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It was Margo Jefferson, the great cultural critic, who first put my name in the New York Times. In a review of another's book, in a closing paragraph, she made mention of something I'd penned in solitude and put forward with innocence and didn't even understand as well as she seemed to.

She looked up and saw me, and I, discovering her snatch of words quite by accident, never felt such gratitude.

When I read earlier this year that Margo had written a memoir called Negroland, I wanted it at once, bought it when I could, and put it on the top of a pile called (in my mind), "the books you'll be allowed to read once you have completed your tour of duty with all known responsibilities."

Yesterday I was done with all known (until next week) responsibilities. I picked up Negroland. I read.

And oh my, oh now: this. Like H is for Hawk, like M Train, like My Life as a Foreign Country, Negroland is the kind of book that elevates not just its readers but the capital M Memoir itself. It's personal—and otherwise. It's I, You, We. It's inquiry, declaration, admission, confusion—the story of the impossible ideals, hurtful expectations, pleasant privileges, and chaotic undertows that have been all bound up with being a member of the black elite. It's a book by an esteemed critic who was "taught to distinguish (her)self through presentation, not declaration, to excel through deeds and manners, not showing off" and who then (but always judiciously, always for a higher purpose) allows us in.

In a book of anecdote, history, cultural expose, and yearning, we encounter, on almost every page paragraphs as searing as this:

Privilege is provisional. Privilege can be denied, withheld, offered grudgingly, and summarily withdrawn. Entitlement is impervious to the kinds of verbs that modify privilege. Our people had to work, scrape for privilege, gobble it down when those who would snatch it away weren't looking.

 And this:

Being an Other, in America, teaches you to imagine what can't imagine you. That's your first education. Then comes the second. Call it your social and intellectual change. The world outside you gets reconfigured, and inside too. Patterns deviate and fracture. Hierarchies disperse. Now you can imagine yourself as central. It feels grand. But don't stop there. Let that self extend into other narratives and truths.

This year, when my beautiful son goes into bookstores he goes straight (his mother's child) to the memoir shelves. He, like me, views memoir as one of the best chances we have of broadening our vision, breaking down our walls, stepping out of our recklessly limited world view.

I have been taught by Margo Jefferson with her gorgeous Negroland. I have seen a little further. I have hurt a little more. I have been made grateful for both the seeing and the hurting.

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TIME has revealed its “Top 10 Everything of 2015″ lists. Four of the lists focus on literary-themed topics: Top 10 Fiction Books, Top 10 Nonfiction Books, Top 10 YA & Children’s Books, and J.K. Rowling’s 10 Biggest Harry Potter Revelations.

The books that claimed the number one spots include The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante, H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, and Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. Below, we’ve collected free samples of these books for your reading pleasure.

Free Samples of TIME’s Top Books

Top Fiction Book: The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante

Top Nonfiction Book: H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

Top Children’s Book: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

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The Amazon editors have revealed their picks for Best Books of 2015. According to the press release, 22 debut authors were selected for the Top 100 Books of the Year list.  Follow this link to see the full list of 100 titles.

We’ve listed the top 10 books below. In addition to a general list, the Amazon team has also put together “top 20 lists in over two-dozen categories.” Did any of your favorites make the cut?

Amazon Editors’ Top 10 Books of 2015

1. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

2. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

3. Becoming Nicole by Amy Ellis Nutt

4. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

5. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

6. The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

7. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

8. Purity by Jonathan Franzen

9. Hold Still by Sally Mann

10. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

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This morning, on HuffPo, I'm reflecting on why structure actually does matter in memoir — how indeed it helps to define the form—to distinguish it from autobiography, essay, war reporting, journalism, because that distinction matters. I refer in the piece to some of my favorite memoirs and memoirists, though there are, of course, many more.

And, because I must, I remember my brilliant students at Penn, and one particular Spectacular.

The full link is here.

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Just in time for beach reading, Amazon has revealed its Best Books of 2015 (So Far) list.

Amazon’s team of editors selected the list of 20 books. According to Amazon, the selection process included a ton of debate. However, the top book on the list was chosen unanimously: Helen MacDonald’s H is for Hawk. We’ve got the entire list for you after the jump.

Amazon’s Best Books of 2015 (So Far)

H is for Hawk, Helen MacDonald

An Ember in the Ashes, Sabaa Tahir

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of Lusitania, Erik Larson

Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America, Jill Leovy

The Sympathizer, Viet Than Nguyen

All the Old Knives: A Novel, Olen Steinhauer

Saint Mazie: A Novel, Jamie Attenberg

The Wright Brothers, David McCullough

The Book of Speculation: A Novel, Erika Swyler

Green on Blue: A Novel, Elliot Ackerman

The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah

Golden Son: Book II of The Red Rising Trilogy, Pierce Brown

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer

Dietland, Sarai Walker

Orhan’s Inheritance, Aline Ohanesian

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari

The Wonder Garden, Lauren Acampora

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, Mary Norris

My Struggle: Book Four, Karl Ove Knausgaard

The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins

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I became obsessed with birds with the passing of my mother. The way they came to me. The way they called to me. The hollow of their bones. The other women, throughout time, who have buried their hearts in wings and feathers. This was the subject of my sixth memoir, Nest. Flight. Sky.: On Love and Loss, One Wing at a Time. This is the subject, again, of One Thing Stolen, the obsession that lies at the heart of that book.

And so when I began to read of Helen Macdonald's new memoir, H Is for Hawk, already a bestseller in England, I became desperate for the time to read that book myself. Over the past two days I have done just that, then sorted through my thoughts to write a review for the New York Journal of Books, where I'll now be penning my thoughts on literary adult fiction, memoir, and literary young adult novels.

The other day one of my students asked me to name my favorite memoir—an impossible question, of course. But now, whenever I'm asked that question, I'll be whispering Helen Macdonald's name. This is a book. Oh. This is a book.

The full review can be found here.

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We’ve collected the books debuting on Indiebound’s Indie Bestseller List for the week ending February 22, 2015–a sneak peek at the books everybody will be talking about next month.

(Debuted at #4 in Hardcover Fiction) The Whites by Richard Price (writing as Harry Brandt): “Back in the run-and-gun days of the mid-90s, when Billy Graves worked in the South Bronx as part of an anti-crime unit known as the Wild Geese, he made headlines by accidentally shooting a 10-year-old boy while stopping an angel-dusted berserker in the street. Branded as a cowboy by his higher-ups, for the next eighteen years Billy endured one dead-end posting after another. Now in his early forties, he has somehow survived and become a sergeant in Manhattan Night Watch, a small team of detectives charged with responding to all night-time felonies from Wall Street to Harlem.” (February 2015)

(Debuted at #7 in Hardcover Nonfiction) H Is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald: “When Helen Macdonald’s father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer—Helen had been captivated by hawks since childhood—she’d never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators, the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk’s fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own.” (March 2015)

(Debuted at #10 in Hardcover Fiction) Dreaming Spies by Laurie R. King: “Aboard the ship, intrigue stirs almost immediately. Holmes recognizes the famous clubman the Earl of Darley, whom he suspects of being an occasional blackmailer: not an unlikely career choice for a man richer in social connections than in pounds sterling. And then there’s the lithe young Japanese woman who befriends Russell and quotes haiku. Haruki Sato agrees to tutor the couple in Japanese language and customs, but Russell can’t shake the feeling that the young woman is not who she claims to be.” (February 2015)

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Shocked by her father's unexpected death, lifelong falconer Helen Macdonald decides to take on training the fearsome goshawk, considered amongst the most difficult birds to train. This beautifully written and touching memoir traverses the obscure world of falconry to living through grief, ending up in a place of hope and recovery. Books mentioned in this [...]

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