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2024 Round Up: Favourite Biographies & Memoirs
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Immerse yourself in a new perspective. Here are our top personal stories from 2024.
Updated January 8, 2025
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Greater Victoria Public Library
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At the edge of empire : a family's reckoning with China
Wong, Edward
Paper Book
The essential history of modern China, told through the story of one family
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Be ready when the luck happens a memoir
Garten, Ina
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * In her long-awaited memoir, Ina Garten--aka the Barefoot Contessa, author of thirteen bestselling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and cultural icon--shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table....
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Burn book a tech love story
Swisher, Kara
Paper Book
Instant New York Times Bestseller From award-winning journalist Kara Swisher comes a witty, scathing, but fair accounting of the tech industry and its founders who wanted to change the world but broke it instead. "Swisher, the bad-ass journalist and...
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Cher the memoir. Part one
Cher, 1946- author.
Paper Book
***The Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller*** ***The Global #1 Bestseller*** The extraordinary life of Cher can be told by only one person . . . Cher herself. After more than seventy years of fighting to live her life on her own terms, Cher finally reveals her...
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Didion & Babitz
Anolik, Lili
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Named a Best Book of the Year by Time, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Air Mail, Harper's Bazaar, The Washington Post, and more! Joan Didion is revealed at last in this "vivid, engrossing" (Vogue), and...
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The friday afternoon club : a family memoir
Dunne, Griffin
Paper Book
A charming, hilarious account of Griffin Dunne's coming of age among a family of larger-than-life characters in Hollywood and Manhattan.
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Grief is for people
Crosley, Sloane
Paper Book
Named a Best Book of the Year by Vogue, TIME, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Esquire, NPR, Elle, Library Journal, LitHub, Oprah Daily, Publishers Weekly, Chicago Public Library, Kirkus, Bookpage, The Independent, and New Statesman
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Here after
Lin, Amy (Teacher)
Paper Book
Starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, and Library Journal A Kirkus Best of 2024 Nonfiction Pick A March 2024 Book of the Month Selection An Apple Books Best Book of March A 2024...
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I heard her call my name a memoir of transition
Sante, Lucy
Paper Book
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Slate "Reading this book is a joy . . . much to say about the trans journey and will undoubtedly become a standard for those in need of guidance. " --The Washington Post<...
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In exile rupture, reunion, and my grandmother's secret life
Ansari, Sadiya
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Globe 100 Best Book of 2024! The Hill Times 100 Best Book of 2024 In a deeply personal investigation, award-winning journalist Sadiya Ansari takes us across three continents and back a century as she seeks the truth behind a family secret. Why did...
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Kingmaker Pamela Harriman's astonishing life of power, seduction, and intrigue
Purnell, Sonia
Paper Book
"A thorough account of Harriman's rise which also manages to be a brisk, twisty read ... riveting and revelatory." --The New Yorker "Rigorous but rollicking." --The New York Times Named a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by Apple Books, The Economist<...
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Knife : meditations after an attempted murder
Rushdie, Salman
Paper Book
**Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2024** A gripping account of survival and recovery from internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize-winner Salman Rushdie On the morning of 12 August 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the...
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Letters
Sacks, Oliver, 1933-2015
Paper Book
One of The New Statesman's Best Books of the Year One of Kirkus Reviews' Best Nonfiction Books of 2024 One of The New Yorker's 'Best Books We've Read in 2024 So Far' THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE * The letters of one of the greatest observers of...
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Patriot a memoir
Navalʹnyĭ, Alekseĭ
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORKER, THE ATLANTIC, NPR * FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD * The powerful and moving memoir of a fearless political opposition leader who paid the ultimate price for his beliefs.
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Question 7
Flanagan, Richard
Paper Book
Beginning at a love hotel by Japan's Inland Sea and ending by a river in Tasmania, Question 7 is about the choices we make about love and the chain reaction that follows. By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West's affair through 1930s nuclear physics to Flanagan's father...
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Raising hare the heartwarming true story of an unlikely freindship
Dalton, Chloe
Paper Book
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERLONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024SHORTLISTED FOR THE HATCHARDS AND BIOGRAPHERS' CLUB FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE HAY FESTIVAL, SUNDAY TIMES, THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES,...
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Sonny Boy
Pacino, Al.
Paper Book
From one of the most iconic actors in the history of film, an astonishingly revelatory account of a creative life in full To the wider world, Al Pacino exploded onto the scene like a supernova. He landed his first leading role, in The Panic in Needle Park, in 1971, and by...
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There's always this year on basketball and ascension
Abdurraqib, Hanif, 1983- author.
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD * #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A "powerful" (The Guardian) reflection on basketball, life, and home--from the author of the National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America "Mesmerizing . . . not only the most original...
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Traveling on the path of Joni Mitchell
Powers, Ann, 1964- author.
Paper Book
*An Observer Best New Biographies of 2024* *Now in paperback!* Celebrated NPR music critic Ann Powers explores the life and career of Joni Mitchell in a lyrical style as fascinating and ethereal as the songs of the artist herself. "What you are about to read is not a standard...
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A walk in the park the true story of a spectacular misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller * Winner of the 2024 National Outdoor Book Award in Outdoor Literature * Winner of the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * Named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times, Air...
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We Will Not Be Saved
Nenquimo, Nemonte.
Paper Book
** Publishing in the US as WE WILL BE JAGUARS**'Nemonte's writing is as provocative as it is inspiring' EMMA THOMPSON'One of the most effective leaders for indigenous rights and environmental justice' LAURENE POWELL JOBS'I'm here to tell you my story, which is also the story of...
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