Memorable Memoirs

Updated March 20, 2024
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Educated : a memoir
Westover, Tara
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * One of the most acclaimed books of our time: an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University
Why be happy when you could be normal?
Winterson, Jeanette
Paper Book
Jeanette Winterson's novels have established her as a major figure in world literature. She has written some of the most admired books of the past few decades, including her internationally bestselling first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, the story of a young girl adopted by...
The dance of the dissident daughter : a woman's journey from Christian tradition to the sacred feminine
Kidd, Sue Monk.
Paper Book
"A masterpiece of women's wisdom."--Christiane Northrup, M.D. "The journey to capture her feminine soul and live authentically . . . makes a fascinating, well-researched and well-written story."--Publishers Weekly In celebration of the twentieth anniversary of its publication, a...
Educated : a memoir
Westover, Tara
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * One of the most acclaimed books of our time: an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University
The cancer journals
Lorde, Audre
Paper Book
Moving between journal entry, memoir, and exposition, Audre Lorde fuses the personal and political as she reflects on her experience coping with breast cancer and a radical mastectomy. A Penguin Classic First published over forty years ago, The Cancer Journals...
The color of water : a black man's tribute to his white mother
McBride, James
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, and Kill 'Em and Leave, a James Brown biography. Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her...
The color of water : a black man's tribute to his white mother
McBride, James
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, and Kill 'Em and Leave, a James Brown biography. Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her...
Between the world and me
Coates, Ta-Nehisi.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST * ONE OF OPRAH'S "BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH" * <...
Go tell it on the mountain
Baldwin, James
Paper Book
A Modern Library edition of the renowned black author's classic first novel captures a vivid and provocative portrait of the African-American experience.
Between the world and me
Coates, Ta-Nehisi
Paper Book
A #1 New York Times BestsellerA National Book Award FinalistA profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a black father for his son, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present,...
Born a crime : stories from a South African childhood
Noah, Trevor
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * More than one million copies sold! A "brilliant" (Lupita Nyong'o, Time), "poignant" (Entertainment Weekly), "soul-nourishing" (USA Today) memoir about coming of age during the twilight of apartheid  
Born a crime : stories from a South African childhood
Noah, Trevor
Audiobook
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime story of one man's coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Michiko Kakutani, New...
Fun home : a family tragicomic
Bechdel, Alison
Paper Book
A fresh and brilliantly told memoir from a cult favorite comic artist, marked by gothic twists, a family funeral home, sexual angst, and great books. This breakout book by Alison Bechdel is a darkly funny family tale, pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel's sweetly gothic...
Are you my mother? : a comic drama
Bechdel, Alison
Paper Book
From the best-selling author ofFun Home,Timemagazine's No. 1 Book of the Year, a brilliantly told graphic memoir of Alison Bechdel becoming the artist her mother wanted to be. Alison Bechdel'sFun Home was a pop culture and literary phenomenon. Now, a second...
Angela's ashes : a memoir
McCourt, Frank.
Paper Book
Angela's Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic. "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the...
Angela's ashes : a memoir
McCourt, Frank.
Paper Book
Angela's Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic. "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the...
Crazy brave : a memoir
Harjo, Joy.
Paper Book
In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo, one of our leading Native American voices, details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, the end place of the Trail of Tears, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by...
When they call you a terrorist : a Black Lives Matter memoir
Khan-Cullors, Patrisse
Paper Book
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. New York Times Editor's Pick. Library Journal Best Books of 2019. TIME Magazine's "Best Memoirs of 2018 So Far." O, Oprah's Magazine's "10 Titles to Pick Up Now." Politics &...
What I talk about when I talk about running : a memoir
Murakami, Haruki
Paper Book
In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he'd completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, not to mention triathlons and a dozen critically acclaimed books, he reflects upon the...
The collected schizophrenias : essays
Wang, Esm©♭ Weijun
Paper Book
Powerful, affecting essays on mental illness, winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and a Whiting Award An intimate, moving book written with the immediacy and directness of one who still struggles with the effects of mental and chronic illness, The Collected...
What my bones know : a memoir of healing from complex trauma
Foo, Stephanie
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life "Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal....
The autobiography of Malcolm X
X, Malcolm
Paper Book
ONE OF TIME'S TEN MOST IMPORTANT NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the...
Between two kingdoms : a memoir of a life interrupted
Jaouad, Suleika
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman's journey from diagnosis to remission to re-entry into "normal" life--from the founder of The Isolation Journals and a subject of the Netflix documentary American Symphony ...
Persepolis : the story of a childhood
Satrapi, Marjane
Paper Book
A New York TimesNotable Book A Time Magazine"Best Comix of the Year" A San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles TimesBest-seller Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolisis Marjane Satrapi's memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic...

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