19 must-read nonfiction books like Notes from the Road by Mike Ingram

Cover of Notes from the Road by Mike Ingram

Notes from the Road

By: Mike Ingram

4.52

Format: 180 pages, Paperback

A week before spring semester, a Philadelphia writing professor sets out for L.A. to deliver a frie…

If you liked the nonfiction plot in Notes from the Road by Mike Ingram , here is a list of 19 books like this:

1. Grief is the Thing with Feathers

By: Max Porter

3.72

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother's sudden death. Their … read more

Similar categories in Max Porter's Grief is the Thing with Feathers book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

Cover of A Man's Place by Annie Ernaux

2. A Man's Place

By: Annie Ernaux

3.88

Format: 96 pages, Paperback

WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE A New York Times Notable Book Annie Ernaux's fat… read more

Similar categories in Annie Ernaux's A Man's Place book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
"J'écris peut-être parce qu'on n'avait plus rien à se dire."

-Annie Ernaux, A Man's Place

"Sous le bonheur, la crispation de l'aisance gagnée à l'arraché."

-Annie Ernaux, A Man's Place

"Có lẽ niềm tự hào lớn nhất đối với ông, hay thậm chí là lời biện minh cho cuộc đời ông: là tôi đang thuộc về thế giới từng khinh miệt ông."

-Annie Ernaux, A Man's Place

"It was in other people that I searched for the figure of my father, in the way they would call their children, sit down and looked bored in waiting rooms and wave goodbye on station platforms."

-Annie Ernaux, A Man's Place

Cover of Splinters by Leslie Jamison

3. Splinters

By: Leslie Jamison

3.86

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Recovering and The Empathy Exams comes the riveti… read more

Similar categories in Leslie Jamison's Splinters book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
Cover of Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

4. Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

By: Claire Dederer

3.79

Format: 257 pages, Hardcover

From the author of the New York Times best seller Poser and the acclaimed memoir Love and Trouble, … read more

Similar categories in Claire Dederer's Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
"Biography used to be something you sought out, yearned for, actively pursued. Now it falls on your head all day long."

-Claire Dederer, Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

Cover of Bliss Montage by Ling  Ma

5. Bliss Montage

By: Ling Ma

3.91

Format: 228 pages, Hardcover

A new creation by the author of Severance, the stories in Bliss Montage crash through our carefully… read more

Similar categories in Ling Ma's Bliss Montage book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

"To live is to exist within time. To remember is to negate time."

-Ling Ma, Bliss Montage

"It doesn't take much to come into your own; all it takes is someone's gaze."

-Ling Ma, Bliss Montage

"Maybe you don't know that you're wounded until you receive the salve. The salve that makes everything come back."

-Ling Ma, Bliss Montage

"It was a time when the future could have been anything, been anywhere. It was so open that it could actually crush her."

-Ling Ma, Bliss Montage

Cover of The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century by Olga Ravn

6. The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

By: Olga Ravn

3.67

Format: 136 pages, Paperback

A workplace novel of the 22nd century The near-distant future. Millions of kilometres from Earth… read more

Similar categories in Olga Ravn's The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

"This is not a human, but a coworker."

-Olga Ravn, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

"Cada ação encerra em si um elemento de caos."

-Olga Ravn, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

"Tudo precisa atravessar enormes distâncias para se tornar o que é."

-Olga Ravn, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

"Eu também tenho em mim palavras apagadas que deveria ter dito e já não sei mais o que significam."

-Olga Ravn, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

Cover of The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman

7. The Nineties

By: Chuck Klosterman

3.87

Format: 370 pages, Hardcover

The Nineties: a wise and funny reckoning with the decade that gave us slacker/grunge irony about th… read more

Similar categories in Chuck Klosterman's The Nineties book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
"The nineties were a fertile period for the self-indulgent genius."

-Chuck Klosterman, The Nineties

"In the nineties, doing nothing on purpose was a valid option, and a specific brand of cool became more important than almost anything else. The key to that coolness was disinterest in conventional su…"

-Chuck Klosterman, The Nineties

Cover of A Woman's Story by Annie Ernaux

8. A Woman's Story

By: Annie Ernaux

4.23

Format: 104 pages, Paperback

A Woman's Story is Annie Ernaux's "deeply affecting account of mothers and daughters, youth and age… read more

Similar categories in Annie Ernaux's A Woman's Story book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
"Until I was twenty, I thought I was responsible for her growing old."

-Annie Ernaux, A Woman's Story

"With so much misery around, fighting for social advancement had lost all meaning."

-Annie Ernaux, A Woman's Story

"I believe I am writing about my mother because it is my turn to bring her into the world."

-Annie Ernaux, A Woman's Story

"Het beeld van haar wordt langzaam weer dat wat ik mij voorstel te hebben gehad van haar in mijn babytijd, een grote, blanke schaduw boven mij."

-Annie Ernaux, A Woman's Story

Cover of Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

9. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands

By: Kate Beaton

4.41

Format: 430 pages, Hardcover

Celebrated cartoonist Kate Beaton vividly presents the untold story of Canada. Before there was … read more

Similar categories in Kate Beaton's Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
Cover of This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life by Lyz Lenz

10. This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life

By: Lyz Lenz

3.99

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A manifesto on the gender politics of marriage (bad) and divorce (actually pretty good!) in America… read more

Similar categories in Lyz Lenz's This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
"So much of our culture depicts young girls dreaming about their weddings. But every middle-aged woman I know dreams about living alone in the woods, maybe with a dog."

-Lyz Lenz, This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life

Cover of Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts by Matt   Bell

11. Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts

By: Matt Bell

4.46

Format: 168 pages, Paperback

They say writing is rewriting. So why does the second part get such short shrift? Refuse To Be Done… read more

Similar categories in Matt Bell's Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
Cover of The Hurting Kind: Poems by Ada Limon

12. The Hurting Kind: Poems

By: Ada Limon

4.34

Format: 120 pages, Hardcover

An astonishing collection about interconnectedness—between the human and nonhuman, ancestors and ou… read more

Similar categories in Ada Limon's The Hurting Kind: Poems book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
"There is a solitude in this world I cannot pierce. I would die for it."

-Ada Limon, The Hurting Kind: Poems

"Before, the only thing I was interested in was love, how it grips you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates and resuscitates you. I didn’t know then that it wasn’t even love that I was interested…"

-Ada Limon, The Hurting Kind: Poems

Cover of Easy Beauty by Chloé Cooper Jones

13. Easy Beauty

By: Chloé Cooper Jones

4.12

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

From Chloé Cooper Jones—Pulitzer Prize finalist, philosophy professor, Whiting Creative Nonfiction … read more

Similar categories in Chloé Cooper Jones's Easy Beauty book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
"Beauty is what we're told is beautiful and what we're told becomes the truth."

-Chloé Cooper Jones, Easy Beauty

"Maybe then I would submit to it's rigid ideals if I were recognized as worthy of experiencing them."

-Chloé Cooper Jones, Easy Beauty

"I care if you are happy. I'm in love with your happiness. My focus is on how you feel not what you do."

-Chloé Cooper Jones, Easy Beauty

"You could have made me come home," I say. "No, I can only try to be the person you want to come home to."

-Chloé Cooper Jones, Easy Beauty

Cover of Stay True by Hua Hsu

14. Stay True

By: Hua Hsu

4.03

Format: 208 pages, Hardcover

From the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu, a gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for se… read more

Similar categories in Hua Hsu's Stay True book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
"My parents are great, I said. Unbelievably non-stereotypical."

-Hua Hsu, Stay True

"The first generation thinks about survival; the ones that follow tell the stories."

-Hua Hsu, Stay True

"You were describing people we had not yet met, maybe people we ourselves would become."

-Hua Hsu, Stay True

"It was a sign of personal growth, I thought to myself, that I could be friends with someone who liked Pearl Jam this much."

-Hua Hsu, Stay True

Cover of Saint Sebastian's Abyss by Mark Haber

15. Saint Sebastian's Abyss

By: Mark Haber

3.71

Format: 144 pages, Paperback

“What I wanted more than anything was to be standing beside Schmidt, in concert with Schmidt, at th… read more

Similar categories in Mark Haber's Saint Sebastian's Abyss book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

"...Schmidt admitted in private that if were up to him he would've happily burned them, burned them with glee and without thinking twice and kept the ashes too, he'd said, in an urn that he'd place pr…"

-Mark Haber, Saint Sebastian's Abyss

Cover of Heavy by Kiese Laymon

16. Heavy

By: Kiese Laymon

4.48

Format: 248 pages, Kindle Edition

In this powerful and provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon explores … read more

Similar categories in Kiese Laymon's Heavy book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
"The violent white backlash to Obama’s victory will still be unlike anything we’d ever seen..."

-Kiese Laymon, Heavy

"Y'all taught me that unacknowledged scars accumulated in battles won often hurt more than battles lost."

-Kiese Laymon, Heavy

"Even when I know you're lying to me, I just feel crazy sorry for you. Why? Because I can just tell you'll never let me carry what you're hiding."

-Kiese Laymon, Heavy

"The nation as it is currently constituted has never dealt with a yesterday or tomorrow where we were radically honest, generous, and tender with each other."

-Kiese Laymon, Heavy

Cover of Either/Or by Elif Batuman

17. Either/Or

By: Elif Batuman

4.01

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

From the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Idiot, the continuation of beloved protagonist Sel… read more

Similar categories in Elif Batuman's Either/Or book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

"I'm going to become whatever I was going to become."

-Elif Batuman, Either/Or

"Fiona Apple's album made me more immediately depressed than any other music I remembered hearing."

-Elif Batuman, Either/Or

"That had probably been written by a professor. I recognized the professor's characteristic delight at not imparting information."

-Elif Batuman, Either/Or

"I was going to remember, or discover, where everything came from. I was going to do the subtle, monstrous thing where you figured out what you were doing, and why."

-Elif Batuman, Either/Or

Cover of Molly by Blake Butler

18. Molly

By: Blake Butler

3.66

Format: 320 pages, Paperback

A gripping, unforgettable memoir from one of the best, most original writers of the 21st century. … read more

Similar categories in Blake Butler's Molly book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
Cover of Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

19. Night of the Living Rez

By: Morgan Talty

3.91

Format: 285 pages, Paperback

How do the living come back to life?  Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Re… read more

Similar categories in Morgan Talty's Night of the Living Rez book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

"There is that terrible memory, surely, but so too are there sweet ones, the tiny memories with the tiny details that are milder in climax, no doubt, but equally powerful..."

-Morgan Talty, Night of the Living Rez

Cover of The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

20. The Book of Goose

By: Yiyun Li

3.71

Format: 348 pages, Hardcover

A gripping, heartbreaking new novel about female friendship, art, and memory by the award-winning a… read more

Similar categories in Yiyun Li's The Book of Goose book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

"Time corrupts. And we pay a price for everything corruptible: food, roof beams, souls."

-Yiyun Li, The Book of Goose

"Few of us would make a fool of ourselves in pressing the animals to give us serious answers about their lives, but we do that all the time to other people."

-Yiyun Li, The Book of Goose

"Happiness, I would tell her, is to spend every day without craning one's neck to look forward to tomorrow, next month, next year, and without holding out one's hands to stop every day from becoming y…"

-Yiyun Li, The Book of Goose

"Childhood companionship is forced upon the children (...) Childhood friendship, though is has ti meet the same geographical and temporal prerequisites, is something rarer: a child does not seek to bo…"

-Yiyun Li, The Book of Goose

Cover of Shorefall (The Founders Trilogy, #2) by Robert Jackson Bennett

21. Shorefall (The Founders Trilogy, #2)

By: Robert Jackson Bennett

4.05

Format: 493 pages, Kindle Edition

As a magical revolution remakes a city, an ancient evil is awakened in a brilliant new novel from t… read more

Similar categories in Robert Jackson Bennett's Shorefall (The Founders Trilogy, #2) book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

"they were "the Muses," brining brilliance down from upon high"

-Robert Jackson Bennett, Shorefall (The Founders Trilogy, #2)

"they were 'the Muses' bringing brilliance down from upon high"

-Robert Jackson Bennett, Shorefall (The Founders Trilogy, #2)

"Not all revolutions mean burning down a damned city. I am no historian, but ... it seems likely those are far from the norm..."

-Robert Jackson Bennett, Shorefall (The Founders Trilogy, #2)

"If things go poorly, tell her to wait for us. If things go really, quite very poorly, get on a ship and go and do not look back."

-Robert Jackson Bennett, Shorefall (The Founders Trilogy, #2)

Cover of The Meaning of Mariah Carey by Mariah Carey

22. The Meaning of Mariah Carey

By: Mariah Carey

4.07

Format: 349 pages, Hardcover

It took me a lifetime to have the courage and the clarity to write my memoir. I want to tell the st… read more

Similar categories in Mariah Carey's The Meaning of Mariah Carey book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
"Protect your dreams."

-Mariah Carey, The Meaning of Mariah Carey

"I was barely conscious but my standards were still awake."

-Mariah Carey, The Meaning of Mariah Carey

Cover of Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E. Kirby

23. Shit Cassandra Saw

By: Gwen E. Kirby

3.83

Format: 274 pages, Paperback

Margaret Atwood meets Buffy in these funny, warm, and furious stories of women at their breaking po… read more

Similar categories in Gwen E. Kirby's Shit Cassandra Saw book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

Cover of The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.

24. The Prophets

By: Robert Jones Jr.

3.92

Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593085684 A novel about the forbidden union between two ensl… read more

Similar categories in Robert Jones Jr.'s The Prophets book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

"Good, he thought. Let it be ugly so it could be truth."

-Robert Jones Jr., The Prophets

"Every travesty that had ever been committed had been committed by plain people."

-Robert Jones Jr., The Prophets

"Our responsibility is to tell you the truth. But since you were never told the truth, you will believe it a lie. Lies are more affectionate than truth and embrace with both arms."

-Robert Jones Jr., The Prophets

"Isaiah smiled at Samuel's unwillingness, his grunts and sighs and head shaking, even though he understood the danger in it. Tiny resistances were a kind of healing in a weeping place."

-Robert Jones Jr., The Prophets

Cover of Girlhood by Melissa Febos

25. Girlhood

By: Melissa Febos

4.23

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

A gripping set of stories about the forces that shape girls and the adults they become. A wise and … read more

Similar categories in Melissa Febos's Girlhood book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
"Nature isn't cruel, but unconcerned with human frailty."

-Melissa Febos, Girlhood

"My wonder was bottomless for the world empty of stories, mine alone to name."

-Melissa Febos, Girlhood

"I have since learned that recognizing the invisible parts of oneself in another person can feel like a radiant kind of love."

-Melissa Febos, Girlhood

"My poor body. My precious body. How had I let her be treated this way? My body was me. To hate my own body was to suffer from an autoimmune disease of the mind."

-Melissa Febos, Girlhood

Cover of Normal Distance by Elisa Gabbert

26. Normal Distance

By: Elisa Gabbert

3.70

Format: 112 pages, Paperback

A collection of funny and thought-provoking poems inspired by surprising facts that will appeal to … read more

Similar categories in Elisa Gabbert's Normal Distance book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

Cover of The Unreality of Memory: And Other Essays by Elisa Gabbert

27. The Unreality of Memory: And Other Essays

By: Elisa Gabbert

4.20

Format: 272 pages, Paperback

"Terror, disaster, memory, selfhood, happiness . . . leave it to a poet to tackle the unthinkable s… read more

Similar categories in Elisa Gabbert's The Unreality of Memory: And Other Essays book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
"In the era of fake news - a natural extension of the era of news proper - we don't just look to the media for facts, we look to it for narratives."

-Elisa Gabbert, The Unreality of Memory: And Other Essays

"Often, when something bad happens, I have a strange, instinctual desire for things to get even worse—I think of a terrible outcome and then wish for it. I recognize the pattern, but I don’t understan…"

-Elisa Gabbert, The Unreality of Memory: And Other Essays

Cover of Notes from the Road by Mike Ingram

28. Notes from the Road

By: Mike Ingram

4.52

Format: 180 pages, Paperback

A week before spring semester, a Philadelphia writing professor sets out for L.A. to deliver a frie… read more

Similar categories in Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
Cover of Path of Totality: Poems by Niina Pollari

29. Path of Totality: Poems

By: Niina Pollari

4.48

Format: 144 pages, Paperback

Exploring the sudden loss of her child, the hope that precedes this crisis, and the suffering that … read more

Similar categories in Niina Pollari's Path of Totality: Poems book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
Cover of An Encyclopedia of Bending Time by Kristin Keane

30. An Encyclopedia of Bending Time

By: Kristin Keane

4.61

Format: 130 pages, Paperback

When her mother died, Kristin Keane felt that there had to be a way she could still reach her. Coul… read more

Similar categories in Kristin Keane's An Encyclopedia of Bending Time book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

  • nonfiction
Cover of The Other Ones by Dave Housley

31. The Other Ones

By: Dave Housley

4.55

Format: 250 pages, Paperback

From Dave Housley, one of the founding editors of Barrelhouse, comes a ghostly, comic new novel tha… read more

Similar categories in Dave Housley's The Other Ones book and Mike Ingram's Notes from the Road

17 Best fiction books like Either/Or by Elif Batuman

Transform Your Habits

Play It As It Lays

Joan Didion , David Thomson

3.92

Transform Your Habits

Rouge

Mona Awad

3.56

Transform Your Habits

Bliss Montage

Ling Ma

3.91

Transform Your Habits

Disorientation

Elaine Hsieh Chou

3.84

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