Books by Beth Macy

“Beth is a really excellent prose stylist. She has a more recent memoir called Paper Girl, where she describes growing up in the American newspaper industry. A lot of people may know her book Dope Sick, which was turned into a television show, and explained in part how the opioid crisis was manufactured by pharma. I wanted to pick her follow-up, Raising Lazarus, because it focuses on harm reduction, and more broadly, the question of ‘what do we do now?’ What are the ways people have been trying to help?” Read more...

The best books on Addiction

Carl Erik Fisher, Medical Scientist

“This is a person well-versed in writing about other people and communities and systems. It was exciting to have her bring that accomplished reporter’s eye to a place she loves, which is her hometown of Urbana, Ohio. I feel lucky to have read it because she brings that skillset to an American town in crisis, and to her relationship to this town and to the people and her family. It all comes together. That’s why I really appreciated this book: that you can have a memoir that is also deeply researched, meticulously reported, and has a big way of thinking about how systems interact.” Read more...

The Best Memoirs: The 2026 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist

Grace Talusan, Literary Scholar