Books like Out of Africa

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.

A kindred memoir read.

02

Into the Wild

Jon Krakauer · Biography

Into the Wild is Jon Krakauer's account of Christopher McCandless, a twenty-four-year-old who graduated from Emory University in 1990, gave his savings to charity, abandoned his car and possessions, and spent two years drifting through the American West before hitchhiking into the Alaskan wilderness in April 1992.

Both dig into identity.

03

The Right Stuff

Tom Wolfe · Memoir

Tom Wolfe's account of the early years of American manned spaceflight — from the test pilots of Edwards Air Force Base to the Mercury Seven astronauts — is the most celebrated work of New Journalism and one of the essential books about American culture in the twentieth century.

A kindred memoir read.

04

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

Alfred Lansing · History

In 1914, Ernest Shackleton led twenty-seven men into the Weddell Sea on a ship called the Endurance with the goal of crossing Antarctica on foot.

A kindred memoir read.

05

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.

Both dig into nature.

06

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

Suleika Jaouad · Memoir

Suleika Jaouad was twenty-two and newly graduated, living in Paris with her first real job and a boyfriend, when she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

Shares identity and belonging with Out of Africa.

07

Crying in H Mart

Michelle Zauner · Memoir

Crying in H Mart is Michelle Zauner's memoir of her mother's death from cancer and the loss it made her confront: not just of a parent but of the Korean half of her identity.

Shares identity and belonging with Out of Africa.

08

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Barack Obama · Memoir

Barack Obama wrote Dreams from My Father in 1995, before entering politics, after being elected the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review.

Shares identity and belonging with Out of Africa.

09

The Tender Bar: A Memoir

J. R. Moehringer · Memoir

The Tender Bar is J.

Shares identity and belonging with Out of Africa.

10

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Michael Chabon · History

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about two Jewish cousins — Josef Kavalier, a refugee from Nazi-occupied Prague, and Sam Clay (born Sammy Klayman), a Brooklyn dreamer — who together create one of the golden age's great superhero franchises in late-1930s New York.

Shares identity and loss with Out of Africa.

11

The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

Stephen Grosz · Psychology

The Examined Life is a collection of short psychoanalytic case studies drawn from Stephen Grosz's 25 years of practice as a psychoanalyst in London.

Shares identity and loss with Out of Africa.

12

The Inheritance Games

Jennifer Lynn Barnes · Mystery

When broke teenager Avery Grambs is named the sole heir to billionaire Tobias Hawthorne's multi-billion-dollar estate, she has no idea why.

Shares identity and belonging with Out of Africa.