The poet Nina Riggs is a direct descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson. At the age of just thirty-seven, and with two young sons, she is diagnosed with breast cancer. She and her husband are initially hopeful about the outcome, but within a year, she is told that her cancer has metastasized and is terminal. In this profound and beautiful memoir, Riggs allows the reader to accompany her as she attempts to come to terms with her own mortality, and as she meditates on those aspects of humanity that make living truly worthwhile.

The youngest daughter born to a family of survivalists, Westover’s childhood was intensely isolated and frequently fearful. Distrustful of the government, her father did not register her birth, and there was no question of her attending public school. As a result, Westover had no formal education until the age of 17, when she began a self-motivated academic journey that culminated in her being awarded a PhD from the University of Cambridge. The story of an unlikely pathway to academic success, this memoir also presents a portrait of an extraordinary family, and of the difficulty of leaving one’s home so far behind.

In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq.