100 Books Like Writing to Save a Life

I haven’t recovered yet from the way Hartman recovers the lives of young Black women through historical photographs. The images were made to rob these women of their individuality, make them fit “types,” letting them say Nothing about themselves.

But Hartman writes like she’s talking to them, and they’re wonderful. She messes with categories used by authorities who thought they “knew” these women by their transgressions. I was utterly transfixed by how she imagined these women’s lives and loves in the ordinary stairways and back alleys they called home.

The photos are gorgeous. You could talk about them for days and still have more to think about—like how when it comes to women being framed for doing something wrong, maybe Nothing has changed.

You have probably seen the film version starring Dame Judi Dench and Steve Coogan—which I also highly recommend! But Sixsmith’s original book demonstrates how an experienced yet disenchanted writer can find their own way, and make an international impact, by helping another person discover the hideous truth.

Philomena Lee was a woman from Roscrea, Ireland, who, after fifty years, could no longer endure the torment of not knowing what had happened to her toddler son, taken from her at a Catholic home for unwed mothers and sold to an American couple. Unbeknownst to Philomena, her son later went searching for her.

Sixsmith blends these two histories together in a story with many political and personal layers, including only an occasional, seamless glimpse of his amazing research process.

I was late to discover this book, but I devoured it instantly. Una’s is a hybrid work, a mixture of memoir and criminal history in stunning graphic novel form.

She tells her account of growing up in West Yorkshire, UK, in 1977 when the serial murderer Peter Sutcliffe (dubbed “the Yorkshire Ripper”—ick) was still at large. Her book connects her own traumatic history with local newspaper and media accounts as well as broader statistics of sexual violence and the failures of formal investigations.

By the conclusion, Una builds to her own recovery and survival process and creates one of the most beautiful endings—drawings only—I have ever experienced in a book delving into such heart-wrenching subject matter. 

OK, so Marcel Marceau was totally famous as a French mime artist, and his history has not been exactly “lost.” But I was intrigued by the idea of a biography that focuses on someone who was known for performing through silence, mastering silence itself as an art of communication.

Every page in Wen’s book is a surprise! First, she creates an impressionistic rather than traditional biography. There are source notes at the end, like a usual work of nonfiction, but her book fits easily in the palm of your hand and resembles a collection of poems more than the usual biographical tome.

Each segment invites a re-reading, a back and forth, that evokes the ever-kinetic and elusive interplay of Marceau’s living art. “Videos and photographs remind you how transient the stage is,” Wen writes, taking on Marceau’s persona at one point. “So you replay the dancing ghost in your head… show more.

This book will remain on my list of favorite books of all time. I love how the author begins the story of the promiscuous doctor by jumping straight into the drama. Immediately, you are made aware of the well-respected cardiac surgeon’s character and how he loves women and plenty of them! Dr. Makkai Worthy is referred to by his many sex partners as Dr. Feelgood.

I became wrapped in the four women’s stories as they were introduced throughout this book. I found each character interesting, and there was never a dull moment as their disdain grew for the once-beloved doctor. I also found it interesting how the story takes you back to the place where it all began to explain the doctor’s love for sex and his inability to commit to just one woman. This page-turner is one that I plan to read again and again.

I recommend this book because James Baldwin’s brilliant voice and profound writing explore the intersection of personal truths and deeply held beliefs. Baldwin masterfully captures the youth and naivety of John Grimes as he wrestles with sexuality, faith, and the pervasive racism of his time.

This book brilliantly brings these struggles to life while showcasing Baldwin’s gift for conveying complex emotions and societal pressures with intimacy and precision. 

Sparky, fast-talking and addictive, I adored this book when it came out in the early 1990s. I enjoyed the subsequent film, too.

But you don’t hear much about it any more, though I think it’s probably still a relevant portrait of Black women’s lives in America. It’s about four friends, women in their thirties, each chapter told from the viewpoint of one of the friends.

The voice is so fresh and in-your-face, so funny and engaging. I love how teasing and chiding of each other they are when they’re together, but also so supportive and loving. Below the lighter-than-air surface of their conversations, the reader comes to realise what they mean to each other.

Easy Rawlins is an African American private detective in 1960s Los Angeles. Easy gets a visit from a troubled Vietnam veteran at his office. The vet tells an implausible story of him and his lover being attacked in a citrus grove outside the city. He may have killed the man. The woman and his dog are missing. Rawlins’ gut tells him the case is nothing but trouble. He takes the case anyway. The bond between veterans overriding all other concerns. Blood Grove is an exhilarating, mystery soup involving moguls, sociopaths, cops, hippies, extremists, and swindlers. Requiring Easy to call upon help from his friends. Friends who range from genius to lethal. I loved going along with Easy on this case. Admiring his resolve and intelligence in solving the mystery.

Perhaps the most “realistic” novel of this bunch, Ralph Ellison’s National Book Award-winning novel follows an unnamed black narrator’s life in a small southern town, as detailed through his memories, dreams, and desires.

Ellison didn’t intend to write a “protest novel,” apparently, but it has become exactly that: a protestation of the inequities of an American system designed to keep Black people in the shadows. The novel’s voice, though singular, is representative of an entire social movement. A perfect novel. 

I have not read a book like Melissa Valentine's The Names of All the Flowers, which is a beautiful, painful, and exquisitely written narrative about her brother Junior, who was gunned down on the streets of Oakland when he was 19. "Say his name, say her name," we chant when yet another one of our brothers or sisters is killed. In this memoir, Valentine gives us not only Junior's name but an intimate look into his head, his heart, his fears, his dreams, his joy.