Recalling memoirs like Wild and Educated, an internationally renowned female whitewater rafting guide offers a powerful, gripping, and inspiring memoir about overcoming hardship and coming into her own through her relationship with the rivers she has known.

After Bridget Crocker’s parents split up in a vicious divorce, she moved with her mother from California to Wyoming, to live in a trailer park near the Snake River. Her childhood was idyllic, with a stepfather she loved and a new baby brother, and with the river as her companion. When her mother suddenly left her stepfather for a hippie eco-warrior, and things went spectacularly wrong, Bridget returned to California to live with her explosive father—until his violence sent her back to Wyoming. The one constant in her life was the Snake River, to whom she confided her deepest feelings.

Being on the water healed Bridget—from abuse, sexual assault, and betrayals by those close to her. She became a world-class whitewater rafting guide—admired and respected by her mostly male counterparts for her grit and her courage. The Snake, the Kern, and the Zambezi River in Zambia allowed her to find herself—to trust her intuition and grow into her powers as a woman, overcoming multi-generational cycles of abuse and educational neglect.

In this propulsive story of finding meaning in a life outdoors, Bridget Crocker not only takes us along with her on exciting and sometimes treacherous adventures on the water but opens up a new way of experiencing the world—through its rivers, which can guide us, just as we can navigate them—and introduces a bold and vibrant new voice in adventure writing.

What is the difference between men and women? Jennifer Finney Boylan, bestselling author of She’s Not There and co-author of Mad Honey with Jodi Picoult, examines the divisions—as well as the common ground—between the genders, and reflects on her own experiences, both difficult and joyful, as a transgender American.

Jennifer Finney Boylan’s She’s Not There was the first bestselling work written by a transgender American. Since its publication twenty years ago, she has become the go-to person for insight into the impact of gender on our lives, from the food we eat to the dreams we dream, both for ourselves and for our children. But Cleavage is more than a deep dive into gender identity; it’s also a look at the difference between coming out as trans in 2000—when many people reacted to Boylan’s transition with love—and the present era of blowback and fear.

How does gender affect our sense of self? Our body image? The passage of time? The friends we lose—and keep? Boylan considers her womanhood, reflects on the boys and men who shaped her, and reconceives of herself as a writer, activist, parent, and spouse. With heart-wrenching honesty, she illustrates the feeling of liminality that followed her to adulthood, but demonstrates the redemptive power of love through it all.

With Boylan’s trademark humor and poignancy, Cleavage is a sharp, witty, and captivating look at the triumphs and losses of a life lived in two genders. Cleavage provides hope for a future in which we all have the freedom to live joyfully as men, as women, and in the space between us.

A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey to peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse

Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz – just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy – collapsed and died on a Washington, D.C. sidewalk.

After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha’s Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sunset with friends at Lambert’s Cove. But all of this came to an abrupt end when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf.

Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on a pristine, rugged coast, she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the varied ways those of other cultures grieve, such as the people of Australia's First Nations, the Balinese, and the Iranian Shiites, and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony's death.

A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life.

An unforgettable portrait of an extraordinary life—one forged through a poverty-stricken childhood in “slummy, one-horse towns”; obsessive desire; bursts of comedy; and indispensable friendships, reflecting on the way art, music, and a deep connection to nature helped her on a singular journey to become a beloved, Grammy-nominated artist.

Neko Case has long been revered as one of music’s most influential artists, whose authenticity, lyrical storytelling, and sly wit have endeared her to a legion of critics, musicians, and lifelong fans. In The Harder I Fight, the More I Love You, Case brings her trademark candor and precision to a memoir that traces her evolution from an invisible girl “raised by two dogs and a space heater” in rural Washington state to her improbable emergence as an internationally-acclaimed talent. In luminous, sharp-edged prose, Case shows readers what it’s like to be left alone for hours and hours as a child, to take refuge in the woods around her home, and to channel the monotony and loneliness and joy that comes from music, camaraderie, and shared experience into art.

The Harder I Fight, the More I Love You is a rebellious meditation on identity and corruption, and a manifesto on how to make space for ourselves in this world, despite the obstacles we face.

In this poignant, funny, and disarmingly honest memoir, one of the world’s most beloved storytellers, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book Thief, tells of his family’s adoption of three troublesome rescue dogs—a charming and courageous love story about making even the most incorrigible of animals family.

There’s a madman dog beside me, and the hounds of memory ahead of us... It’s love and beasts and wild mistakes, and regret, but never to change things.

What happens when the Zusak family opens their home to three big, wild, street-hardened dogs—Reuben, more wolf than hound; Archer, blond, beautiful, destructive; and the rancorously smiling Frosty, who walks like a rolling thunderstorm?

The answer can only be chaos: There are street fights, park fights, public shamings, property damages, injuries, hospital visits, wellness checks, pure comedy, shocking tragedy, and carnage that must be read to be believed.

There is a reckoning of shortcomings and failure, a strengthening of will, but most important of all, an explosion of love—and the joy and recognition of family.

Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth) is a tender, motley, and exquisitely written memoir about the human need for both connection and disorder, a love letter to the animals who bring hilarity and beauty—but also the visceral truth of the natural world—straight to our doors and into our lives and change us forever.

The compelling, edgy, compassionate, laugh-out-loud memoir from Kari Ferrell, formerly known as the Hipster Grifter.

Before Anna Delvey, before the Tinder Swindler, there was Kari Ferrell. Adopted at a young age by a Mormon family in Utah, Kari struggled with questions of self-worth and identity as one of the few Asian Americans in her insulated community, leading her to run with the “bad crowd” in an effort to fit in.

Soon, stealing from superstores turned into picking up men (and picking their pockets), and before she knew it, Kari graduated from petty theft to Utah’s most wanted list. Though Kari was able to escape the Southwest, she couldn’t outrun her new moniker: the Hipster Grifter.

New York City’s indie sleaze scene had found its newest celebrity—just as Kari found herself in a heap of trouble. Jail time, riots, bad checks, and an explosion of internet infamy and fetishization put her name in the spotlight. Beyond the gossip and Gawker posts, there’s a side to Kari the media never saw—until now.