EXCRUCIATINGLY HONEST MEMOIR of a life marked by both intense creativity and by mental illness, addiction.

A COMPLICATED LIFE, WITH ALCOHOL and after: A. A. Gill’s memoir is crushingly candid and self-pitiless.

A YOUNG MAN’S ADDICTIONS—to drugs, alcohol, sex, self-dramatization—presented in an unsettling memoir. SOLID B

THE GILDED RAZOR
Gallery Books
2016

A CANDID, RUEFUL MEMOIR of a difficult family life made harder by a brother’s addiction and mental illness. B PLUS

VIVIDLY DRAWN PORTRAIT of a writer’s hardscrabble childhood and her charismatic, deeply troubled mother.

ADMIRABLY COMPREHENSIVE, ENTERTAINING social history of marijuana makes some solid points about public policy.

A MOTHER/DAUGHTER relationship, fractured by addiction and depression, is healed by feminism and by coming out.

THE STRENGTH (AND WEAKNESS) of Augusten Burroughs’s meta-self-help book is its no-nonsense candor.  Also, wit!

A US EXPATRIATE’S COMPELLING memoir of how his fascination with antique opium paraphernalia led to addiction.

ANTHONY “JARHEAD” SWOFFORD’S tough yet nuanced memoir of his years after the Marines; focus is on his father.