Books like The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

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

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

In Cold Blood

Truman Capote · Memoir

Truman Capote's account of the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas — and of the investigation, capture, trial, and execution of the killers Perry Smith and Richard Hickock — is the founding document of the true crime genre and one of the most admired works of American nonfiction of the twentieth century.

A kindred memoir read.

04

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Stephen King · Memoir

On Writing is Stephen King's memoir of the writing life combined with a practical toolkit for writers.

A kindred memoir read.

05

Being and Nothingness

Jean-Paul Sartre · Philosophy

Being and Nothingness is Sartre's major philosophical treatise and the founding text of French existentialism.

Shares consciousness and freedom with The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

06

Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

H. G. Bissinger · Memoir

Friday Night Lights is H.

Both dig into community.

07

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry · Memoir

Helter Skelter is the account of the Tate-LaBianca murders of August 1969 written by Vincent Bugliosi, the Los Angeles deputy district attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson, with journalist Curt Gentry.

Both dig into counterculture.

08

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Harriet Jacobs · Memoir

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent, is Harriet Jacobs's account of her life as an enslaved woman in North Carolina, her resistance to her enslaver's sexual harassment, her years in hiding, and her eventual escape to the North.

Both dig into freedom.

09

My Own Country: A Doctor's Story

Abraham Verghese · Memoir

My Own Country is Abraham Verghese's account of his years as an infectious disease specialist in Johnson City, Tennessee, during the early years of the AIDS epidemic.

Both dig into community.

10

The Choice

Edith Eva Eger · Memoir

Edith Eva Eger was sixteen years old when she arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944.

Both dig into freedom.

11

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Jean-Dominique Bauby · Memoir

Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor-in-chief of French Elle when he suffered a massive stroke in December 1995 that left him with complete paralysis of his body except for his left eyelid.

Both dig into consciousness.

12

The Light We Carry

Michelle Obama · Memoir

The Light We Carry is Michelle Obama's second memoir, published in 2022 as a follow-up to Becoming.

Both dig into community.