Biography and Memoir

Discover the stories of their lives, in recent biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs.
Updated May 20, 2026
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In The Days Of My Youth I Was Told What It Means To Be A Man: A Memoir
Junod, Tom.
Paper Book
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE * From two-time National Magazine Award winner Tom Junod, a searching, brilliantly stylized memoir about a charismatic, philandering father who tried to mold his son in his image, the many secrets he hid, the son's obsessive...
Mark Twain
Chernow, Ron
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times Bestseller * One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2025* A Washington Post and New York Times Notable Book * Named a Best Book of 2025 by TIME, The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Christian Science Monitor, and Kirkus Reviews ...
North of Ordinary: How One Woman Left It All Behind for Wilderness and Wonder in Alaska's Frozen Frontier
Aikens, Sue.
Paper Book
When the wild strips everything away, what's left is who you are. In the raw, untamed wilds of Alaska--where the wind howls, predators hunt, and the sun disappears for months--only a rare few figure out how to survive. Sue Aikens, the breakout star of National Geographic's long-running TV...
Labor: One Woman's Work
Afsari, Mary Fariba.
Paper Book
A powerful memoir of medicine, identity, and family secrets from an esteemed ob-gyn as she unravels her grandmother's mysterious death while reimagining women's health care from a mobile clinic--for readers of The Beauty in Breaking and The In-Between. In...
How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay: The Tools and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny.
Paper Book
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Warm, insightful, and witty, the first book of advice from New York Times-bestselling author Jenny Lawson-aka the Bloggess Jenny Lawson is full of contradictions. She's a celebrated author but battles self...
Famesick: ; A memoir
Dunham, Lena.
Paper Book
Famesick is a frank, deeply personal reflection on illness, fame, sex, and everything in between, from the mind behind the hit series Girls and Too Much, and the bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl.
Joyful, Anyway: Finding Delight in Impossible Times
Bowler, Kate.
Paper Book
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER New York Times bestselling author and Duke University professor Kate Bowler offers a profound, funny and deeply human case for joy that doesn't depend on everything getting better. 'Bowler interrogates the idea...
100 rules for living to 100 : an optimist's guide to a happy life
Van Dyke, Dick
Paper Book
The Irish Goodbye: Micro-memoirs
Fennelly, Beth Ann.
Paper Book
What can we learn from an ordinary life observed with extraordinary skill? In The Irish Goodbye, Beth Ann Fennelly writes of the small moments that shape a life, whether moving or perplexing or troubling or gladdening, in the process dignifying the diminutive through the act of attention....
David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God
Ormerod, Peter.
Paper Book
'The Bowie you thought you knew is recast completely' Helen Barrett, The Spectator ''Ormerod had me singing in the choir with him' Simon Critchley, The Guardian 'a transfixing look at David Bowie's life through a spiritual lens......
Winter : the story of a season
McDermid, Val
Paper Book
'McDermid's most personal book to date' THE SCOTSMAN'A warm hug of a book... like sitting by a roaring winter fire' JACKIE KAY Winter is the time to snuggle indoors without guilt; to curl up on the sofa with a good book or a box set, a hot drink or a...
Last Kings Of Hollywood: Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg - And The Battle For The Soul Of American Cinema
Fischer, Paul.
Paper Book
The definitive account of one of the wildest and most influential periods of Hollywood history, starring the three most famous directors of all time and their tumultuous friendships
Starry and restless : three women who changed work, writing, and the world
Cooke, Julia
Paper Book
"Read this book and be enthralled." --The New York Times A Parade Most Anticipated Book of the Year The page-turning story of three women reporters and the way they changed the world, work, and journalism. She hid on a Red...
I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right
Kaplan, Matt.
Paper Book
An energetic and impassioned work of popular science about scientists who have had to fight for their revolutionary ideas to be accepted--from Darwin to Pasteur to modern day Nobel Prize winners. For two decades, Matt Kaplan has covered science for the Economist. He's...
Black. Single. Mother.: Real Life Tales of Longing and Belonging
Lemieux, Jamilah.
Paper Book
A personal meditation on, examination of, and tribute to Black single motherhood, unapologetically told through poignant essays and candid interviews by a celebrated cultural critic "Jamilah Lemieux is one of the most important feminist writers of the twenty-first century."...
The look
Obama, Michelle
Paper Book
'A historical document, capturing a pivotal moment in the evolution of the role of first lady when clothing became an even bigger part of communication. When, in other words, dress became an officially recognized part of the job.' Vanessa Friedman, New York Times ***
Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund
Crabapple, Molly.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The dramatic story of the Jewish Bund--a revolutionary movement from a vanished world--and its radical vision of solidarity in an age of division. "Molly Crabapple beckons readers through a portal to an irresistible, lost world, one bound...
I identify as blind : a brazen celebration of disability culture, identity, and power
Lachi (Singer)
Paper Book
Lachi is an award-winning musician and an unapologetic activist who awakens the world to this truth: Disability is an identity worth brazenly celebrating. In her book, Lachi spotlights how disabled people have to be driven, persistent, perceptive, and highly adaptable just to get through any given...
Junglekeeper : what it takes to change the world
Rosolie, Paul
Ebook
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Most people assume that the world has been explored and true adventure is dead: This book is one man's rebuttal. Explorer and conservationist Paul Rosolie shares his incredible life in the Amazon rainforest--and what we can learn from the people fighting to...
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy In The Age Of Airplanes
Gottlieb, Anthony.
Paper Book
The first biography in more than three decades of the Austrian-born thinker Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century "An engrossing biography [that] focuses on what is most essential and interesting in the philosopher's work and life....

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