19 Books to Pick Up This October

Long considered one of America's premiere memoirists, Mary Karr now offers a veritable blueprint for the genre while tracing the evolution of her own work. The Art of Memoir (Harper) tracks her first forays into the confessional through fragments of scenes that would eventually become the PEN Award–winning best-seller The Liars' Club. Karr also examines the mechanics of craft. Lovers of the form and aspiring scribblers alike will relish this comprehensive appreciation of and guide to "writing the real self."