Wild: from lost to found on the Pacific Coast Trail by Cheryl Strayed - Read-a-likes

Wild: from lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail (M) recounts Cheryl Strayed’s personal struggle after the sudden death of her mother and her painful divorce. These life events led to a decision to undertake a grueling three month solo hike of over a 1,000 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail. This haunting memoir is sure to please biography fans. If you liked Wild, here are some read-a-likes for you.


Blazing along again on the Pacific Crest Trail is A Blistered Kind of Love: one couple’s trial by trail (M) by Angela Ballard. This atmospheric memoir details a suburban couple’s trek from Mexico to Canada along the trail and recounts the challenges they faced, including unique encounters with wildlife and the beautiful scenery on the trail.


Another moving memoir is Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: my years of magical reading (M) by Nina Sankovitch. Sankovicth’s book recounts her grief after the death of her older sister. She became determined to live a better life to make up for the painful loss. She decided to read a book a day for a year in hopes that literature would ease her pain. This moving memoir is sure to be a treasure for any book lover.


This Boy’s Life: a memoir (M) is a reflective memoir that recalls Tobias Wolff’s early life after his parents’ divorce. This book discusses the nomadic nature of his life after his mother decided to move them to the Northwestern U.S. Wolff remembers the adults in his life with a candid objectivity that biography aficionados are sure to enjoy.


The Year of Magical Thinking (M) is another haunting autobiography that recounts Joan Didion’s grief after the death of her husband while her daughter was already gravely ill. The book movingly follows Didion through the clinical stages of grief as she deals with life without her husband of forty years.