Books like Hunger

01

The Body Keeps the Score

Bessel van der Kolk · Psychology

The Body Keeps the Score is Bessel van der Kolk's account of four decades spent studying and treating trauma, from Vietnam veterans at the VA in the 1970s to survivors of childhood abuse, accidents, and domestic violence.

Both dig into trauma.

02

Intuitive Eating

Evelyn Tribole · Health

Intuitive Eating, first published in 1995 and now in its fourth edition, is registered dietitian Evelyn Tribole's framework for disengaging from diet culture and relearning to eat in response to hunger and satiety rather than external rules.

Both dig into body image.

03

Daring Greatly

Brené Brown · Health

Daring Greatly is Brené Brown's argument, drawn from twelve years of qualitative research on shame and vulnerability, that the willingness to show up without guarantees — to be seen, to risk failure, to remain open in the presence of uncertainty — is not weakness but the foundation of courage, connection, and meaningful achievement.

A kindred memoir read.

04

Eating Animals

Jonathan Safran Foer · Health

Eating Animals began as a project to understand what food Foer would feed his newborn son.

A kindred memoir read.

05

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

Roxane Gay · Memoir

Hunger is Roxane Gay's memoir of her body — how it came to be the way it is, what she has thought about it, and what it means to live in a body that the world reads as a problem to be solved.

Shares body image and trauma with Hunger.

06

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Ishmael Beah · Memoir

Ishmael Beah was twelve years old when the Sierra Leone civil war reached his village and he was separated from his family.

Shares trauma and survival with Hunger.

07

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 survival with Hunger.

08

Know My Name: A Memoir

Chanel Miller · Memoir

Know My Name is Chanel Miller's memoir of being sexually assaulted behind a dumpster at Stanford University in 2015, being identified publicly as only "Emily Doe" throughout the subsequent trial, and the experience of navigating a legal process while the perpetrator — Stanford swimmer Brock Turner — became the more visible subject of the story.

Shares trauma and identity with Hunger.

09

Scar Tissue

Anthony Kiedis · Memoir

Scar Tissue is Anthony Kiedis's account of his life from a chaotic childhood in Michigan through the formation and commercial peak of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with addiction and recovery as the book's spine.

Shares identity and survival with Hunger.

10

The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath · Memoir

The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's only novel, published in January 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, one month before Plath's death.

Shares identity and survival with Hunger.

11

The Diary of a Young Girl

Anne Frank · Memoir

Anne Frank's diary, kept during the two years she spent hiding with her family in a concealed Amsterdam apartment, stands as one of the most widely read first-person accounts of the Holocaust.

Shares identity and survival with Hunger.

12

The Liars' Club

Mary Karr · Memoir

Mary Karr's debut memoir about growing up in the oil-refinery town of Leechfield, Texas in the 1960s is widely credited with sparking the memoir boom of the 1990s.

Shares trauma and survival with Hunger.