Family, Memory & Personal Loss
Individual topics classified under "Family, Memory & Personal Loss", ranked by how many awards the books carrying each one have won combined. Open a topic to see its most-awarded books.
- 1
Coming of age
19 books
9
wins
133
score
- Stay True · Hua Hsu2 wins · 24 score
- Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life · William Finnegan1 win · 12 score
- Half a Life · Darin Strauss1 win · 12 score
- This Boy's Life: A Memoir · Tobias Wolff1 win · 12 score
- Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx · Adrian Nicole LeBlanc1 win · 9 score
- 2
Father-son relationship
11 books
8
wins
114
score
- Between the World and Me · Ta-Nehisi Coates2 wins · 24 score
- Patrimony: A True Story · Philip Roth2 wins · 24 score
- An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us · James P. Carroll1 win · 12 score
- My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq · Ariel Sabar1 win · 12 score
- Passage to Ararat · Michael J. Arlen1 win · 12 score
- 3
Family history
16 books
7
wins
123
score
- China Men · Maxine Hong Kingston1 win · 20 score
- Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs · Sally Mann1 win · 16 score
- The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million · Daniel Mendelsohn1 win · 15 score
- A Daughter of the Middle Border · Hamlin Garland1 win · 12 score
- Slaves in the Family · Edward Ball1 win · 12 score
- 4
Grief and loss
17 books
6
wins
139
score
- 5
Family relationships
11 books
4
wins
75
score
- Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? · Roz Chast2 wins · 24 score
- Them: A Memoir of Parents · Francine du Plessix Gray1 win · 12 score
- George Eliot: The Last Victorian · Kathryn Hughes1 win · 8 score
- Little Failure · Gary Shteyngart0 wins · 4 score
- Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love · Debra Gwartney0 wins · 4 score
- 6
Personal memoir
10 books
3
wins
52
score
- The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression · Andrew Solomon1 win · 16 score
- They Wait in Darkness · George W. Shepherd1 win · 5 score
- Vernon Can Read!: A Memoir · Vernon E. Jordan Jr. and Annette Gordon-Reed1 win · 5 score
- C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too · John Diamond0 wins · 4 score
- Days of Our Years · Pierre van Paassen0 wins · 4 score
- 7
Death and dying
4 books
3
wins
50
score
- Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? · Roz Chast2 wins · 24 score
- How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter · Sherwin B. Nuland1 win · 20 score
- Love Is Stronger Than Death · Peter Kreeft0 wins · 4 score
- The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels · Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans0 wins · 2 score
- 8
Death and mourning
4 books
2
wins
47
score
- This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War · Drew Gilpin Faust1 win · 23 score
- The Year of Magical Thinking · Joan Didion1 win · 16 score
- Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Russia · Catherine Merridale0 wins · 4 score
- The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade · Thomas Lynch0 wins · 4 score
- 9
Father-daughter relationship
6 books
2
wins
39
score
- Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love · Dava Sobel1 win · 12 score
- In the Darkroom · Susan Faludi1 win · 12 score
- Home Before Dark · Susan Cheever0 wins · 4 score
- The Bishop's Daughter · Honor Moore0 wins · 4 score
- The Devil that Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Memoir of her Father, her Family, her Country and a Continent · Aminatta Forna0 wins · 4 score
- 10
Suicide
3 books
2
wins
35
score
- 11
Self-discovery
3 books
2
wins
32
score
- 12
Marriage and relationships
4 books
2
wins
27
score
- How to End a Story: Collected Diaries · Helen Garner1 win · 12 score
- D.H. Lawrence: The Story of a Marriage · Brenda Maddox0 wins · 7 score
- The Marriage Question: George Eliot's Double Life · Clare Carlisle1 win · 5 score
- A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck · Sophie Elmhirst0 wins · 3 score
- 13
Father-son relationships
7 books
1
win
43
score
- The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between · Hisham Matar1 win · 20 score
- An Odyssey: A Father, a Son and an Epic · Daniel Mendelsohn0 wins · 4 score
- Blood Knots: On Fathers, Friendship and Fishing · Luke Jennings0 wins · 4 score
- Prodigal Father: The Life of John Butler Yeats · William M. Murphy0 wins · 4 score
- The Duke of Deception · Geoffrey Wolff0 wins · 4 score
- 14
Family life
4 books
1
win
28
score
- 15
Adoption
3 books
1
win
20
score
- The Broken Cord · Michael Dorris1 win · 12 score
- Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood · Gretchen Sisson0 wins · 4 score
- The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe V. Wade · Ann Fessler0 wins · 4 score
- 16
Jewish identity
3 books
1
win
16
score
- 17
Friendship
5 books
0
wins
19
score
- Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy · Joseph P. Lash0 wins · 4 score
- The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions · Jonathan Rosen0 wins · 4 score
- The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship · Patricia Bell-Scott0 wins · 4 score
- The Odd Woman and the City · Vivian Gornick0 wins · 4 score
- Truth & Beauty: A Friendship · Ann Patchett0 wins · 3 score
- 18
Motherhood
5 books
0
wins
18
score
- Easy Beauty: A Memoir · Chloé Cooper Jones0 wins · 4 score
- Fi: A Memoir of My Son · Alexandra Fuller0 wins · 4 score
- Fruitful: A Real Mother in the Modern World · Anne Roiphe0 wins · 4 score
- Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love · Debra Gwartney0 wins · 4 score
- A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother · Janny Scott0 wins · 2 score
- 19
Child abuse
3 books
0
wins
11
score
- 20
Family separation
3 books
0
wins
10
score
Recent Standout Topics (2020+)
- 1Grief and loss4 wins
- 2Marriage and relationships2 wins
Where This Data Comes From
- Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction2012–2026
- Anisfield-Wolf Book Award1936–2026
- Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction1999–2026
- Bancroft Prize1948–2026
- Cundill History Prize2008–2026
- Financial Times and Standard Chartered Business Book of the Year Award2005–2026
- J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize1999–2026
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography1919–2025
- Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction2014–2026
- Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography1981–2025