself, even with deep scars.”
⭐Why I recommend it: This memoir provides an honest, raw, and powerful look at surviving the Rwandan genocide and the lasting impact of trauma, yet refuses to offer a neat, happy ending or a tidy recovery arc. The author also explores how survivors are often expected to perform happiness once they are ‘saved’ and the complications surrounding that when they are still navigating the scars of their own survival, as they try to look toward their futures.
📕A Different Kind of Power (2025) by Jacinda Ardern
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “What if we could redefine leadership? What if kindness came first? Jacinda Ardern grew up the daughter of a police officer in small-town New Zealand, but as the 40th Prime Minister of her country, she commanded global respect for her empathetic leadership that put people first. This is the remarkable story of how a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt made political history and changed our assumptions of what a global leader can be.
When Jacinda Ardern became Prime Minister at age thirty-seven, the world took notice. But it was her compassionate yet powerful response to the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks, resulting in swift and sweeping gun control laws, that demonstrated her remarkable leadership. She guided her country through unprecedented challenges—a volcanic eruption, a major biosecurity breach, and a global pandemic—while advancing visionary new policies to address climate change, reduce child poverty, and secure historic international trade deals. She did all this while juggling first-time motherhood in the public eye.
Ardern exemplifies a new kind of leadership—proving that leaders can be caring, empathetic, and effective. She has become a global icon, and now she is ready to share her story, from the struggles to the surprises, including for the first time the full details of her decision to step down during her sixth year as Prime Minister.
Through her personal experiences and reflections, Jacinda is a model for anyone who has ever doubted themselves, or has aspired to lead with compassion, conviction, and courage. A Different Kind of Power is more than a political memoir; it’s an insight into how it feels to lead, ultimately asking: What if you, too, are capable of more than you ever imagined?”
⭐Why I recommend it: This is a memoir that will leave you feeling pragmatically hopeful when you’re done reading it. It not only captures Ardern’s early life in New Zealand and pivotal historical moments she (and many of us) personally lived through, but a path forward for us all.
Jacinda Ardern is one of the greatest humanitarian leaders of our time, whose humility and practicality will make everything she did (and has yet to do) seem easy and like common sense one day, especially to those of us who care about others, though it is anything but common right now. I highly recommend reading this book if you need a reminder of all the good everyday work that good people are doing out there in the world, and that you can be one of them too. Read my full book review here.
📗One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (2025) by Omar El Akkad
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times.
As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human— not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a chronicle of that painful realization, a moral grappling with what it means, as a citizen of the U.S., as a father, to carve out some sense of possibility in a time of carnage.
This is El Akkad’s nonfiction debut, his most raw and vulnerable work to date, a heartsick breakup letter with the West. It is a brilliant articulation of the same breakup we are watching all over the United States, in family rooms, on college campuses, on city streets; the consequences of this rupture are just beginning. This book is for all the people who want something better than what the West has served up. This is the book for our time.”
⭐Why I recommend it: This memoir will encourage readers to reflect deeply about their own existence in this world and all its evildoing, while forcing them to bear witness to the atrocities still happening in Gaza against the Palestinian people. Akkad does this by looking inward too, by revealing his own story, full of its own conundrums and tragedies and human experiences and travel and hope and love. And ultimately, it’s Akkad’s humility in telling his own story that is humbling and honest and inspiring, in such a way that will spur other writers and readers to follow suit. Or one can hope anyway. Read my full book review here.
📙Uncanny Valley (2020) by Anna Wiener
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “In her mid-twenties, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener—stuck, broke, and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial—left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She moved from New York to San Francisco, where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: a world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory, and, of course, progress.
Anna arrived amidst a massive cultural shift, as the tech industry rapidly transformed into a locus of wealth and power rivaling Wall Street. But amid the company ski vacations and in-office speakeasies, boyish camaraderie and ride-or-die corporate fealty, a new Silicon Valley began to emerge: one in far over its head, one that enriched itself at the expense of the idyllic future it claimed to be building.
Part coming-of-age-story, part portrait of an already-bygone era, Anna Wiener’s memoir is a rare first-person glimpse into high-flying, reckless startup culture at a time of unchecked ambition, unregulated surveillance, wild fortune, and accelerating political power. With wit, candor, and heart, Anna deftly charts the tech industry’s shift from self-appointed world savior to democracy-endangering liability, alongside a personal narrative of aspiration, ambivalence, and disillusionment. Unsparing and incisive, Uncanny Valley is a cautionary tale, and a revelatory interrogation of a world reckoning with consequences its unwitting designers are only beginning to understand.”
⭐Why I recommend it: This was the memoir on startup culture, by a female writer who has actually been a part of said startup culture, that I had been waiting to read for over a decade. I just didn’t know I had been waiting to read it until I started reading it. Overall, I would recommend this book to those Millennials who want a more nuanced take on how Silicon Valley actually operates, and what it’s like on the inside. Read my full book review here.
📘Becoming (2018) by Michelle Obama
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.”
⭐Why I recommend it: The core message of the memoir is inspiring because it centers on the idea of continuous personal growth rather than a fixed destination. Divided into three distinct parts—her upbringing (”Becoming Me”), her life with Barack Obama (”Becoming Us”), and her time as First Lady (”Becoming More”)—her personal narrative moves through formative and historical moments with wit and reflection. And it will resonate with many women as she discusses the challenges of balancing motherhood, marriage, a career, and her husband’s political ambitions in a deeply relatable way. This is another memoir worth listening to, as it’s narrated by the author herself.
📕The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times (2021) Douglas Abrams, Jane Goodall with Gail Hudson
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “Looking at the headlines —a global pandemic, the worsening climate crisis, political upheaval— it can be hard to feel optimistic. And yet hope has never been more desperately needed.
In this urgent book, Jane Goodall, the world’s most famous living naturalist and Douglas Abrams, internationally-bestselling author, explore— through intimate and thought-provoking dialogue— one of the most sought after and least understood elements of human nature: hope. In The Book of Hope, Jane focuses on her “Four Reasons for Hope”: The Amazing Human Intellect, The Resilience of Nature, The Power of Young People, and The Indomitable Human Spirit.
Told through stories from a remarkable career and fascinating research, The Book of Hope touches on vital questions including: How do we stay hopeful when everything seems hopeless? How do we cultivate hope in our children? Filled with engaging dialogue and pictures from Jane’s storied career, The Book of Hope is a deeply personal conversation with one of the most beloved figures in today’s world.
And for the first time, Jane tells the story of how she became a messenger of hope: from living through World War II, to her years in Gombe, to realizing she had to leave the forest to travel the world in her role as an advocate for environmental justice. She details the forces that shaped her hopeful worldview, her thoughts on her past, and her revelations about her next—and perhaps final—adventure.”
⭐Why I recommend it: There is still hope and this book, full of Jane’s words, will help guide us to it.
📗How to Think Like a Woman: Four Women Philosophers Who Taught Me How to Love the Life of the Mind (2023) by Regan Penaluna
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “As a young woman growing up in small-town Iowa, Regan Penaluna daydreamed about the big questions: Who are we and what is this strange world we find ourselves in? In college she fell in love with philosophy and chose to pursue it as an academician, the first step, she believed, to becoming a self-determined person living a life of the mind. What Penaluna didn’t realize was that what the Western philosophical canon taught in American universities, as well as the culture surrounding it, would slowly grind her down through its misogyny, its harassment, its devaluation of women and their intellect. Where were the women philosophers?
One day, in an obscure monograph, Penaluna came across Damaris Cudworth Masham’s name. The daughter of philosopher Ralph Cudworth and a contemporary of John Locke, Masham wrote about knowledge and God, and the condition of women. Masham’s work led Penaluna to other remarkable women philosophers of the era: Mary Astell, who moved to London at age twenty-one and made a living writing philosophy; Catharine Cockburn, a philosopher, novelist, and playwright; and the better-known Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote extensively in defense of women’s minds. Together, these women rekindled Penaluna’s love of philosophy and awakened her feminist consciousness.
In How to Think Like a Woman, Regan Penaluna blends memoir, biography, and criticism to tell the stories of these four women, weaving throughout an alternative history of philosophy as well as her own search for love and truth. Funny, honest, and wickedly intelligent, this is a moving meditation on what philosophy could look like if women were treated equally.”
⭐Why I recommend it: Reading this book was like a balm for my soul. It’s a deeply personal and introspective work that is also universal and accessible to those of us who are constantly battling with how we are perceived and portrayed (and often ignored or discarded) in life, love, and intellectual pursuits. Overall, I would recommend this book to those who are (or have) struggled with how they’re represented in academia. And those who want to learn more about notable women philosophers who are woefully overlooked, in a more personal and relatable context. Read my full book review here.
📙Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014) by Bryan Stevenson
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship— and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.
Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.”
⭐Why I recommend it: NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN - Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times - The Washington Post - The Boston Globe - The Seattle Times - Esquire - Time and Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction - Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Nonfiction - Winner of a Books for a Better Life Award - Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize - Finalist for the Kirkus Reviews Prize - An American Library Association Notable Book
📘Lessons from the Edge (2021) by Marie Yovanovitch
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “By the time she became US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch had seen her share of corruption, instability, and tragedy in developing countries. But it came as a shock when, in early 2019, she was recalled from her post after a smear campaign by President Trump’s personal attorney and his associates— men operating outside of normal governmental channels, and apparently motivated by personal gain. Her courageous participation in the subsequent impeachment inquiry earned Yovanovitch the nation’s respect, and her dignified response to the president’s attacks won our hearts. She has reclaimed her own narrative, first with her lauded congressional testimony, and now with this memoir.
A child of parents who survived Soviet and Nazi terror, Yovanovitch’s life and work have taught her the preciousness of democracy as well as the dangers of corruption. Lessons from the Edge follows the arc of her career as she develops into the person we came to know during the impeachment proceedings.”
⭐Why I recommend it: This book is a must-read for every American or individual who believes in, or needs to believe in, the power of diplomacy and sincere integrity again. And for those who need to feel hopeful about current goings-on in our world in the midst of Putin’s destructive reach. Marie Yovanovitch truly led, and continues to lead, an inspiring and diplomatic life.
📕Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (2024) by Salman Rushdie
🗒️Storygraph blurb: “On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black—black clothes, black mask—rushed down the aisle toward him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it’s you. Here you are.
What followed was a horrific act of violence that shook the literary world and beyond. Now, for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey toward physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide.
Knife is Rushdie at the peak of his powers, writing with urgency, with gravity, with unflinching honesty. It is also a deeply moving reminder of literature’s capacity to make sense of the unthinkable, an intimate and life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.”
⭐Why I recommend it: Overall, this work will appeal to those who admire Rushdie’s work and want to read the first-person account of what happened to him in Chautauqua. It will also appeal to those who want an inside account of a well-renowned author who wrote works that have been banned and contested across the world for decades. Read my full book review here.
Memoirs on My TBR
Let me know if any of the following books are already on your TBR too, so maybe we can read them together?
Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
This Is Me: A Reckoning by Hayden Panettiere
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bendele
My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
This is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee
The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller
Join Our Book Club Discussions
What are your thoughts on Educated by Tara Westover? Leave a comment or join our Buddy Read on Storygraph at any time this month to discuss this book with us. We’re starting a new book next week, but discussions for this September book club pick will still be up when you want to join them in the future.
📘Our Next Book Club Read
For week three, which starts tomorrow, the Daily Drafts & Dialogues Book Club is reading our Diverse Perspectives Pick, Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu, an inventive novel with a screenplay-like structure that examines race, assimilation, family, ambition, and the stories society teaches us about who we are allowed to be.
As always, you can read at your own pace throughout the month, but here’s what you’ll want to know if you plan to follow The Weekly Buddy Read Schedule for Tuesday Reading Notes and Check-Ins:
📆 Daily Target: September 12–18 — approximately 41 pages/day to finish in one week.
🔔 Tuesday Check-In Post: September 15: This week’s post will dive into The Stories We Tell Ourselves. We’ll look at the identities we construct, the roles we perform, and what happens when the story we’ve been given no longer feels big enough or accurate enough to contain us.
ICYMI: See the Complete September Book Club Pick Lineup with Customizable Reading Schedules
Whether you join a chat, one of our Buddy Reads in Storygraph, or lay it all out in the comments, I look forward to hearing more about your thoughts on our book club picks this month as we continue to discuss The Stories We Carry!
Please remember to like and share this post with your network so other readers can join us too!
✨📚✨Thank you! 🫶
Continue Exploring September’s Theme, The Stories We Carry
This Week: Memory and Storytelling
Writing Prompts About Memory and Storytelling
The Art of Autofiction: Memory, Markets, and the Modern Confessional
ICYM Week 1 Posts: The Books That Changed Us
Writing Prompts About Books That Changed Us
Can a book genuinely change who we are?
What My Favorite Books Say About Me
The Anatomy of Books That Have Changed Us
20 Banned Books That Have Changed Us
Go Deeper with Daily Drafters Exclusives
This month: The Stories We Carry Writing Collection
This collection offers a month of guided writing exercises, mini workshops, and creative writing experiments designed to take you beyond a single prompt and into a deeper creative practice. It gives you the creative spark and space you need to explore memory, identity, inheritance, perspective, voice, and the stories we tell ourselves and others. It will also encourage you to consider how those stories shape the work we create and the creative lives we lead.
Inside this collection, you’ll find 30 original writing prompts (designed as mini writing workshops) across five sections with focused themes, craft-focused exercises, curated reading suggestions, reflective questions, and three optional month-long writing challenges designed to help you develop your ideas, explore your personal material and stories, and build a consistent writing practice.
You can follow the prompts in order, choose the exercises that speak to you, or return to a section whenever you need a new way to explore your writing craft. As a paid subscriber, you will also be able to come back to the collection throughout the month or any other time you feel like exploring The Stories We Carry in the future.