Archives de catégorie : Memoir

THIRTY de Ariella Elovic

Do you sometimes wake up and wonder if your true adult life is just across the country? If you’ll ever get to fall asleep next to someone who admires your gnarled toes. If you’ll ever have the confidence to roast a whole chicken for a dinner party that you’ll host at your apartment, atop a fully-accessorized dining table?

THIRTY:
A Guide to Embracing the Wonderfully Messy Decade
by Ariella Elovic
Bloomsbury, December 2026
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan)

34-year-old Brooklyn-based illustrator and author AriellaElovic has spent the last four years investigating (and being plagued by) these questions, and she writes with a revelation: The truth is, thirty (and adulthood) isn’t about finally feeling settled. It’s understanding that life is all about the in-between.

In these pages, Ariella presents an array of disorienting, thrilling, disappointing, hilarious, and grounding experiences in the most important areas of life—home, career, family, love — offering ways she’s been able to find « richness in the flailing. » Despite all that we’ve been told, our thirties are actually made more valuable by not having everything figured out.

Ariella Elovic is an illustrator and author living in Brooklyn. Her first book, Cheeky: A Head to Toe Memoir, was published in December 2020 with Bloomsbury. From 2020–2022, Ariella partnered with Aidy Bryant and Sudi Green (SNL, Shrill) to develop Cheeky as a pilot for Peacock. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Hey Alma, Cosmopolitan, and elsewhere. She writes and illustrates a weekly newsletter on Substack called Snack Time.

RACEBOOK de Tochi Onyebuchi

From the author of Hugo and NAACP Image Award finalist Riot Baby, an original memoir in essays that interrogates how identities are shaped and informed in online spaces and how the relationship between race and the Internet has changed in his three decades online.

RACEBOOK: A Personal History of the Internet
by Tochi Onyebuchi
Roxane Gay Books/Grove Atlantic, October 2025

When Tochi Onyebuchi realized that his acclaimed science fiction and fantasy storytelling career had been centrally preoccupied with race, it prompted him to consider his responsibilities as a Black writer in the Internet age. Excavating the Internet of the late 1990s and early 2000s, Racebook explores how the writer and public intellectual Onyebuchi is today, was formed in that crucible.

Beginning with the current moment when everything, including personal identity, is a matter of dispute, and tracing his online persona in reverse chronological order back to Web 1.0’s promises of greater equality and a bright digital future, Onyebuchi deftly examines the evolution of internet culture and the ways that culture has shifted in the ensuing decades. From the ever-changing nature of personal writing and free expression, to gaming, manga, fandom, and virtual reality—Onyebuchi examines the internet alongside works of literature both classic and new, and asks if our vision for what is possible has really broadened. And given the inequities Black people are still subject to, on and off the page, does the Internet only amplify our failures of imagination?

A new, compelling investigation of race through the lens of the modern Internet age, and a profound intellectual journey in pursuit of community online, Onyebuchi argues for a liberation of the individual behind the code, ultimately asking “Is this a race book or is it not? Is it either-or? Can it be both-and? Can I?”

“Poetic and insightful . . . This is a must-read.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Racebook’s essays are filled with nostalgic gaming references, musings on the current state of the internet, social media follies, and a surprising amount of German. Onyebuchi uses his fascinating life story as the backbone for this book, and readers learn as much about his background as they do about how the internet has changed and grown. Recommended for readers who want to examine the internet as it was, is, and will be, and how one person’s unique perspective can elucidate universal truths.”—Booklist, starred review

“Wide-ranging . . . A trenchant essay collection about race and identity online . . . Onyebuchi’s cultural vocabulary is impressive, weaving together references to, among others, Graham Greene, Nas, and Walter Mosley . . . this is a lively and astute read.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A riotous history of the internet from a nostalgic fan and passionate critic. Tochi Onyebuchi knows that when you enter a world that turns friends into followers, and authenticity into performance, speaking the truth is the only way out. He does it beautifully in this memoir-in-essays, which looks at the pressure of data capitalism on our inner lives and future identities.”—Laila Lalami, author of The Dream Hotel

“A love letter to the broken internet: Onyebuchi’s prose glitters and his insights cut in this smart tour through the key junctures at which the internet’s terrible promise and peril revealed themselves.”—Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification and Red Team Blues

Tochi Onyebuchi is the Hugo and NAACP Image Award finalist and author of Goliath, Riot Baby, the Beasts Made of Night series, and the War Girls series. He was the writer on Marvel Comics’ “Captain America: Symbol of Truth” series (2022-2023) and the Black Panther Legends run (2021-2022). He was also part of the writing team behind Activision’s Call of Duty: Vanguard. His nonfiction includes the book (S)kinfolk and has appeared in the New York Times, NPR, and the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, among other places. He has earned degrees from Yale University, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia Law School, and the Paris Institute of Political Studies. He currently resides in Connecticut.

WILL AND ATTENTION de Meghan O’Gieblyn

In her exquisite memoir of secret drinking, fragile recovery, and the deep pull of religion, award-winning essayist Meghan O’Gieblyn seeks to understand why it is so hard to sustain the difficult work of personal change.

WILL AND ATTENTION
by Meghan O’Gieblyn
Doubleday, October 2026
(via Frances Goldin Literary)

After leaving evangelical Christianity in her early twenties, kicking an addiction, and building a life as a writer, Meghan O’Gieblyn was admired by her friends for having a strong will. Then, in her late-thirties, she began secretly attending Catholic mass and meeting with a priest to discuss conversion. After eleven years of sobriety, she began drinking again. Both returns — to organized religion and to alcohol — felt to her like a regression, a personal defeat. Knowledge and determination had proven useless when it came to her most vexing personal battles. She was forced to reckon with her inner doubleness, a self “who both wants and wants not to want,” as she puts it.

In WILL AND ATTENTION O’Gieblyn captures those perplexing days. Soon after her return to sobriety, she turned to a series of spiritual texts— by Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch, the Desert Fathers—and began putting them in conversation with her life. She set out to find a spirituality that could meet her longings and prove capacious enough to hold the dark side of human nature. Beautifully written, intellectually sparkling, wryly funny, this memoir from a beloved essayist explores a fundamental question of being human: the mystifying nature of our power over ourselves.

THE PARATHA PROJECT de Priya Krishna

A memoir and also a rallying cry and how-to for having difficult conversations with your parents by New York Times bestselling author and NYT food reporter, former restaurant critic and video host.

THE PARATHA PROJECT:
A Radical Experiment in Talking to My Parents
by Priya Krishna
Little, Brown, Spring 2028
(via the David Black Agency)

In her highly-anticipated debut narrative nonfiction book, Emmy-nominated New York Times journalist and bestselling author of Indian-ish, Priya’s Kitchen Adventures, and Cooking at Home (with David Chang), Priya Krishna turns her incisive eye and her reporter’s mic to the untold story of her own parents. Despite all of the public-facing closeness, a family crisis made Priya realize she never really knew her parents at all. She will do what for many of us would feel impossible and even radical: ask the uncomfortable questions to get to the real answer. In The Paratha Project, Priya challenges every assumption she ever made about her parents’ story—one she always believed was a straightforward trajectory of hardworking immigrants coming to the States, finding professional success, and achieving the American Dream. Question by question, a more complex and revealing history emerges.

As Priya reexamines her family’s past, the book engages deeply universal themes of intergenerational misunderstanding, parental expectation, grief, and the search for belonging. It speaks to anyone who has ever felt both close to and distant from their family. Through explorations of legacy, assimilation, and, of course, food, Priya’s search for truth about her parents becomes a search for truth about herself.

Both a deeply personal narrative and a rallying cry, The Paratha Project invites readers to initiate paradigm-shifting conversations with their own parents before it’s too late. With humor, insight, and emotional clarity—and an addendum of 22 Questions To Ask Your Parents designed to spark expansive, surprising dialogue—the book offers a compelling story and a practical framework for forging deeper intergenerational connection.

Priya Krishna is a food reporter, former restaurant critic, and video host for the New York Times. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of three cookbooks, Priya’s Kitchen Adventures, Cooking at Home (with David Chang), and Indian-ish, the latter of which has sold over 145,000 copies. Prior to working at the Times, Priya was a popular member of the Bon Appetit test kitchen and played a pivotal role in the reckoning on racial injustice at the magazine in 2020. Her work has been nominated for a James Beard Award and an IACP award, and her reported essays have been included in the 2019 and 2021 versions of The Best American Food Writing. She has been nominated for an Emmy for her work hosting the NYT video series “On the Job,” which spotlights the unseen labor of the food industry. Through speaking engagements across the country, her built-in platform of the NYT, and her 500k social media followers, Priya is a definitive voice on food, culture, and identity. 

OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD de Barbara Lazio

You’ll never believe what’s inside people’s heads! This humorous and heartwarming collection of stories from a neurosurgeon reminds us all that life is hopeful, tender—and a little bit squishy.

OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD:
Stories from the Operating Room That Will Make You Laugh (or Cry)
by Barbara Lazio
Sourcebooks, September 2026

Inside every skull is a story of heart, humanity―and the occasional hairball.

You might think brain surgery is all cool precision and high-stakes drama. Sometimes it is. But more often, it’s a gritty, smelly, surprisingly absurd job―one that involves titanium screws, tumors the size of grapefruits, and moments so human they’ll break your heart or make you snort with laughter behind your surgical mask. In Off the Top of My Head, Dr. Barbara Lazio peels back the sterile curtain of the operating room and shares the unexpected stories that come with a life spent elbows-deep in the human brain.

With warmth, wit, and a scalpel-sharp eye for detail, Dr. Lazio invites readers into her world―where mortality is never far away, but neither is meaning, connection, or the occasional gallows-humored joke.

Inside, you’ll find:

• Gripping behind-the-scenes moments from the OR―equal parts miraculous and messy
• Memorable patients facing the unimaginable with courage, humor, and grace
• A rare glimpse into the emotional life of a neurosurgeon
• Unexpected levity in the face of death, grief, and the unknown

Whether she’s rebuilding a shattered skull or laughing through tears with a family on the edge of loss, Dr. Lazio reminds us that behind every dramatic headline or surgical success is something deeply, beautifully human.

OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD is a book for anyone who wonders what really happens when the brain―and life―hangs in the balance.

Dr. Barbara E. Lazio is a neurosurgeon with experience in the surgical treatment of conditions affecting the brain and spine, with a special interest in the treatment of benign and malignant tumors. She specializes in stereotactic radiosurgery for the treatment of brain tumors. She completed her neurosurgery residency at the University of Maryland, where she was the first woman to graduate from the program. She enjoys getting to know her patients so she can help them return to activities that are important to them. A native of Ohio, Dr. Lazio has called the Pacific Northwest home since 2010. Outside of work she and her husband, Matt enjoy hiking, cycling, and spending time with their daughters.