Let Me Tell You: The Best Memoirs You Haven’t Read

 Viola prodigy Zarifa Adiba grew up in war-torn Kabul, where girls were expected to marry after they completed their schooling. But Adiba went against her culture’s expectations, becoming the lead violist, co-conductor, and spokesperson for Zohra, the first all-female orchestra in the Muslim world, at just eighteen years old.

This memoir relates a situation more and more people can relate to: caring for aging parents while raising their own children. Cohen experienced several obstacles but also a lot of joy and love as a single mother raising her young daughter, Ava, at the same time that she took care of her father, who had Alzheimer’s. It’s a beautiful story about life at both ends of the journey.

In this powerful account exploring the importance of BIPOC narratives in recovery stories, Hoppe lays bare the cycles of substance use disorder in her family. It’s a deep dive into her family’s history, including the loss of her cousin at the start of the pandemic, and her own recovery, which she had kept hidden.

If you enjoy exposés about government wrongdoing, this is the memoir for you! It’s a maddening, compelling book about Iversen, her family, and her neighbors, who lived near a secret nuclear facility in Colorado. While the government kept the true function of Rocky Flats from citizens for decades, it was poisoning the people, animals, and land all around it.

Maya Shanbhag Lang grew up in the United States, revering her brilliant mother, a physician who immigrated from India and raised a family while also working. But when Lang is an adult, her mother is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and begins sharing stories that differ from the ones she told Lang when she was young, making her wonder if she really knew her mother at all.

In this moving memoir, Roberts recounts her epic journey to help discover the lost ships of the global slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean. She joined the scuba and underwater archaeology group Diving With a Purpose, and worked alongside divers, scholars, and archaeologists—a task that inspired her to learn about her descendants along the way.

The story of the Central Park Five is one of the most famous cases of wrongful convictions in United States history. Yusef Salaam was one of the men imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, spending years in prison before being exonerated. In this infuriating and enlightening book, he shares not only his own story, but also explains the country’s long history of wrongful convictions and the people who are failed by a system created to keep them down.

Marian Schembari spent the first few decades of her life feeling different, wondering why she didn’t act like other people, and being misdiagnosed over and over. It wasn’t until she was 34 years old that she learned she was autistic, and her life began to make sense. In this enlightening and moving memoir, Schembari explains how, with the help of her diagnosis, she finally began to understand herself and how she relates to the world.

In this award-winning memoir, Maureen Stanton tells of love found and lost when she was young. Stanton met Steve at a bar in her twenties, and they fell madly in love, but just three short years later, Steve was diagnosed with cancer. They had to learn to navigate his serious illness and the medical world, with no money or support, as they came to the end of their story. It’s a heartbreaking look at love and what we owe each other.

Get your tissues ready: This is a no-holds-barred account of the death of the brother of Stephanie Wittels Wachs, the actor/writer/comedian Harris Wittels, best known for Parks and Recreation. She explores the first year after his death, the anger she feels at losing her brother to a heroin overdose, and the unending love she has for him.

Wittels Wachs also has a podcast called Last Day about the ongoing opioid crisis, and an upcoming book, Last Day: How to Stop Losing Our Loved Ones to the Opioid Crisis, releasing in August.