Biography and Memoir

Discover the stories of their lives, in recent biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs.
Updated March 11, 2026
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
Mark Twain
Ron Chernow
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 ...
Junglekeeper: What It Takes to Change the World
Paul Rosolie
Paper Book
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...
Neptune's Fortune: The Billion-Dollar Shipwreck and the Ghosts of the Spanish Empire
Julian Sancton
Paper Book
The riveting true story of a legendary Spanish galleon that sunk off the coast of Colombia with over $1 billion in gold and silver--and one man's obsessive quest to find it--from the New York Times bestselling author of Madhouse at the End of the Earth "Splendid...
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Jenny Lawson
Paper Book
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-doubt, paralysis, and anxiety. She's an award-winning humorist but...
I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right
Matt Kaplan
Paper Book
For two decades, Matt Kaplan has covered science for the Economist. He's seen breakthroughs often occur in spite of, rather than because of, the behavior of the research community, and how support can be withheld for those who don't conform or have the right connections. In this passionately...
The Last Kings of Hollywood: Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg―and the Battle for the Soul of American Cinema
Paul Fischer
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Riveting, grade A smack for cinema junkies...Fischer's writing pulsates." --Steven Soderbergh, filmmaker The untold, intimate story of how three young visionaries--Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg...
Tell Me How You Eat: Food, Power, and the Will to Live
Amber Husain
Paper Book
Bustle's Most Anticipated An intimate and expansive exploration of how and why we eat, and the relationship between food and empowerment, through the historic feasts and fasts of radicals and tyrants. Inspired by writer Amber Husain's unorthodox route...
A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction
Elizabeth McCracken
Paper Book
From bestselling and award-winning author and professor Elizabeth McCracken comes an irresistible look at the art of writing. Writing can feel like an endless series of decisions. How does one face the blank page? Move a character around a room? Deal with time? Undertake revision?...
Art Work: On the Creative Life
Sally Mann
Paper Book
"A big and beautiful gift-worthy holiday art book" (New York Times), this new bookby artist Sally Mann about the challenges and transcendent pleasures of the creative process, is now a New York Times bestseller. "Erudite, frank,...
The Look
Michelle Obama
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD * Beautifully illustrated with more than 200 photographs, including never-before-seen images, The Look is a stunning journey through Michelle Obama's style evolution, in her own words for the first time. ...
100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist's Guide to a Happy Life
Dick Van Dyke
Paper Book
On the eve of his 100th birthday, national treasure Dick Van Dyke brings us this autobiographical collection of stories, reflections, and life advice on how he's maintained a zest for life. Dick Van Dyke danced his way into our hearts with iconic roles in ...
Notes on Being a Man
Scott Galloway
Paper Book
Bestselling author, NYU professor, and cohost of the Pivot podcast Scott Galloway offers a path forward for men and parents of boys. Boys and men are in crisis. Rarely has a cohort fallen further and faster than young men living in Western democracies. Boys are less likely...
Girls Play Dead: Acts of Self-Preservation
Jen Percy
Paper Book
A lyrical and groundbreaking exploration of the misun­derstood ways women survive and forever carry trauma from the award-winning New York Times Magazine writer Jen Percy. "Percy's subject is brutal, but her writing allays some of the impact by being almost impossibly...
Presidential Seclusion: The Power of Camp David
Charles Ferguson
Paper Book
Behind the gates of Camp David--where presidents find solitude, forge diplomacy, and shape history in absolute secrecy. The Presidential Retreat Camp David is shrouded in mystery, and rightfully so. The hidden retreat atop the Catoctin Mountains is the one place the President,...
Luigi: The Making and the Meaning
John H. Richardson
Paper Book
WHO IS LUIGI MANGIONE, WHERE DID HE COME FROM AND WHY DID THE CRIME HE IS ACCUSED OF MAKE HIM A HERO TO SO MANY? When Luigi Mangione was arrested for allegedly killing Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the prizewinning journalist John H. Richardson thought he...
Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy
Julia Ioffe
Paper Book
NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD WINNER FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NAMED ONE OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2025 BY THE WASHINGTON POST NAMED ONE OF THE 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2025 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2025 ...
The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex
Melissa Febos
Paper Book
From Melissa Febos, the national bestselling author of Girlhood, comes an examination of the solitude, freedoms, and feminist heroes she discovered during a year of celibacy and a wise and transformative look at relationships and self-knowledge. "Only Melissa Febos could...
Ordinary Time: Lessons Learned While Staying Put
Annie B. Jones
Paper Book
In her first book, the popular From the Front Porch podcast host and independent bookstore owner challenges the idea that loud lives are the ones that matter most, reminding us that we don't have to leave the lives we have in order to have the lives of which we've always dreamed.<...
A Change of Habit: Leaving Behind My Husband, Career, and Everything I Owned to Become a Nun
Sister Monica Clare
Paper Book
The soulful, hilarious memoir of a chronic people pleaser who surprised everyone in her life by abandoning an unfulfilling career and marriage to join a convent-and learned how much we stand to gain when we fully embrace our authentic selves "A Change of Habit follows...
Queen of All Mayhem: The Blood-Soaked Life and Mysterious Death of Belle Starr, the Most Dangerous Woman in the West
Dane Huckelbridge
Paper Book
A riveting, deeply researched, blood-on-the-spurs biography of Belle Starr, the most legendary female outlaw of the American West.  On February 3, 1889, just two days shy of her forty-first birthday, Myra Maybelle Shirley--better known at that point by her outlaw...
The Rebel Romanov: Julie of Saxe-Coburg, the Empress Russia Never Had
Helen Rappaport
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanov Sisters comes the story of a courageous young Imperial Grand Duchess who scandalized Europe in search of freedom. In 1795, Catherine the Great of Russia was in search of a bride for her grandson...
Homework: A Memoir
Geoff Dyer
Paper Book
Named a most anticipated book of 2025 by Vulture | The Guardian | Financial Times | The Observer | The Times (London) | Literary Hub "A picture of postwar England unlike any other . . . A highly original memoir that will provoke,...
Making the Best of What's Left: When We're Too Old to Get the Chairs Reupholstered
Judith Viorst
Paper Book
From the bestselling author Judith Viorst comes a witty and poignant exploration of the joys and sorrows of life's twilight years--one that leaves us laughing, pondering, and grateful for the moments we have left. In a career that has spanned more than fifty years, Judith Viorst...
Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary
Victoria Amelina
Paper Book
WINNER, THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING SHORT LIST, THE 2025 MOORE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WRITING WITH A FOREWORD BY MARGARET ATWOOD A NATIONAL BESTSELLERNPR BOOKS WE LOVE, 2025 "Remarkable...powerful, eloquently testifying to the...
Clodia of Rome: Champion of the Republic
Douglas Boin
Paper Book
One of Rome's most powerful women, Clodia has been maligned over two thousand years as a promiscuous, husband-murdering harlot--thanks to her starring role in one of Cicero's most famous speeches in the Forum. But Cicero was lying, in defense of his own property and interests. Like so many women...
Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson
Claire Hoffman
Paper Book
A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year A Must-Read: The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Millions, Alta Long-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography "Magnificent."<...
This Dog Will Change Your Life
Elias Weiss Friedman
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER . A uniquely insightful, uplifting, emotional, and informative book that shows us how dogs make our lives better by making us better people, from the Dogist The stunning hardcover of This Dog Will Change Your Life features a custom...
Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age
Amanda Hess
Paper Book
"Second Life is not only a book for parents; it's for anyone intrigued (and concerned) by the ways in which our digital footprints impact the circle of life itself." --Elle "Engrossing....With a reporter's gimlet eye, Hess lenses out from her personal experience.....
Maybe This Will Save Me: A Memoir of Art, Addiction and Transformation
Tommy Dorfman
Paper Book
*NATIONAL BESTSELLER* *An Autostraddle Most Anticipated Queer Book* "I'm determined to get to know the real Tommy, to trace the shape of my scars." For years, Tommy Dorfman turned her back on her thoughts and emotions, hoping...
If You Were My Daughter: A Memoir of Healing an Unmothered Heart
Marianne Richmond
Paper Book
From bestselling children's author Marianne Richmond comes a powerful memoir about overcoming a mother's emotional neglect and finding the courage to reclaim the story of your life. "In her beautiful memoir, Richmond bravely finds her way through a legacy of emotional trauma, pulling us...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.