Alphabetical Diaries
memoir · First published 2024
Sheila Heti kept a record of her thoughts over a ten-year period, then arranged the sentences from A to Z. Passionate and reflective, joyful and despairing, these are her alphabetical diaries.
Author guide
Sheila Heti Books in Order
Sheila Heti was born in Toronto in 1976 and lives there. Her work includes novels, a novella, short fiction, experimental memoir, nonfiction collaborations, children's picture books, and plays. She is also the founder of the Trampoline Hall lecture series and a former Interviews Editor at The Believer.
novelsnovellasshort storiesnonfictionmemoirchildren's literaturepicture booksplays
Catalog record updated .
Sheila Heti's Newest Book
Not sure where to begin?
Start with one of these
How Should a Person Be?
A representative entry point to Heti's formally experimental novels.
The Middle Stories
Her first published book and a concise introduction to her short fiction.
Outside the series
Bibliography by category
Novels (4)
- Ticknor
novella · 2005
The A List edition of Ticknor, the first novel by Sheila Heti -- featuring a new introduction by Ben Lerner, author of Leaving the Atocha Station. George Ticknor is trying to reconcile his own failure with the success of his boyhood…
- How Should a Person Be?
novel · 2010
Facing a creative dilemma after a failed marriage, Sheila gathers inspiration from a depraved and free-spirited artist who becomes her lover, in a tale based on incidents from the author's true life.
- Motherhood
novel · 2018
In Motherhood, Sheila Heti asks what is gained and what is lost when a woman becomes a mother, treating the most consequential decision of early adulthood with the candor, originality, and humor that have won Heti international acclaim…
- Pure Colour
novel · 2022
"A short epic novel about art, grief, and love by Sheila Heti, the author of Motherhood and How Should A Person Be?"--
Nonfiction (1)
- Alphabetical Diaries
memoir · 2024
Sheila Heti kept a record of her thoughts over a ten-year period, then arranged the sentences from A to Z. Passionate and reflective, joyful and despairing, these are her alphabetical diaries.
Short fiction (1)
- The Middle Stories
short-story-collection · 2001
Part Dorothy Parker, part Jose Saramago, with shades of George Orwell, Sheila Heti has arrived on Canada's literary scene a fully formed artist. Balancing wisdom and innocence, joy and foreboding, each story in The Middle Stories leads us…
Children's books (2)
- We Need a Horse
picture-book · 2011
- A Garden of Creatures
picture-book · 2022
Plays (1)
- All Our Happy Days are Stupid
play · 2015
Two couples, each with a twelve-year-old child, travel to Paris; within a few moments of discovering each other in a crowd, one of their children disappears. A day later, one of the mothers disappears, too. The story that follows is a…
Collaborations (2)
- The Chairs are Where the People Go
co-authored-nonfiction · 2011
Should neighborhoods change? Is wearing a suit a good way to quit smoking? Why do people think that if you do one thing, you're against something else? Is monogamy a trick? Why isn't making the city more fun for you and your friends a…
- Women in Clothes
collaborative-nonfiction · 2014
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Women in Clothes is a book unlike any other. It is essentially a conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities—famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old—on the subject of…
