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Opinionated analysis of several books in the memoir genre and the genre as a whole. Some useful nuggets for would-be memoirists.

A North African girl in a Parisian ghetto recounts the difficulties of life for her, her single mother, and their immigrant neighbors. Similar to Lila Says but with less plot development.

By Ursula K. LeGuin, Gifts is the story of a people of strange gifts: the power to set fires, call wild animals, or even "unmake" things. But what happens if you don't want to -- or can't -- control your gift? An intriguing novel suitable for young and old alike.

A woman falls in love with a cyborg, programmed by a man to kill and by a woman to love. A thoughtful, action-packed examination of what it means to be human.

In Drive, Daniel Pink exposes management's big lie: workers aren't motivated best by rewards or punishments; they really want autonomy, mastery, and purpose. A solidly supported book full of interesting case studies, with tips for managers, teachers, even parents, about changing the work force by finding our intrinsic drive.

If you've only read the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, you owe it to yourself to read The Lottery and Other Stories. Jackson spins a kaleidoscope of intersecting and contrasting elements, husbands and wives, children and grandmothers, old maids and young mothers, city and country, black and white, while on the periphery wanders the ineluctable Jim Harris. You’ll find stories that could have influenced Carol Shields and Raymond Carver, and many surprises.

The Emperor’s Children deserves the notice it received when it was released a few years ago. This is an important novel: not because it deals with 30-somethings trying to solidify their professional and love lives in New York just before 9/11, but because it deals with important questions of truth, honesty, and pretense. If you enjoyed Julia Glass’s The Whole World Over or Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, I think you will enjoy this sprawling, thoughtful family drama as well.

Woman on the Edge of Time begins with a woman who has nothing going for her: Connie is poor, Hispanic, a criminal, and has now been committed against her will to an insane asylum. Her only relief is paranormal visits from -- and later to -- the future. Using elements from Huxley's Brave New World and LeGuin's The Dispossessed, Piercy crafts an alternate future similar to the one she features in He, She and It. Scathing social critique couched in a gripping, personal tale.

Richard is a successful actor who can’t make relationships work. In an alternate reality, Rick married his college sweetheart and had two kids, but regrets never trying to be an actor. A thoughtful examination of the what-ifs and might-have-beens of the road not taken, with interesting insight into professional acting.

If you’ve never read Atwood (famous for The Handmaid’s Tale), and want to know what all the fuss is about, this would be a good place to start. A collection of short pieces, almost prose poems, showcase her favorite topics (power struggles between men and women, for one) as well as her love for language. Rest assured, she also writes traditional novels with fully-fleshed characters and intricate plots.

If you like the stories of Raymond Carver or Julie Orringer, you will enjoy these short, haunting gems about relationships.

The last of Eager’s books about children’s encounters with magic, a series that began with Half Magic. If your youngster doesn’t yet have the patience or stamina for the Harry Potter series, these books are thoughtful reads about pre-teen and teen friends who have to make good decisions when using their new-found powers.

Lies My Mother Never Told Me is the troubling memoir of a woman who does not realize until her thirties that not only were her parents alcoholics, but she is too. Her father was renowned WWII novelist James Jones; her mother, his brilliant but twisted trophy wife. An intriguing read for those interested in the interplay of writing and addiction.

A compelling book about a child who has stopped speaking. An insightful look into issues of control and communication in families, reminiscent of Myla Goldberg's Bee Season.

An astonishing read that I kept thinking about for days after I finished it. A college student is abducted and made into her captor's slave, but the story really begins when the little boy she gives birth to in captivity turns five. Room is told from the perspective of a child who thinks the universe is an eleven-by-eleven foot shed. A tour de force in point of view. (No explicit rape scenes, minimal violence.)

A strange mix here. I had never read any of LeGuin's realistic fiction, and honestly, I found most of this pretty ho-hum. The stories that purported to be about people and relationships felt more like skimming over a Facebook page, not actually getting to know someone. I'll confess I couldn't even bring myself to finish "Ether, OR," a rambling plotless story told from the points of view of too many residents of a small town. I barely finished "Half Past Four" for the same reasons even though I know it was supposed to be very po-mo. Yawn. However, some of the stories did draw me in for their creativity: the story of a teenage girl who takes her mentally handicapped mother to a clinic for an abortion, for example. At times, LeGuin sounded as if she were trying to be Margaret Atwood -- or is Atwood trying to be LeGuin? At any rate, some of the stories had that Atwoodian literary/lettered feel. I especially like the final one, "The Poacher," which tells what would happen if it weren't Prince Charming who found Sleeping Beauty, but a lowly peasant poacher. At any rate, a few gems here, but I prefer the sci-fi LeGuin.

I really enjoyed most of this modern take on The Scarlet Letter, with echoes of The Handmaid's Tale. The protagonist has been punished for having an abortion: she's been dyed red so all can see she's a murderess. Jordan slowly reveals with whom the baby was conceived, and he is of course the most taboo lover imaginable in this hyper-fundamentalist society. The adventure is thrilling, but ends too soon, in the sense that I wish Jordan had given her heroine another 50-100 pages to grow and learn, instead of improbably having her cram a lifetime of life-changing experiences into a few brief days. Nonetheless, this is a worthwhile take on the evolution of a girl's stance on abortion and women's rights.

Mat Johnson's Pym is a completely off-the-wall satire: part academic musing, part throwback adventure à la Jules Verne, part unsolved mystery. Protagonist Chris Jaynes has just been denied tenure, because he was more interested in researching Edgar Allan Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, than in being the token black professor on the diversity committee. When Jaynes stumbles across evidence that at least part of his favorite novel was based on fact, he and his buddy Garth head off to the South Pole to check it out. They join up with an all-Black crew and run into a lost tribe of...well, I won't spoil it for you, but the old-fashioned sci-fi trope is a great setup for cuttingly funny insights into race, academia, art vs. pop culture, etc., etc. The novel appeals to me as a teacher of literature, a fan of science fiction, and a person who thinks we ought to be able to laugh a little more about race. Everyone will find someone to identify with in Jayne's crew, from his Black Power cousin to his unemployed friend; from his ex-girlfriend's new husband, a sellout entertainment lawyer, to a gay couple with an adventure blog. Then there are the hilarious sendups of the white conservatives who are piping Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck into their Antarctic getaway. It's a satirical romp that may leave you scratching your head but it's well worth the read.

Two stories are woven together here: an historical account of Brigham Young’s nineteenth wife, who went on to sue for divorce and bring polygamy to an official end; and a contemporary murder mystery, in which the nineteenth wife of a modern polygamist is accused of murdering her husband. Her gay son, who has been excommunicated, returns to unravel what really happened. My feeling is the author felt that a strictly historical account would not be as popular, and so created the contemporary mystery in order to appeal to more readers. I personally found the historical "documents" more riveting, and the mystery weak in spots. And then a third voice begins to be heard... The braided narrative won't be complete until the end. I enjoyed all the strands, and learned more than I ever thought I wanted to know about the Mormon church's lurid past.

At first I didn’t think I was going to like The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank, because I didn’t like its protagonist, Sophie. Sandwiched between a cute and popular older brother, and a hardworking genius younger brother, Sophie is the middling middle child. The book begins with Sophie at about age twelve and follows her into adulthood. Each chapter could stand alone as a short story, which is in fact how I first encountered the title story, in the collection Speaking with the Angel, edited by Nick Hornby. Sophie is not particularly good at anything, and doesn’t particularly want to be. She fails at school, at work, at friendships, at relationships. At times you want to shake her and say, “Just do something! Anything!” But what’s appealing about Sophie is her utter honesty. Not with others, but with herself. As she describes every pose she assumes, she shares her inner motivations, and we recognize ourselves. It’s a well written collection, funny and moving.

I really enjoyed this memoir-like novel of the uneasy reconciliation between a grown woman and her neglectful mother.