Biography/Memoir

Discover the stories of writers, artists, musicians, politicians, taste-makers, and others whose lives invite reflection on our concepts and experiences of culture; what (and who) it includes; and how it changes.

Updated June 6, 2024
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Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food
King, Michelle T.
Paper Book
In 1949, a young Chinese housewife arrived in Taiwan and transformed herself from a novice to a natural in the kitchen. She launched a career as a cookbook author and television cooking instructor that would last four decades. Years later, in America, flipping through her mother's copies of Fu...
I heard her call my name : a memoir of transition
Sante, Lucy
Paper Book
"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 "Sante's bold devotion to complexity and clarity makes this an exemplary memoir. It is a clarion...
What have we here : portraits of a life
Williams, Billy Dee
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A film legend recalls his remarkable life of nearly eight decades--a heralded actor who's played the roles he wanted, from Brian's Song to Lando in the Star Wars universe--unchecked by the racism and typecasting so rife in the mostly all...
The house of hidden meanings : a memoir
RuPaul
Paper Book
***An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller!*** From international drag superstar and pop culture icon RuPaul, comes his most revealing and personal work to date--a deeply intimate memoir of discovery, found family, and self-acceptance. The House of Hidden Meanings is a self-portrait of the...
Rental person who does nothing : a memoir
Morimoto, Shoji
Paper Book
***Now an International Bestseller!*** A Publisher's Weekly Pick of 2024! "Distinctively Japanese musings on meaning and connection."--Observer I'm starting a service... available for any situation in which all you want is a person...
How to be old : lessons in living boldly from the accidental icon
Slater, Lyn
Paper Book
One of Elle's Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of 2024 A personal memoir in which Lyn Slater, known on Instagram as "Accidental Icon," brings her characteristic style, optimism, forward-thinking, and rules-are-meant-to-be-broken attitude to the question of how to live...
Where rivers part : a story of my mother's life
Yang, Kao Kalia
Paper Book
This powerful memoir about a Hmong family's epic journey to safety is a profound "testament to the miraculous strength of women and the indomitable resolve of the human spirit" (Cristina Henríquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans). Born in 1961 in war-torn Laos,...
Pretty : a memoir
KB
Paper Book
By a prize-winning, young Black trans writer of outsized talent, a fierce and disciplined memoir about queerness, masculinity, and race. Even as it shines light on the beauty and toxicity of Black masculinity from a transgender perspective--the tropes, the presumptions--Pretty...
Finding Me: A Memoir
Davis, Viola
Paper Book
OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * A HARPERS BAZAAR BEST BOOK OF 2022 * A PARADE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK * A MARIE CLAIRE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK "It's clear from the first page that Davis is going to serve a more intimate, unpolished account than is typical of the average (often ghost-written)...
Girls like us : Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon--and the journey of a generation
Weller, Sheila.
Paper Book
A groundbreaking and irresistible biography of three of America's most important musical artists -- Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon -- charts their lives as women at a magical moment in time. Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon remain among...
Rememberings
O'Connor, Sine?ad
Paper Book
From the acclaimed, controversial singer-songwriter Sinéad O'Connor comes a revelatory memoir of her fraught childhood, musical triumphs, fearless activism, and of the enduring power of song.   Blessed with a singular voice and a fiery temperament,...
Pageboy : a memoir
Page, Elliot
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A New York Times "100 Notable Books of 2023" A TIME Magazine "100 Must-Read Books of 2023" A Washington Post "50 Notable Works of Nonfiction" An Autostraddle "Best Queer Books of 2023" "Vivid...Moving...
Men we reaped : a memoir
Ward, Jesmyn.
Paper Book
Named one of the Best Books of the Century by New York Magazine The two-time National Book Award winner and author of Salvage the Bones and Let Us Descend, contends with the deaths of five young men dear to her, and the risk of being a Black man in the...
Small fry
Brennan-Jobs, Lisa
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES AND NEW YORKER TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR "Beautiful, literary, and devastating."--New York Times Book Review * "Revelatory."--Entertainment Weekly * "A masterly Silicon Valley gothic."--Vogue *"Mesmerizing, discomfiting reading... A book of no small literary skill."-...
I'm glad my mom died
McCurdy, Jennette
Paper Book
* #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER * MORE THAN 2 MILLION COPIES SOLD! A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor--including eating...

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