Resources

Memoir

• Notes of a Native Son (long essay) by James Baldwin
• This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff
• A Cup of Water Under My Bed, by Daisy Fernandez
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
• The Color of Water by James McBride
• Lucky by Alice Sebold
• Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichel
• Daughter of the Queen of Sheba by Jackie Lyden
• Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

Anthologies and Essay Collections

• The Touchstone Anthology of Creative Nonfiction, edited by Lex Williford and Michael Martone
  
• The Best American Essays of the 20th Century, edited by Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Atwan
• Essays of EB White by EB White
• I Could Tell You Stories by Patricia Hampl
• A Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder by Brian Doyle
• Zen and the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
• Writing Creative Nonfiction (editors Carolyn Forche and Philip Gerard)

Craft Instruction

• Good Prose, by Tracy Kidder
• Bird By Bird, by Anne Lamott
• On Writing Well, By William Zinsser
• The Situation and the Story, by Vivian Gornick
• The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life, by Marion Roach Smith
• Writing the Personal Essay, by Dinty Moore

Grammar books that entertain and educate

• Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose, by Constance Hale
  
• Grammar for a Full Life: How the Ways We Shape a Sentence Can Limit or Enlarge Us, by Lawrence Weinstein
  
• First You Write a Sentence, by Joe Moran
• The Best Punctuation Book, Period: A Comprehensive Guide for Every Writer, Editor, Student and Businessperson, by June Cassagrande