Will and Attention.jpg
Will and Attention.jpg

Will and Attention by Meghan O'Gieblyn

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Hardcover:

In this luminous memoir of secret drinking, fragile recovery, and the deep pull of religion, award-winning essayist Meghan O’Gieblyn seeks to understand why it is so hard to sustain the difficult work of personal change.

"This is one of the best memoirs of the decade—a cool-water baptism, so bracing I felt transformed." —Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror

"An elegant and philosophical memoir about addiction whose stakes are no less than what comprises one's will to live." —Melissa Febos, author of The Dry Season

Meghan O'Gieblyn's memoir is about why lasting personal change is so hard to sustain. She writes about addiction and recovery, and about a return to organized religion, including a stretch of sobriety that gave way to secret relapse.

Her guide is the philosopher Simone Weil, whose idea that attention rather than willpower might open the way to change shapes the book's questions.

Will and Attention moves among scenes from a Bible camp, reflections on artificial intelligence, observations from the pandemic, and a midlife search for grounding in marriage, friendship, and art.

The tone is intellectual and confessional, treating recovery as a spiritual and philosophical problem and not as a self-help program.

It suits readers who like memoirs that think hard, and who have followed O'Gieblyn's essays on religion and technology.

In this luminous memoir of secret drinking, fragile recovery, and the deep pull of religion, award-winning essayist Meghan O’Gieblyn seeks to understand why it is so hard to sustain the difficult work of personal change.

"This is one of the best memoirs of the decade—a cool-water baptism, so bracing I felt transformed." —Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror

"An elegant and philosophical memoir about addiction whose stakes are no less than what comprises one's will to live." —Melissa Febos, author of The Dry Season

Meghan O'Gieblyn's memoir is about why lasting personal change is so hard to sustain. She writes about addiction and recovery, and about a return to organized religion, including a stretch of sobriety that gave way to secret relapse.

Her guide is the philosopher Simone Weil, whose idea that attention rather than willpower might open the way to change shapes the book's questions.

Will and Attention moves among scenes from a Bible camp, reflections on artificial intelligence, observations from the pandemic, and a midlife search for grounding in marriage, friendship, and art.

The tone is intellectual and confessional, treating recovery as a spiritual and philosophical problem and not as a self-help program.

It suits readers who like memoirs that think hard, and who have followed O'Gieblyn's essays on religion and technology.

  • Publisher: Doubleday

    Title: Will and Attention: A Memoir

    Author: Meghan O'Gieblyn

    On Sale Date: October 6, 2026

    ISBN 13: 978-0-385-55157-1

    ISBN 10: 0385551576

    Format: Hardcover

    Retail Price: $30.00

    Page Count: 288

    Dimensions: 5-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches

  • Meghan O'Gieblyn is the author of God, Human, Animal, Machine, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Interior States, winner of the 2018 Believer Book Award. She received the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2023, and her essays appear regularly in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and The New York Times.

  • Critics and fellow authors are calling it luminous, moving, and confessional:

    • Kirkus Reviews described it as a novelistic, thrillingly confessional memoir that turns personal lapses into exhilaratingly deep thinking.

    • Jia Tolentino called it one of the best memoirs of the decade.

    • Melissa Febos, author of The Dry Season, described it as an elegant, philosophical memoir about addiction.

    • Shelf Awareness found it a moving and intelligent recovery memoir that cuts through complex ideas with clarity, and Bookreporter called it luminous.

This book is for you if

  • You like memoirs that blend personal confession with philosophy, especially the ideas of Simone Weil.

  • You're interested in addiction and recovery told as a story about spiritual longing, not a step-by-step program.

  • You're curious about faith, doubt, and what it means to return to organized religion as an adult.

  • You have read Meghan O'Gieblyn's essays or God, Human, Animal, Machine and want something more personal from her.

  • You appreciate reflective midlife writing that weighs willpower against attention, marriage, friendship, and art.

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