Women In Their Own Words

This list highlights memoirs & autobiographies of women throughout history.
Updated September 19, 2022
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia
Elizabeth Gilbert
Paper Book
A transformational journey through Italy, India, and Bali searching for pleasure and devotion--the massive bestseller from the author of Big Magic and City of Girls. This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth...
The Glass Castle: A Memoir
Jeannette Walls
Paper Book
THE BELOVED #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER--FROM THE AUTHOR OF HANG THE MOON The extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, "nothing short of spectacular" (Entertainment Weekly) memoir from one of the world's most gifted storytellers. The Glass Castle...
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...
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Azar Nafisi
Paper Book
We all have dreams—things we fantasize about doing and generally never get around to. This is the story of Azar Nafisi’s dream and of the nightmare that made it come true. For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every...
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...
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Cheryl Strayed
Paper Book
NATIONAL BEST SELLER * Oprah's Book Club 2.0 selection. * A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe--and built her back up again. A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the...
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Barbara Kingsolver
Paper Book
"A profound, graceful, and literary work of philosophy and economics, well tempered for our times, and yet timeless. . . . It will change the way you look at the food you put into your body. Which is to say, it can change who you are." -- Boston Globe From acclaimed author...
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...
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
Malala Yousafzai
Paper Book
A MEMOIR BY THE YOUNGEST RECIPIENT OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE As seen on Netflix with David Letterman "I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday." When the Taliban took control of the Swat...
Just Kids
Patti Smith
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion, and initiation. Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer,...
Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
Piper Kerman
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES   With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with...
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
Roxane Gay
Paper Book
The New York Times Bestseller National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist Lambda Literary Award winner From Roxane Gay, the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist, a memoir in weight about eating healthier, finding a tolerable form of exercise, and exploring what...
Men We Reaped: A Memoir
Jesmyn Ward
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...
The Truths We Hold: An American Journey
Kamala Harris
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * In her acclaimed memoir, former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris delivers "a life story that genuinely entrances" (Los Angeles Times) as she looks back on how she was shaped by the core truths that unite us. ...
Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells
Paper Book
"She fought a lonely and almost single-handed fight, with the single-mindedness of a crusader, long before men or women of any race entered the arena; and the measure of success she achieved goes far beyond the credit she has been given in the history of the country."--Alfreda M. Duster ...
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....

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