Women In Their Own Words

This list highlights memoirs & autobiographies of women throughout history.
Updated September 19, 2022
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
Paper Book
Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou's debut memoir is a modern American...
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
Marjane Satrapi
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's acclaimed graphic memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. "A wholly original achievement.... Satrapi evokes herself and her schoolmates coming of age in a...
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Alison Bechdel
Paper Book
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED, NATIONAL BESTSELLER  ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY Time Magazine #1 Book of the Year * National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist  Winner of the Stonewall Book Award * Double finalist for...
Becoming
Michelle Obama
Paper Book
An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States   #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WATCH THE EMMY-NOMINATED NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY * OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER * ONE OF...
Just Kids
Patti Smith
Paper Book
Patti Smith's National Book Award-winning memoir, now richly illustrated with new material and never-before-seen photographs Patti's Smith's exquisite prose is generously illustrated in this full-color edition of her classic coming-of-age memoir, Just Kids....
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
Roxane Gay
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist: a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself. "I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I...
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
Audre Lorde
Paper Book
Zami: A Carriacou name for women who work together as friends and lovers "Zami is a fast-moving chronicle. From the author's vivid childhood memories in Harlem to her coming of age in the late 1950s, the nature of Audre Lorde's work is cyclical. It especially relates the...
Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography
Zora Neale Hurston
Paper Book
"Warm, witty, imaginative. . . . This is a rich and winning book."--The New Yorker Dust Tracks on a Road is the bold, poignant, and funny autobiography of novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, one of American literature's most compelling and influential...
Angela Davis: An Autobiography
Angela Y. Davis
Paper Book
"An activist. An author. A scholar. An abolitionist. A legend." --Ibram X. Kendi This beautiful new edition of Angela Davis's classic Autobiography features an expansive new introduction by the author. "I am excited to be publishing this new edition of my...
The Cancer Journals
Audre Lorde
Paper Book
Originally published in 1980, Audre Lorde's The Cancer Journals offers a profoundly feminist analysis of her experience with breast cancer & a modified radical mastectomy. Moving between journal entry, memoir, & exposition, Lorde fuses the personal & political & refuses the silencing & invisibility...
A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story
Elaine Brown
Paper Book
"Profound, funny ...  wild and moving ... heartbreaking accounts of a lonely black childhood.... Brown sees racial oppression in national and global context; every political word she writes pounds home a lesson about commerce, money, racism, communism, you name it ... A...
More Myself: A Journey
Alicia Keys
Paper Book
An intimate, revealing look at one artist's journey from self-censorship to full expression As one of the most celebrated musicians in the world, Alicia Keys has enraptured the globe with her heartfelt lyrics, extraordinary vocal range, and soul-stirring piano compositions....

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