Memoir & biography
54. ‘Brave’ by Rose McGowan (HQ, €21) The actress who accused Harvey Weinstein of rape tells how she fought the Hollywood machine.
55. ‘The Reading Cure’ by Laura Freeman (W&N, €23.79) Freeman fell prey to an eating disorder as a teenager and by 24 was a functioning anorexic. This is the uplifting story of how literature helped her to recover her appetite for life.
56. ‘I’ll Be Gone In The Dark’ by Michelle McNamara (Faber, €16.99) Extraordinary true-crime story about the hunt for a notorious American serial killer. The author died before finishing the book, which was completed posthumously, with the case still unsolved.
57. ‘Educated’ by Tara Westover (Hutchinson, €16.99) Westover grew up in a family of survivalists who thought the end of the world was nigh. She found a way out through education – and
58. ‘Meghan: A Hollywood Princess’ by Andrew Morton (Michael O’Mara, €16) This brisk, highly readable biography of Meghan Markle, the American former actress who married Prince Harry and is now the Duchess of Sussex, is ‘an old-fashioned story of local girl makes good,’ according to the author. ended up at Cambridge.
59. ‘Self & I’ by Matthew De Abaitua (Eye Books, €20.99) An aspiring writer’s time as Will Self’s amanuensis, drinking, rolling ‘special cigarettes’ and swimming in the strangely warm sea around the Sizewell B nuclear reactor. An unusual and amusing read.
60. ‘Tony 10: The Astonishing Story Of The Postman Who Gambled €10,000,000... And Lost It All’ by Declan Lynch and Tony O’Reilly (Gill Books, €16.99) Postie Tony O’Reilly liked a flutter. So much so, he stole €1.75milion from An Post and ended up in jail. It’s a wild ride.
61. ‘The Stopping Places’ by Damian Le Bas (Chatto & Windus, €20.99) In this fascinating memoir about gypsy culture, Le Bas takes to the road to explore his Romany heritage.
62. ‘The Language Of Kindness’ by Christie Watson (Chatto & Windus, €16.99) Watson takes us through her 23-year nursing career, describing the many real lives and real tragedies that haunt our hospitals’ corridors. A dramatic and deeply moving memoir.
63. ‘Calypso’ by David Sedaris (Little, Brown, €19.60) The American humourist’s latest collection of pieces, about life’s strange twists and turns, will have you shrieking with laughter and also, possibly, just shrieking.
64. ‘The Art Of Not Falling Apart’ by Christina Patterson (Atlantic, €21) When journalist Patterson was sacked from the job she loved, she could have fallen apart. Instead she set about interviewing people who could have gone to pieces but didn’t and wrote a funny, uplifting memoir.
65. ‘Somebody I Used To Know’ by Wendy Mitchell (Bloomsbury, €18.20) How does it feel to start to lose your memories, your identity? Mitchell, who discovered at the age of 58 that she had earlyonset dementia, tells us in this remarkable book.
66. ‘My Brother Jason’ by Tracey CorbettLynch and Ralph Riegel (Gill Books, €16.99) In August 2015, Limerick man Jason Corbett was beaten to death in his home in North Carolina. Here, his sister tells a tale of anguish.
67. ‘Bookworm: A Memoir Of Childhood Reading’ by Lucy Mangan (Square Peg, €19.10) Mangan’s charming account of growing up as a book-obsessed child is a love letter to literature and will make you look again at your favourite childhood books.