Kitchen Confidential
and
A Cook's Tour
by Anthony Bourdain
Luscious food writing, swaggering macho attitude, and anecdotes from the wild-and-crazy life of a chef (Kitchen) or sharply observed portraits-via-meals of far-off countries (Cook's Tour) - what's not to like?

Running with Scissors
by Augusten Burroughs
The true story about how Burrough's insane confessional poet mother gave him away, at the age of fourteen, to her even crazier psychiatrist who had an asylum in the attic and an electroshock machine under the stairs. Burrough’s deadpan writing and some astounding plot twists make this a very funny book. It inspired my own memoir and is a classic in the “my childhood was weirder than yours” genre of memoir-writing

Shot in the Heart
by Mikal Gilmore
Gary Gilmore was a murderer who got his fifteen minutes of fame when he requested execution by firing squad. Mikal Gilmore is his younger brother. This devastating tale of guilt and violence passed down through the generations, though specific in its details, ends up reading like an archetypal account of the dark side of America.

All Creatures Great and Small,
All Things Bright and Beautiful,
and
All Things Wise and Wonderful
by James Herriot
A memoir-in-trilogy by a veterinarian in rural Yorkshire, with great human and animal characters and a wonderful sense of place. Extremely funny and often poignant, yet not at all sappy and rarely sentimental. Each chapter is a perfect little short story, yet the books all also work as a single coherent narrative. I first read these as a child in Ahmednagar, and studied them as an adult to apply this structure to All the Fishes Come Home to Roost. Herriot wrote other books, but the first three are by far the best. Deserved classics. I can't imagine anyone, except perhaps the very squeamish, not liking these.

Wasted
by Marya Hornbacher
Beautifully written and extremely intense, and well worth reading even if you have no interest whatsoever in the subject matter. I didn't when I picked it up, but my attention was caught by the arresting cover photograph, and the first chapter was so gripping that I had to either buy it or stand in the bookshop reading it for the next few hours. It's about how Hornbacher's eating disorder nearly killed her before she turned twenty-one.

Girl, Interrupted
by Susanna Kaysen
The spare, poetic, yet often dryly funny story of the author's years in a mental hospital. Brief yet powerful, without a single word wasted.

Lost in Place
and
Iron and Silk
by Mark Salzman
If I had to name a single writer who I would recommend to everyone in the world, Mark Salzman would be that writer.

Here's the first paragraph of Lost in Place:

"When I was thirteen years old I saw my first kung fu movie, and before it ended I decided that the life of a wandering Zen monk was the life for me. I announced my willingness to leave East Ridge Junior High School immediately and give up all material things, but my parents did not share my enthusiasm. They made it clear that I was not to become a wandering Zen monk until I had finished high school. In the mean time I could practice kung fu and meditate down in the basement. So I immersed myself in the study of Chinese boxing and philosophy with the kind of dedication that is possible only when you don't yet have to make a living, when you are too young to drive and when you don't have a girlfriend."

Iron and Silk, about Salzman's year teaching English and studying kung fu in China, has the beauty, apparent simplicity, and hidden depth of a reflecting pool in a Zen garden.

I also highly recommend his novels The Soloist and Lying Awake.

The Beast: A Journey Through Depression
by Tracy Thompson
A well-written and intelligent book which probably saved my life. If you're depressed or think you might be or know someone who is, read it.