These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser.

Jami Attenberg did not own a bed frame until she was 45 years old. Her life, as she describes in her engrossing memoir-in-essays, has been shaped by wanderlust and a need to create stories. The daughter of a traveling salesman, Attenberg always had a shifting relationship with the idea of home. But no matter where she went, one thing remained true: she wanted to write. “I was born a writer,” she boldly declares in her book. And it’s that statement that serves as the driving force behind I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home. While her reflections on her various jobs and homes are compelling, it’s Attenberg’s willingness to engage with the vulnerability that comes with leading a creative life that is so remarkable. She is refreshingly candid about what it really means to be a writer and to believe in a calling. —Annabel Gutterman

Buy Now: I Came All This Way to Meet You on Bookshop | Amazon

More Must-Reads From TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com.

Stay True
The Book of Goose
Mouth to Mouth
Vladimir
Life Between the Tides
5 stories
EDIT POST