Today, attempting to tidy my bedroom and the piles of books left all over the place, I have been thinking about all the brilliant memoirs I’ve recently read, and thought I might pull them all together to spread the love a little bit. There are some here that are newly published, some that are yet to be published, and some that have been around for some time. I haven’t read all of them yet, but those few are on the top of my to read very soon pile. So here goes:

Let’s Take the Long Way Home was written in the 1990s, and I was recommended it by author Matt Rowland when I was looking for memoirs on friendship. It is certainly about friendship, but I picked it up recently looking for memoirs about dogs! And it kind of ticks both boxes as it’s about friendship bonded over dog walks, and … to top it all … it’s also about the love we feel for our pet dogs! It is probably up there as one of my favourite memoirs because of its wisdom and insight and transformative quality – Gail Caldwell it seems is transformed by her friendship with Caroline Knapp, and therefore we as reader have that sense of growth and transformation too. It’s very moving. Had me weeping all over the place.

If you haven’t read Annie Ernaux yet, then you must. She is searingly honest in her nonfiction, and experimental too. Simple Passion is an extended essay about her affair with a married man and its extraordinary in its self awareness and honesty on the page. It’s a quick read too as a slip of a book – a good place to start if you haven’t read her before. Full of brave analysis of emotion and longing.

Hourglass, by Dani Shapiro, is a perfect memoir. Such a brilliant example of personal narrative that is about everyday life, an enduring marriage between two writers, and a reckoning with becoming middle aged together. The premise is so simple, and yet it’s such a special book because it’s written so sparely, and poetically – almost like small meditative vignettes between observation, journal entries, reflections, and quotes. It has a natural ease to it as if it simply fell on the page – but I think this disguises a tremendous amount of skill

The Fear by Christiana Spens, was published about a week ago. If you are a fan of philosophical thinking and a narrative which touches on the personal as a springboard to discuss any number of different topics, then this is the book for you! The overriding theme is fear, as the title suggests, and ranges from the fear we feel in a relationship with someone, to the mechanisms of terrorism, which is the subject Christiana studied for a PhD. But it’s the demons and horrors we all carry around with us, and which provoke some to violence that it’s really concerned with. It’s a very interesting and thought provoking book.

Caro Giles’s, Twelve Moons, was published recently and has had some lovely reviews, It’s about single motherhood and finding inspiration in the wilds of Northumberland. It has a quiet assurance to it, a year of challenging mothering, but full of tenderness and resilience. Moving and poetic, it has a dreamlike quality which lulls the reader, almost like being carried along on a gentle swell. It is both fragile and stoic, a testament to the value of motherhood all else.

Memoirs to look out for, which are coming soon – are, Arrangements in Blue, by Amy Key. This memoir sprang from a Granta essay that Amy wrote on the topic of being single, themed around her love of the Joni Mitchell album, Blue. It went viral on Twitter and now we have the book! It’s due to be published in April. I am half way through and really loving its simplicity – again, everyday life from the perspective of someone meditating on what romantic love means to her and how she lives without it in her life. It also has a lovely honesty and openness to it.

Another soon to be published memoir which was picked as a Guardian book to look out for in 2023 – i think it’s due to be published in the summer. It’s about a relationship that a 17 year old has with his teacher and the lasting effects, but it’s also about coercive control with the man as victim. I imagine this one might make a splash because of its subject matter. It’s incredibly vivid and filmic in its telling. I read it in a day.

Marina Benjamin’s third in her series of memoirs about middle age – A Little Give, about what it means to be a woman and a carer. Marina is my editor at Aeon and is a brilliant writer, one I admire enormously. Her work is so thoughtful and precise, and so immensely clever. I haven’t yet read this, but am am going to savour it when I do! It’s out in April. The other two in the series, which I highly recommend are Insomnia and Middlepause.

And this one that arrived this morning, The Writing School, by Miranda France, which is out in May, a book about the craft of writing memoir which sprang from France teaching a residential week and what sprang up for her in her own life. it is both a memoir and a book about memoir.