1. Nuala O’Faolain, Are You Somebody? (Vaguely depressing memoir in tradition of Angela’s Ashes and the like, only better because it was written by a feminist.)
2. Elaine Dundy, The Old Man and Me (Even better than the Dud Avocado, because this one involves a very subtle attempt to murder somebody.)
3. Lee Israel, Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Ok, so I haven’t actually read this yet, but I bought a copy for three dollars from the scuffed book sale on campus the other day, and it is obviously going to be wonderful because it is the autobiography of a woman who had a successful career as a biographer, but then became not-so-successful, and so supplemented her income by creating elaborate and realistic fake letters from people like Noel Coward and Louise Brooks and Dorothy Parker, until one day, she was charged with fraud. SOUNDS GREAT.)
4. Arthur Marwick, British Society Since 1945 (NO, REALLY. Marwick was apparently something of an alcoholic womanizer, so reading this book is kind of like hanging out with a drunk, curmudgeonly old man who is telling you all about what it was like after the war, and is only not hitting on you because you are his niece. I realize this is not exactly something that sounds like a ringing endorsement, but it turns what would otherwise be just another boring chapter about how bacon was still being rationed in 1954 into a slightly hilarious jaunt.)
5. Nicole J. Georges, Invicible Summer, vols. 1 and 2 (Collected editions of the Invincible Summer zines. Wonderful and lovely and full of beautiful drawings of animals and advice on growing your very own beehive.)
