Women In Their Own Words

This list highlights memoirs & autobiographies of women throughout history.
Updated September 19, 2022
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Eat, Pray, Love
Elizabeth Gilbert
Paper Book
One of the most iconic, beloved, and bestselling books of our time from the bestselling author of City of Girls and Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert. Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love touched the world and changed countless lives, inspiring and empowering millions...
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
Maya Angelou's debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS's American Masters. Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself....
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.   At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought...
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Barbara Kingsolver
Paper Book
At long last, the bestselling author of Small Miracles and The Poisonwood Bible returns with the wise and compelling true story of her family's adventure to reclaim the food they eat America has long been a nation of farmers. But within the past several decades, our food supply has become...
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...
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
Ruth Reichl
Paper Book
GARLIC AND SAPPHIRES is Ruth Reichl's riotous account of the many disguises she employs to dine anonymously. There is her stint as Molly Hollis, a frumpy blond with manicured nails and an off-beige Armani suit that Ruth takes on when reviewing Le Cirque. The result: her famous double review...
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
Jesmyn Ward
Audiobook
"We saw the lightning and that was the guns; and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped." --Harriet Tubman"In five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five young...
The Truths We Hold: An American Journey
Kamala Harris
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestseller From Vice President Kamala Harris, one of America's most inspiring political leaders, comes a book about the core truths that unite us and how best to act upon them.  "A life story that genuinely...
The Cancer Journals
Audre Lorde
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...
Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood
bell hooks
Paper Book
A memoir of ideas and perceptions, Bone Back shows the unfolding of female creativity and one strong-spirited child's journey toward becoming a writer. She learns early on the roles women and men play in society, as well as the impotence of children, especially black female children. She sheds new...
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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