Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Naked

by David Sedaris

The author recounts hitchhiking across the country with an odd cast of quadriplegics and deadbeats, working as a migrant worker in North Carolina, and other adventures.

From one of America’s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage--and a life, in good times and bad--that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

by David Foster Wallace

This exuberantly praised--and uproariously funny--first collection of nonfiction pieces by one of the most acclaimed and adventurous writers of our time--the author of "Infinite Jest"--"reconfirms Mr. Wallace's stature as one of his generation's preeminent talents" ("New York Times") 5-city author tour. Print ads .

Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

by Annie Dillard

Here, in this compelling assembly of writings, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard explores the world of natural facts and human meanings.

In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction

In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction

by Lee Gutkind

Twenty-five arresting selections from the groundbreaking journal that defined a genre. Creative nonfiction, also known as narrative nonfiction, liberated journalism by inviting writers to dramatize, interpret, speculate, and even re-create their subjects. Lee Gutkind collects twenty-five essays that flourished on this new ground, all originally published in the journal he founded, Creative Nonfiction , now... (more)

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

by David Sedaris

"David Sedaris's ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art," ( The Christian Science Monitor ) is elevated to wilder and more entertaining heights than ever in this remarkable new book. Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to a hilariously... (more)

Homer & Langley

by E. L. Doctorow

From Ragtime and Billy Bathgate to The Book of Daniel, World’s Fair, and The March , the novels of E. L. Doctorow comprise one of the most substantive achievements of modern American fiction. Now, with Homer & Langley, this master novelist has once again created an unforgettable work. Homer and Langley Collyer are brothers–the one blind and deeply intuitive, the other damaged into madness, or perhaps... (more)

If I die in a combat zone;: Box me up and ship me home

If I die in a combat zone;: Box me up and ship me home

by Tim O'Brien

Before writing his award-winning Going After Cacciato , Tim O'Brien gave us this intensely personal account of his year as a foot soldier in Vietnam. The author takes us with him to experience combat from behind an infantryman's rifle, to walk the minefields of My Lai, to crawl into the ghostly tunnels, and to explore the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war gone terribly wrong. Beautifully written and... (more)

Autobiography of a Face

by Lucy Grealy

"I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison." At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer. When she... (more)

Speak, Memory (Everyman's Library (Cloth))

Speak, Memory (Everyman's Library (Cloth))

by Vladimir Nabokov, Brian Boyd

A rich evocation of Nabokov's life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works, including LOLITA, PNIN, DESPAIR, THE GIFT and others.

The White Album

by Joan Didion

First published in 1979, The White Album is a mosaic of the late sixties and seventies. It includes, among other bizarre artifacts and personalities, the dark journeys and impulses of the Manson family, a Balck Panther Party press conference, the story of John Paul Getty's museum, the romance of water in an arid landscape, and the swirl and confusion of the sixties. With commanding sureness of mood and... (more)

A Room of One's Own

by Virginia Woolf

Originally published in 1929, A Room of One's Own eloquently states Woolf's conviction that in order to create works of genius, women must be freed from financial obligations and social restrictions.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

by Dave Eggers

The literary sensation of the year, a book that redefines both family and narrative for the twenty-first century. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a... (more)

The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

by Susan Orlean

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession. From Florida’s swamps to its courtrooms, the New Yorker writer follows one deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man’s possibly criminal pursuit of an endangered flower. Determined to clone the rare ghost orchid, Polyrrhiza lindenii,... (more)

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

by David Sedaris

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is a 2004 collection of 22 autobiographical essays by American humorist David Sedaris. The essays address the author's upbringing in Raleigh, North Carolina, his relationships with family members, and his work and life in New York City and France.

Three by Annie Dillard: The Writing Life, An American Childhood, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Three by Annie Dillard: The Writing Life, An American Childhood, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

by Annie Dillard

A stunning collection of Annie Dillard's most popular books in one volume.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

by Annie Dillard

The Pulitzer Prize-winning work by the author whom The Boston Globe called "one of the most distinctive voices in American letters today."

The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade

The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade

by Thomas Lynch

Thomas Lynch serves his readership as a poet and memoirist, and his townspeople as a funeral director. In this wholly unique collection of essays, the two vocations meet as Lynch shows himself to be a competent functionary of mourning--dispensing comfort and homespun wisdom to the grief-stricken--as well as a poet poignantly tuning language to the right tones of private release. He is also a man of sardonic wit,... (more)

Art of the Personal Essay, The

by Phillip Lopate

Bringing together many great reflections on the human condition and the peculiarities of daily life, a unique collection of more than seventy-five essays ranges from classical predecessors of the genre up to today's finest writers. Reprint. NYT.

The Art of Creative Nonfiction: Writing and Selling the Literature of Reality (Wiley Books for Writers Series)

The Art of Creative Nonfiction: Writing and Selling the Literature of Reality (Wiley Books for Writers Series)

by Lee Gutkind

A complete guide to the art and craft of creative nonfiction—from one of its pioneer practitioners The challenge of creative nonfiction is to write the truth in a style that is as accurate and informative as reportage, yet as personal, provocative, and dramatic as fiction. In this one-of-a-kind guide, award-winning author, essayist, teacher, and editor Lee Gutkind gives you concise, pointed advice on every... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: creative nonfiction

by David Sedaris

by Joan Didion

by David Foster Wallace

by Annie Dillard

by Lee Gutkind

by David Sedaris

by E. L. Doctorow

by Tim O'Brien

by Lucy Grealy

by Vladimir Nabokov, Brian Boyd

by Joan Didion

by Virginia Woolf

by Dave Eggers

by Susan Orlean

by David Sedaris

by Annie Dillard

by Annie Dillard

by Thomas Lynch

by Phillip Lopate

by Lee Gutkind