100 Books Like The Story You Need to Tell

In this book Linda Spence begins by explaining what our legacy is and how the story of one’s life is a priceless legacy which captures the individual’s essence. Spence answers the question of why write one’s life story and describes how doing so benefits both the recipients and writers themselves. She guides writers by providing a myriad of questions to answer which cover an entire life from childhood to old age. Pence encourages them to share reflections, wisdom, and experience, all the while writing from one’s heart. I have used this excellent guide for helping students write their legacies.

When I first considered becoming a legacy educator, Women’s Lives, Women’s Legacies was the first book I read on the subject of legacy. This comprehensive book written by Rachel Freed presents women with the opportunity to explore their entire lives with the goal of creating something in writing that is a record of who they are and what has mattered in their lives. The book is divided into three sections: The past where readers examine family history and the legacies of feminine ancestors, the present where they explore who they are and where they came from, and the future where they put their legacy into words. Each chapter affords the reader the opportunity to reflect and create a legacy work to leave behind.

Jo Kline Cebuhar gives the reader the historical background of the age-old tradition of writing  an ethical will in So Grows the Tree: Creating an Ethical Will. She explains how ethical wills pass along life lessons, values and beliefs, and hopes and dreams for the future generations. The book serves as a step-by-step guide to creating an ethical will but also leaves room for the reader to write notes along the way. In addition to writing ethical wills, Cebuhar also offers other suggestions for creating a legacy project, such as an embellished photo album, scrapbook, genealogy, and cookbook as well as a video or audio recording or a PowerPoint slideshow. I found this book to be extremely helpful in illustrating to my students the variety of ways these legacy projects communicate important messages to loved ones.

While the art of letter writing has become a thing of the past, in The Forever Letter: Writing What We Believe for Those We Love Rabbi Elana Zaiman shows the reader how sharing insights and beliefs can have a profound effect on one’s family. She tells personal stories as well as those from others in the hopes of inspiring readers to transmit their life lessons and who they are in a forever  letter—something that can be passed down through generations of loved ones. Rabbi Zaiman suggests that the readers share their values in a letter so that it becomes a gift for both the writer and the receiver. After reading this book, I wrote a forever letter to my children and have encouraged my students to do the same for their loved ones.

Hitchens was a man on a mission with a razor sharp intellect. These precious words written while Hitchens was losing a fatal battle with cancer are fascinating and he touches on some profound ideas. I was especially struck by the conviction of a man who was a staunch atheist unflinchingly prepared for a godless death. Hitchens was not only witty, but inspirational and courageous.

Alphonse Daudet’s notebooks on pain are among the most explicit, honest, and consoling treatments of chronic illness ever written. Daudet was a contemporary of Flaubert, admired as a novelist of provincial France by such luminaries as Charles Dickens and Henry James. Like Flaubert, Daudet suffered from syphilis and he planned to write a book about his experience. He died before he could do that, but his notebooks survive. As someone who lives with chronic pain, I cherish Daudet’s frank but never saccharine advice and his commitment to compassion for others in the teeth of his own suffering.

Suzanne Antonetta’s Body Toxic epitomizes what I call the “material memoir,” a mode of writing autobiography that seeks to understand the self through connections to places and substances. Antonetta bravely examines her own physical and mental health, grappling with scientific data: “I choked facts and they choked me back, they stuck like Legos—clingy but hard to build into anything real.” Recalling the nuclear warhead that caught fire nearby her childhood home, spraying radioactive particles, she notes that her entire family, bizarrely, has somehow forgotten this incident. Body Toxic is fascinating, chilling, and unnerving, but also beautifully written in unflinching yet poetic prose. Body Toxic convinced me that our life stories are incomplete if they ignore how places and substances have affected us.

This book is a heartbreaking work that is a comfort to anyone who is dealing with loss. Alison details the events of her life as she nursed her husband through his struggle with ALS. This is a very open and vulnerable piece of writing that will help provide readers with a blueprint for how to survive dark times.

A humorous take on what it's like to be a disabled adult. I highly recommend this book to anyone. It discusses how to interact with someone with a disability and dives deep into diversity and how to communicate effectively with adults. Having read this book has made my journey with cerebral palsy much easier and I would definitely say that it has made me look at life in more humorous ways.

Although I may be biased in recommending my former mentor’s book, this memoir about Khakpour’s experience with mysterious illnesses and addictions is a must read.

Written in sharp, often poetic prose, the author offers an intimate portrait of a chronically ill woman of color navigating the frustrating world of doctors, tests, theories, medications, and doubt. The reader is pulled into this dark, gritty story of benzodiazepine abuse, debilitating symptoms, economic hardship, and, ultimately, diagnosis.

I love every book ever written by Khakpour, however, Sick is my absolute favorite (so far!) Not only could I relate to her experience in many ways, I adore her willingness to share all the messy, difficult pieces of her life.