Books like

Books like The Sound of Gravel

12 books with a reading profile close to The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner. Inward-looking and clear-cut; an easy read.

1

The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star

by Nikki Sixx

Also inward-looking · memoir, narrative

Nikki Sixx documents the peak of his addiction through journal entries written between 1986 and 1987.
2

The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After

by Clemantine Wamariya

Also inward-looking · memoir, narrative

In 1994, six-year-old Clemantine Wamariya and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, fled the Rwandan massacre, leaving their parents behind.
3

Girl in a Band

by Kim Gordon

Also clear-cut · memoir, narrative

In this memoir, Kim Gordon traces her trajectory from a visual arts upbringing in Los Angeles to the center of the New York City post-punk scene.
4

Etched in Sand: A True Story of Five Siblings Who Survived an Unspeakable Childhood on Long Island

by Regina Calcaterra

Also inward-looking and clear-cut · memoir, narrative

Regina Calcaterra grew up on Long Island, New York, one of five children of a mother who abandoned and abused them.
5

What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love

by Carole Radziwill

Also inward-looking and clear-cut · memoir, narrative

Carole Radziwill narrates her life from a working-class childhood in Suffern, New York, to her career as an ABC News producer and her marriage into the Kennedy-Radziwill family.
6

Cash

by Johnny Cash

Also clear-cut · memoir, narrative

Johnny Cash details his life from his childhood in the Arkansas cotton fields to his decades as a country music icon.
7

All You Can Ever Know

by Nicole Chung

Also inward-looking · memoir, narrative

Nicole Chung grew up as a Korean child adopted by a white family in a predominately white Oregon town.
8

In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss

by Amy Bloom

Also inward-looking · memoir, narrative

After Amy Bloom’s husband, Brian Ameche, receives a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, he decides to end his life on his own terms before the illness erases his identity.
9

Memorial Days

by Geraldine Brooks

Also inward-looking · memoir, narrative

Geraldine Brooks examines the formation of historical memory through the lens of her own family lineage and her decades spent as a foreign correspondent.
10

The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss

by Anderson Cooper

Also inward-looking · memoir, narrative

This memoir records an email exchange between journalist Anderson Cooper and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, initiated during her ninety-first year.
11

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir

by Patrisse Khan-Cullors

Also clear-cut · memoir, narrative

Patrisse Khan-Cullors recounts the systemic pressures that shaped her life in Van Nuys, California, focusing on the heavy policing and incarceration of her brother, Monte.
12

All Over But the Shoutin'

by Rick Bragg

Also inward-looking and clear-cut · memoir, narrative

Rick Bragg recounts his transition from the poverty of the rural Alabama foothills to his career as a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at The New York Times.

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