My Top Five Spiritual Memoirs

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again: the best books on writing are books that are written well. If you’re considering writing a spiritual memoir, struggling with your memoir, or feeling stuck in the writing process, you may not need to read a book about the craft of writing. What might be most inspiring for you at this point is to read a well-written memoir.

Below is a list of a few of my favorite spiritual memoirs. If you’re not sure what a spiritual memoir is or how it’s different from a regular memoir, read my article “What Is Spiritual Memoir?” where I get into the nitty-gritty of that distinction.

The following books are favorites of mine for different reasons and in different ways. I hope you’ll pick up one of these up and feel inspired and challenged by these authors and the way they tell their stories.

My Favorite Spiritual Memoirs

5. The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman’s Journey from the Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine by Sue Monk Kidd

I read Sue Monk Kidd’s debut novel, The Secret Life of Bees, years ago, long before I read or had heard of The Dance of the Dissident Daughter. I was surprised to learn in her memoir that she had lived an entire writing life in evangelical publishing before becoming a mainstream novelist. Dance of the Dissident Daughter details how she broke away from that stream of Christianity into something entirely different. Her memoir is now a classic in female spiritual writing. It seems any woman I know who was raised in an evangelical but has since broadened her spiritual perspective has read this book. I read it at a crucial time in my faith, and though I’m not the biggest fan of Kidd’s writing style, which can be a little too floral for my taste, I appreciated her candor and the way she crafted her narrative of navigating away from evangelicalism into something that felt truer to her and who she was becoming.

4. All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir by Beth Moore

Beth Moore is a household name in the Bible study department. Best-selling studies like Believing God and Breaking Free have been bought in bulk by churches around the world for decades. All My Knotted-Up Life is arguably more of a standard memoir, telling Moore’s life story, than it is specifically a spiritual memoir, but her faith and its evolution is a primary theme in the book, so I think it fits this category. Moore’s childhood, adolescence and womanhood truly come to life in this book. Her story is funny, heartbreaking, inspiring, surprising. For a woman who has been in the evangelical public eye for so long, I learned so much about her and came away from the book loving her even more.

2. When We Were on Fire: A Memoir of Consuming Faith, Tangled Love, and Starting Over by Addie Zierman

Addie Zierman is one of the most underrated nonfiction writers in the spiritual space, in my opinion. I believe she first drafted this memoir for her MFA, and I think it’s expertly crafted and executed. In it, she shares about her upbringing in charismatic Christianity, attending a conservative Christian college, marrying young, and then setting off on the mission field in China where life is hard, to say the least. I read this book many years ago, but I still remember the way she depicted certain scenes: a drunken night in her apartment in China, a therapy session where she hit a pillow over and over again in rage, the coffee shop where she had a near-affair. Good writing sticks with you, and Addie Zierman is an excellent writer. Fun fact: she recently returned to public writing after a seven-year hiatus. You can subscribe to her Substack here.

1. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

When Breath Becomes Air isn’t just one of my favorite spiritual memoirs of all time; it’s one of the best books I’ve read in the last decade, if not two decades. You’ve likely at least heard of this one if you haven’t already read it. Also a cancer journey story (with a much different ending), Paul Kalanithi, a physician, chronicles his experience with cancer, facing death as someone who has so often witnessed it, and grappling with a faith he had previously left behind. He also writes about his and his wife’s decision to have a child while he was sick, a child he only got to know for a few months. He ends his story writing to his daughter. This line has echoed in my memory ever since reading it: “…you filled a dying man’s days with sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied.” This book is an absolute must-read.

I hope this list has inspired you to either get writing or get reading, and then get writing. There are so many wonderful spiritual memoirs out there. This is just a taste. Go browse your local library or bookstore for one of these books or another that grabs your attention. Reading books that are written well is a great way to refresh your craft and feel inspired to continue writing your story.