Some of the very best stories are the true ones. Here are two memoirs and one collection of heroic figures that would be worthy of your time.
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Booked, by Karen Swallow Prior (T.S. Poetry Press)
Prior is an English professor, so she lives amid books. It’s completely fitting then that Prior’s recent memoir is literary in two distinct ways. First, the book hums along with the kind of gentle rhythm you find among writers who don’t treat words as tools but as friends. Second, Booked is full to the brim with tales about books and experiences with books and reminders of all the reasons why we love books so very much. In Booked, Prior narrates her life’s story through the stories (like Charlottes’s Web, Jayne Eyre) and the poetry (Hopkins, Donne) we all love.
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My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Christian Believer, by Christian Wiman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Christian Wiman, acclaimed poet and (until June) the editor of Poetry magazine, has published six volumes of poetry but has now put his hand to a spiritual memoir. After meeting his wife and after being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer at the age of 39, Christian’s faith took on added — and perhaps unexpected — depth. In this work that Dwight Garner rightly described a “slim and simmering book,” Wiman puts his poetic artistry to another use, telling us why he believes — and perhaps reminds us why we believe as well.
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Not Less than Everything, edited by Catherine Wolf (HarperOne)
This book emerges out of the Catholic tradition, but it’s a feast for a Christian of any stripe. Gathering writings from across the centuries (from Joan of Arc, Michelangelo, Dorothy Day and Gerard Manley Hopkins, to name only a few), this volume provides accounts of faithful Christians who “spoke or acted in ways that challenged the prevailing authorities, knowing they risked reputation, livelihood, sometimes their heads — all while remaining faithful.
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Winn Collier (winncollier.com) is author of three books, a columnist and pastor of All Souls in Charlottesville, Va.