Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature

by Zibby Owens

Books, for me, are lifesaving. They have been my companions, my teachers, my entertainment, my emotional outlets, my escape. They’ve taught me how to cook, how to love, how to mourn, how to cope, and how to feel. They’ve allowed me to sort through my own feelings and escape into someone else’s.

Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp,

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend.

Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk

staccato

a sound or note sharply detached from the next

Ordinary People by Judith Guest.

Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass,

A Prayer for Owen Meany

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

Shutterbabe: Adventures in Love and War by author and photographer Deborah Copaken Kogan.

Chris Evert, the Young Champion, by Lynn Haney,

Love Story by Erich Segal.

Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time

Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides.

Phillip Lopate’s anthology The Art of the Personal Essay,

Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird,

Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada

Awakenings by Oliver Sacks

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Understanding Brands, edited by Don Cowley,

Paco Underhill’s Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping.

Howard Schultz’s Pour Your Heart into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time.

Stephanie Danler’s Stray: A Memoir.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.

What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence

Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis,

I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb

Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties by Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner.

All the Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden,

Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes,

Rebecca Wells’s Divine Secrets of the Ya-...

Laurie Colwin’s Family Happiness

Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

Note Found in a Bottle: My Life as a Drinker by Susan Cheever,

Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

White Teeth by Zadie Smith.

Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley.

Good Grief by Lolly Winston

Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent,

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom,

Isabel Allende’s Daughter ...

Me Talk Pretty One Day by Dav...

Atonement by Ian McEwan,

Shopgirl by Steve Martin,

The Greatest Generation by ...