New year, new books. At least, thatswhat we wrote back in December, when we were just starting to add titles to our 2017 reading lists.Now that were nine days into the new year, our to-read list has only grown. And while our first book preview was filled with all the fiction you could handle, we wanted to take a moment to talk about the incredible wave of nonfiction were expecting this year, too.Particularly, were talking about nonfiction from women authors ' because a single year that includes memoir and essay collection releases from the likes of Roxane Gay,Patricia Lockwood, Joan Didion, Yiyun Li, Mary Gaitskill,Samantha Irbyand Camille Paglia is worth celebrating.Behold: 27 nonfiction books by womeneveryone should read this year.JANUARYBirds Art Life: A Year of Observation by Kyo MaclearFor many of us working full time in urban environments, the prospect of studying mushrooms or catching fireflies seems like a faraway fantasy. In 2012, writer Kyo Maclear was inspired by a musician she met who had fallen in love with birds ' one of those rare natural spectacles readily available in cityscapes. The author spent the year devoted to the winged things, observing them and documenting the changes she underwent along the way. Birds Art Life chronicles her journey, exploring the many shapes passion can take, and the many spaces natural beauty can occupy.' Priscilla FrankAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreJan. 3.Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living by Manjula MartinEarlier this year, Merritt Tierce, author of critically acclaimed 2011 novel Love Me Back,surprised readers with an essay detailing what shes been up to since the buzz about her book quieted. I promptly went broke, she stated in Marie Claire. Now, shes delivering mail. Its not a tragic anomaly, but a new reality for writers ' including those who have achieved some sort of objective success ' is confronting laughably low pay. So, whats a writer to do' Manjula Martin, founder of WhoPaysWriters.com, edited a collection of essays by the likes of Jonathan Franzen, Emily Gould and Alexander Chee, doling out practical advice.' Maddie CrumAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreJan. 3.The Meaning of Michelle: 16 Writers on the Iconic First Lady by Veronica ChambersWhenever I think about Michelle Obama, I think, When I grow up, I want to be just like her. I want to be that intelligent, confident and comfortable in my own skin, author Roxane Gay, one of the 16 writers included in this timely homage to forever first lady Michelle Obama, proclaims. With a preface from Ava DuVernay and more essays from people like Phillipa Soo of Hamilton, this is a good book to help ease your way through the end of the Obama presidency. 'Katherine BrooksAvailable onAmazon or at your local bookstoreJan. 10.How to Murder Your Life: A Memoir by Cat MarnellIn an oddly perfect bit of timing, Cat Marnell whose singular, manic style of beauty writing on the womens site xoJane led to a certain brand of internet infamy returns for public judgment with her long-awaited memoir just as that same site rings its death knell. Marnell wrote openly about her high-flying New York lifestyle, addiction and rehab stays, subject matter that attracted both fans and critics alike. Her memoir promises more relentless excavating of her lifes darker parts and glossy magazine juiciness. ' Jillian CapewellAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreJan. 31.FEBRUARYAll The Lives I Want by Alana MasseyThe title of Alana Masseys essay collection comes from a Sylvia Plath quote that reads, in part, I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. Masseys meditation on our cultural fascination with the iconic, prematurely deceased writer is a standout of her upcoming collection, in which she probes the lives of famous and infamous women and incorporates her own experiences to arrive at sharp insights on celebrity fascination and personal examination. ' JCAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreFeb. 7.This Close to Happy: A Reckoning with Depression by Daphne MerkinIt is an affliction that often starts young and goes unheeded, younger than would seem possible, as if in exiting the womb I was enveloped in a gray and itchy wool blanket instead of a soft, pastel-colored bunting, Daphne Merkin wrote in a 2009 piece for The New York Times Magazine. Merkin brings her longstanding afflictiondepressionto life through her remarkably honest and visceral descriptions of the mental health condition that still remains largely cloaked in silence. In the essay collection, Merkin revisits childhood memories, therapist visits, hospitalizations and more, yielding an intimate portrait of life as a woman and a writer living with depression. ' PFAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreFeb. 7.Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun LiNovelist Yiyun Li turns to nonfiction in 2017 with this literary autobiography. A love letter to her authorial influences, a memoir of her youth in China and her writing career in America, Dear Friend explores how language and literature help us shape who we are and what we hope to be. If youre not convinced, check out the excerpt recently published in The New Yorker, which poignantly unravels her relationships to Chinese and English ' and why she chose to renounce one for the other. ' Claire FallonAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreFeb. 21.Abandon Me by Melissa FebosThe best memoirs, like the best novels, dont lean on a fantastical life story but on the unforgettable prose of a born storyteller. Abandon Me is the second memoir of Melissa Febos; her first, Whip Smart, shed light on her experiences as a professional dominatrix. In her latest, Febos excavates the legacy left by her birth father, whom she didnt know, and her close bonds with her mother and her adoptive father, a sea captain. Intermingled with this reexamination of her childhood and ancestry is a love story ' the aching, erotic saga of her affair with a married woman. Searing and eye-opening at every turn, this memoir will be a must-read. ' CFAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreFeb. 21.Flneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and Londonby Lauren ElkinA flneur is defined as one who wanders aimlessly. However, for most of cultural history, this someone was presumed to be male. Cultural critic Lauren Elkin challenges this assumption by celebrating the women throughout history who have dared to move throughout urban spaces on foot. Elgin explores the personal and political implications of a woman moving through a city alone: who she looks at, who looks at her, and what happens when she makes her primary place outside the home. Elkin intersperses her own personal experiences wandering through Paris with the many flneuses who came before and the types of self-transformations that can only occur on foot. ' PFAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreFeb. 28.MARCHThe Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi BuiIn The Best We Could Do, Thi Bui tells the story of her familys departure from South Vietnam to the United States in the 1970s, providing a Vietnamese perspective on a war that rocked the cultures of both countries.Pulitzer Prizewinning author Viet Thanh Nguyen described it as a book to break your heart and heal it. Bonus: The entire memoir is illustrated. ' KBAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreMarch 7.One Day Well All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter: Essays by Scaachi KoulThis is Scaachi Kouls debut essay collection, centered on her experience growing up as the daughter of Indian immigrants and a woman of color in the West. On Twitter, she urged readers to preorder my book and laugh yourself into an early grave. If youre looking for equal doses of humor and outrage in 2017, we suggest you check this out. ' KBAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreMarch 7.South and West by Joan DidionJoan Didion, the great author of books like Slouching Towards Bethlehem andThe Year of Magical Thinking, is a lifelong notebook addict. She uses them to record overheard conversations between strangers and her own banal observations, to jot thoughts about interviews and potential new works. This collection of never-before-seen bits from her notebooks includes musings on the Patty Hearst trial of 1976, a road trip with her late husband, a ladies brunch at the Mississippi Broadcasters Convention, a meeting with Walker Percy, and much more. As HuffPost writer Maddie Crum wrote last year, If youd like to keep on nodding terms with the person Didion used to be, you can read South and West. ' KBAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreMarch 7.The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel LevyRight now, you could summon almost any material good youd like ' 50 delicious tacos, a new book, a yearly supply of cat food ' and have it at your door within seconds. You can even secure a potential hookup while sitting alone in your apartment. We take these comforts for granted, and sometimes forget that not everything in life is conveniently bendable to our whims. Thats the premise of New Yorker writer Ariel Levys new memoir, which posits that we cant have it all. We still cant have children past a certain age; its still tricky to maintain a healthy relationship while still seeing other people. What you can have is this book thats both personal and urgent. ' MCAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreMarch 14.The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca SolnitWriter, historian and activist Rebecca Solnit is the mind behindMen Explain Things to Me, hailed as the antidote to mansplaining.The Mother of All Questions has been ambiguously described as the formers follow-up, involving ' as you might have guessed ' new essays on feminism. All we can say at this point is that Solnit knows how to write an intriguing book title. ' KBAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreMarch 14.Free Women Free Men by Camille PagliaSince the 1989 release of her first essay collection, Sexual Personae, CamillePaglia has continued to confound categorizations as a feminist who thinks womens studies is a comfy, chummy morass of unchallenged groupthink, an art historian who thinks Star Wars is the best artwork of all time, and a lesbian who doesnt get along with lesbians. Free Women Free Men is a compilation of Paglias best, and most incendiary, previously published essays, guiding readers through her singular perspectives on culture, sex and femininity. At times infuriating, at times glittering, Paglias prose is always biting and relentless. Its more effective, however, when praising Madonnas sexuality than defending date rape. ' PFAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreMarch 14.How to be a Bawse by Lilly SinghLilly Singh produces a popular YouTube channel, so perhaps it was only a matter of time before the actress and comedian wrote a book. Described as the definitive guide to being a bawse: a person who exudes confidence, reaches goals, gets hurt efficiently, and smiles genuinely because he or she has fought through it all and made it out the other side, the book will likely reflect aspects of Singhs#GirlLove initiative. ' KBAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreMarch 28.APRILSomebody With a Little Hammer by Mary GaitskillThe author of Bad Behavior, Veronica, and Two Girls Fat, and Thin made a name with herself with her stories that explore power dynamics between men and women. She writes, also, about beauty standards, performance and the pressure women feel to compete with one another. Occasionally, shes applied these thoughts to nonfiction essays, on everything from Bjork to Gillian Flynn. Finally, theyve been collected, and fan girls everywhere are squee-ing. ' MCAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreApril 4.Sunshine State by Sarah GerardSarah Gerard was a shining voice in fiction with her experimental, reeling debut Binary Star, about a teaching student struggling with anorexia and her toxic boyfriend while on a road trip. Now, readers are treated to Gerards insight and emotional probing into nonfiction matters in an essay collection focusing on the place where she was raised Floridas Gulf coast. ' JCAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreApril 11.Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays by Durga Chew-BoseThe title of Durga Chew-Boses upcoming essay collection Too Much and Not the Moodcomes from one of Virginia Woolfs journals, referring to the endless editing and tweaking writers self-inflict to make their voices pleasing and meaningful to readers. For young women, who, as Chew-Bose has written, are used to self-editing from the day were little girls, the task appears especially eternal. In her essay collection, partly inspired by Maggie Nelsons balance of the personal and the theoretical, Chew-Bose explores what it means to be a writer as a young woman of color today. ' PFAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreApril 11.Imagine Wanting Only This by Kristen RadtkeIn her debut book, Kristen Radtke undulates between public and deeply personal observations. Her story begins when she attends her uncles funeral near a dilapidated mining town; from there, she sets out to explore abandoned places while contemplating a heart disease many members of her family have suffered from. Loss echoes throughout its illustrated pages, threading disparate corners of the globe together into a touching narrative. ' MCAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreApril 18.American Originality: Essays by Louise GlckLouise Glck is known as a brilliant poet, but in the course of her long and storied career, shes also turned her hand to prose. Her first collection of essays, published in the early 90s, won a PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction ' so theres every reason to expect good things from her upcoming essays on contemporary poetry. ' CFAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreApril 18.A Grace Paley Reader: Stories, Essays, and Poetry edited by Kevin Bowen and Nora PaleyThere probably isnt a better teaser for this book than the short and succinct statement that appears on Amazon ' the summary describes it as an essential book for all Grace Paley fans. The late Paley, born in 1922, is known widely for her short stories, essays and poetry, so for those interested in acquainting themselves with a literary legend, this is the reader for you. And it doesnt hurt that it kicks off with a introduction by George Saunders. ' KBAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreApril 18.MAYPriestdaddy: A Memoir by Patricia LockwoodPatricia Lockwoods rule-breaking, creative poetry hints that shell offer a memoir bursting with rule-breaking, creative prose. Priestdaddy, like much of her poetry, tackles issues like religion, gender norms, class and, above all, her relationship with her eccentric, deeply Catholic family. As the title indicates, her father is a Catholic priest ' skirting the celibacy mandate, it seems, by seeking the priesthood only after marrying and starting a family. Funny and gorgeously written, with scenes so witty and zany they could be lifted from a Broadway show, Priestdaddy will be one of the major prose debuts of the year. ' CFAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreMay 2.We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha IrbySamantha Irby is the kind of essayist who can make readers cry with laughter and tear up with emotion within pages. It only takes a few moments reading her blog, Bitches Gotta Eat, to understand how compelling her voice is' one that earned fans with the 2013 collection Meaty and surely will again with this years offering, which promises both madcap and life-affirming tellings that cover Irbys pitch for herself as the Bachelorette, a trip to Nashville to scatter her estranged fathers ashes, and more. ' JCAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreMay 30.JUNECan I Borrow That': Essays by Jenny AllenYou might know Jenny Allens work from the humorists show I Got Sick Then I Got Better, an emotional and witty one-woman show about grappling with an ovarian cancer diagnosis and subsequent recovery. If not, allow the writers new essay collection to introduce you to her singular voice, which her publisher describes like a female Dave Barry. In the book, Allen touches on middle age, living with a serious illness, and more quotidian experiences like being a houseguest and attempting a craft project. ' JCAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreJune 6.Firsts: How My Twenties Helped Me to Redefine Realness by Janet MockAuthor and activist Janet Mock wroteRedefining Realness in 2014, outlining her path from a poor, multiracial, trans kid in Hawaii to one the most influential people on the Internet. We dont even know yet what the book cover looks like, but we do know thatFirsts will focus on Mocks 20-something years, recounting her stint as a stripper, her first-generation college experience, her move to New York, and her start in journalism. ' KBAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreJune 6.Hunger by Roxane GayThis is a big year for Bad Feminist author Roxane Gay. Her book Difficult Women, a collection of short stories about women of all origins and aspirations, came out earlier this month. While were poring over that, were also anxiously awaiting Hunger,subtitled A Memoir of (My) Body and described by HarperCollins as a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe, she writes. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere ... I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe. ' KBAvailable on Amazon or at your local bookstoreJune 13. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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