From Reader To Writer

A list of memoirs that could shape your own story

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Dear friend

How is it Sunday again?!

How is it mid July?

How are you?

I’m sat here now wrestling with writing my memoir about my long distance love affair with a beach house in west Wales. I’m trying to capture what it means to love a place that I’ll never own. But the words aren’t flowing.

So I’ve decided to pause writing my memoir for the time being, so I can write this Substack essay, about how I find myself returning to the memoirs that have shaped me, as a reader and now as an aspiring writer.

If you’re like me, you love a good memoir, and maybe one day you’ll write your own, I think you’ll enjoy this essay. I’ve wanted to share some of my absolute favourite memoirs with you for a while, not because they’re beautiful books, but because each one is teaching me something essential about the craft of memoir writing.

I’ve tried to summarise a few of the above memoirs. You may have read some of them, do let me know which ones, and if any of them have made a difference to your writing or impacted the way you feel.

Real Estate by my muse Deborah Levy

I know I keep mentioning Deborah’s living trilogy, but Real Estate is pure poetry disguised as a memoir. The way she writes about home, about claiming space in the world, about the economics of belonging, it’s simply breathtaking. Every sentence feels carefully crafted, every scene lingered in my memory.

Reading Real Estate has taught me that memoir can be impressionistic (that is a word right?!) rather than linear, that sometimes the most powerful truths come through bits n pieces, pulled from here and there. She showed me how to write about place not just as a backdrop, but as a character, as a force, as the very thing that shapes who we become.

The Shift by my favourite podcaster/broadcaster

sam baker

This book feels like a conversation with the wisest friend you’ve ever had. Writing about that pivotal moment when life asks you to reinvent yourself, usually around midlife. Sam captures something so many of us experience, but rarely see reflected in literature, well it certainly did when the book was first published in 2020. In my humble opinion, Sam was ahead of the curve for true honest stories about menopause and what women go through post 40.

What I love most about this memoir is how Sam writes about transformation without making it seem easy or neat. There’s no magical moment of clarity no sudden epiphany that changes everything. Instead, she shows us how change happens gradually, messily, with setbacks and small wins. As someone navigating my own shifts, her honesty about the uncomfortable middle of becoming feels like a lifeline.

I interviewed Sam on my podcast The Bibliotherapists with my co-host

Toni Jones

where we chatted about these topics, you can listen here. If anything, Sam’s writing has taught me that memoir doesn’t have to have all the answers, sometimes the most powerful stories are about learning to live with the questions.

The Happy Nomad by Charlotte Bradman

There is something deeply liberating about reading stories of women who’ve chosen unconventional paths. The Happy Nomad speaks to that part of me that has always felt a bit rootless, always searching for home in places and experiences rather than traditional properties.

What strikes me most is how this memoir reframes restlessness as a gift rather than a problem. It helped me understand that my deep attachment to Cartrefle doesn’t have to be about ownership, it can be about connection, about finding ways to belong that don’t require possession. And of course the freedom that comes with travelling in a campervan from coast to coast - yes please!

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

This memoir about Maggie’s marriage ending really moved me, it resonated on so many levels. It was equally devastating as it was hopeful. What I admire most is how she refuses to make her ex-husband the villain in the story. Instead, she writes about the complex reality of love that wasn’t enough, of good people who couldn’t make it work together. Maggie is shwoing me that you can write about pain without wallowing, about endings without bitterness, about starting over without pretending the past didn’t matter.

The Lost Properties of Love by Sophie Ratcliffe

This memoir is about the extraordinary exploration of love and loss. Sophie weaves together personal grief and as sense of hope in a way that feels natural and necessary. Her memoir demonstrates how books can become lifelines, how stories can help us make sense of our own experiences. After reading this memoir recommended by Laura Pashby I learnt how memoir can be a conversation between personal experience and larger cultural narratives. She’s not just telling her story, she’s showing how her story connects to the stories we’ve been telling ourselves about love and loss for centuries.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

I must say that this memoir about Joan losing her husband remains one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read. Her precision with language, her unflinching examination of grief, and her ability to find meaning in the smallest details, it really is a piece of art. What stood out for me is the importance of specificity in memoir writing. Joan doesn’t write about grief in general, she writes about her particular grief, her specific days, her exact thoughts. I think the fact she journalled consistently, alongside her writing, has helped make her story feel universal.

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

This is one funny memoir. A collection of essays about ageing is both hilarious and heartbreaking. Her ability to find humour in the indignities of getting older while never diminishing the real pain of it is quite extraordinary. She writes about everything from her neck to her apartment to her parents sharp wit and tenderness.

The one thing that this book has taught me is that memoir can be funny without being frivolous. Nora shows how humour can be a form of wisdom, and I guess a way of processing difficult truths about life and death. Highlighting that you can be both light and profound at the same time.

I could write another 1000 words or so about the remaining memories, about how each one has made a positive impact on my writing and my attitude towards midlife. More than anything, these books are teaching me that memoir isn’t about having lived an extraordinary life, it’s about finding the extraordinary in the life I’ve lived and am living. Each one has shown me that the stories we tell ourselves about our experiences are just as important as the experiences themselves.

As I work on my own memoir about Cartrefle, I carry these voices with me. They won’t be templates to copy, but rather permission slips to find my own way of seeing, my own way of sharing. I’ve been voice noting

Anne Boyd

these past few days about our fascination with memoir writing, we enjoy reading very similar memoirs. I think this is because we both find memoir deeply personal and ultimately generous. Both Anne and I recognise that we share stories not because they’re special, but because in sharing them, we help others feel less alone in theirs. Memoirs help us to understand what it means to be human. The greatest ones helping us to transform pain into shared understanding, and individual experience into a sort of collective wisdom.

Maybe that’s what I’m trying to do with my own memoir, to not just tell the story of my love a beach house, but explore what that love reveals about how we all search for home, for belonging, for the places that hold us even when we can’t hold them back.

There are many more memoirs I’m looking forward to reading into the summer and autumn months, here are a few and I wonder have you read any of them?

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton

Takeaway by Angela Hui

Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Too Hard To Swallow by

Emily Forbes

Nest by Catriona Turner

All The Homes I've Ever Lived In by Kieran Yates

I Could Live Here by Ellen Barone

Bibliophobia by Sarah Chihaya

Are there any other memoirs I haven’t listed or should place on my TBR pile? Please send me a comment if you think there is a book I’d enjoy reading that you’ve found thought provoking or interesting.

Until the next time

Take care and stay safe xx

The second series of The Bibliotherapsists podcast is out now. In which all of our guests, all of whom are writers on Substack, share their favourite books including some brilliant memoirs. You can tune in here to listen to our second conversation of the series with Sam baker.

If you’d like more information about the retreats and workshops I’m hosting this year and in 2026, or you’d like to join the waiting list, please don’t hesitate to email me at hello@easeretreats.com

Every Thursday at 1pm via Zoom - “Journal with Ease Club” with Tanya Lynch

19th August 2025 - “Rage on a Page” Online Journalling Series with Tanya Lynch

26th September 2025 - “Blueprint Your Season” Day Retreat with Tommy Ludgate

2nd - 5th October 2025 - “Rest + Read” Weekend Retreat with Lucy Pearson

17th - 20th October 2025 - “Digital Detox” Weekend Retreat with Tanya Lynch

April 2026 - "Substack with Ease" Day Retreat with Claire Venus

May 2026 - “Creative Unblocking” Weekend Retreat with Emma Gannon

12th June 2026 - “Finding Your Voice” Day Retreat with Laura Pashby

PS. Bring your unfinished stories.

Bring your wild dreams.

Bring yourself.

Because here ‘with ease’, you are always welcome.