Books like Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

01

A Moveable Feast

Ernest Hemingway · Memoir

A Moveable Feast is Hemingway's posthumously published account of his years in Paris during the 1920s, when he and his first wife Hadley lived cheaply in Montparnasse while he apprenticed himself to the work of becoming a writer.

Both dig into craft.

02

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Dave Eggers · Memoir

Dave Eggers's debut memoir about losing both parents to cancer within five weeks and raising his younger brother Toph while trying to start a literary magazine in San Francisco in the mid-1990s arrived in 2000 with unusual self-consciousness about its own nature.

A kindred memoir read.

03

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

Trevor Noah · Memoir

Born a Crime is Trevor Noah's memoir about growing up mixed-race in South Africa during the final years of apartheid and its chaotic aftermath.

A kindred memoir read.

04

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Cheryl Strayed · Memoir

Wild is Cheryl Strayed's account of hiking 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone in 1995 at twenty-six, with no prior backpacking experience and a pack so heavy she could barely lift it.

A kindred memoir read.

05

Born Standing Up

Steve Martin · Memoir

Born Standing Up is Steve Martin's account of the decade-long grind that preceded his sudden, seemingly overnight fame as America's biggest stand-up comedian of the late 1970s.

Shares ambition and craft with Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.

06

10% Happier

Dan Harris · Memoir

10% Happier is Dan Harris's account of discovering meditation after a panic attack live on Good Morning America in 2004 forced him to confront an anxiety problem he'd been managing with cocaine and a punishing work schedule.

Both dig into ambition.

07

Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

David Sheff · Memoir

Beautiful Boy is David Sheff's account of watching his son Nic become addicted to methamphetamine through his late teens and early twenties, and of the years Sheff spent trying to understand it, respond to it, and survive it as a parent.

Both dig into addiction.

08

Born to Run

Bruce Springsteen · Memoir

Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run is among the most substantive rock memoirs written, in part because Springsteen is a better prose writer than his public image suggests and in part because he chose to write about the things that actually shaped him rather than the things that made him famous.

Both dig into ambition.

09

Bossypants

Tina Fey · Memoir

Bossypants is Tina Fey's memoir and comic essay collection about her upbringing in suburban Pennsylvania, her years doing improv comedy in Chicago, her time as a writer and head writer at Saturday Night Live, her creation of 30 Rock, and the experience of being a woman in charge in show business.

Both dig into ambition.

10

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

J. D. Vance · Memoir

Hillbilly Elegy is J.

Both dig into addiction.

11

Life

Keith Richards · Memoir

Keith Richards's Life was written with journalist James Fox and published when Richards was 66, after more than fifty years with the Rolling Stones.

Both dig into addiction.

12

Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire

Andrew Wilkinson · Memoir

Never Enough is Andrew Wilkinson's memoir about building a small empire of internet companies — Tiny, the holding company he co-founded, has acquired dozens of businesses — and discovering that accumulating wealth at a level he'd once have considered unimaginable didn't resolve the anxiety that had driven him to pursue it.

Both dig into ambition.