Biography & autobiography / Personal Memoirs

Phoenix: A Brother's Life

by J.D. Dolan

A beautifully rendered portrait of family and loss, of childhood and manhood by a supremely gifted writer evaluating the sum of his experiences and emerging with a moving work of the highest level.

J. D. Dolan...

The Way Home

by Ernestine Bradley

Growing up in Bavaria during World War II, Ernestine Bradley came to know wartime dislocations and food shortages, along with the challenges of taking care of her siblings while her mother was ill. The men of...

Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria

by Noo Saro-Wiwa

Noo Saro-Wiwa was brought up in England, but every summer she was dragged back to visit her father in Nigeria — a country she viewed as an annoying parallel universe where she had to relinquish all her creature...

Dead Janitors Club

by Jeff Klima

It had been well over a month since I had seen or heard from Dirk, and it was showing in my bank account...I was tempted to start searching for another job. I still had faith, though, that somehow, someway,...

The Springs of Namje: A Ten-Year Journey from the Villages of Nepal to the Halls of Congress

by Rajeev Goyal

A Peace Corps volunteer’s inspirational story about the power of small change

In 2001, Peace Corps volunteer Rajeev Goyal was sent to Namje, a remote village in the eastern hills of Nepal. Brimming with idealism,...

The Story of Rose: A Man and His Dog

by Jon Katz

From the acclaimed author of A Good Dog, Dog Days, and Going Home comes this eBook original—a poignant memoir that celebrates Jon Katz’s beloved border collie, Rose, and their transformative years together...

The Factory of Facts

by Luc Sante

The acclaimed author of Low Life reinvents the memoir in a cunning, lyrical book that is at once a personal history and a meditation on the construction of identity.

Born in Belgium but raised in New Jersey,...

Slow Motion: A True Story

by Dani Shapiro

From one of the most gifted writers of her  generation comes the harrowing and exqui-sitely written true story of how a family tragedy saved her life. Dani Shapiro was a young girl from a deeply religious...

Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life

by Gretchen Rubin

In the spirit of her blockbuster #1 New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin embarks on a new project to make home a happier place.

One Sunday afternoon, as she unloaded the dishwasher,...

To the Last Breath: A Memoir of Going to Extremes

by Francis Slakey

A journey to the most extreme points on Earth and deep inside the human spirit

Before Georgetown physics professor Francis Slakey decided to climb the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean,...

As I See It: My View from the Inside Out

by Tom Sullivan

Bestselling author Tom Sullivan explores life without sight and finds it rich and rewarding. In fact, he’s gleaned a number of gifts from his “affliction,” including:

• I’ve never assessed my relationship...

Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection

by A. J. Jacobs

 From the bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically and The Know-It-All comes the true and truly hilarious story of one person’s quest to become the healthiest man in the world.

Hospitalized with...

The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of an American Faith

by Joanna Brooks

From her days of feeling like “a root beer among the Cokes”—Coca-Cola being a forbidden fruit for Mormon girls like her—Joanna Brooks always understood that being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ...

A Mission from God: A Memoir and Challenge for America

by James Meredith & William Doyle

“I am not a civil rights hero. I am a warrior, and I am on a mission from God.” —James Meredith

 James Meredith engineered two of the most epic events of the American civil rights era: the desegregation...

Falling in Love with Joseph Smith: My Search for the Real Prophet

by Jane Barnes

When award-winning documentary film writer Jane Barnes was working on the PBS Frontline/American Experience special series The Mormons, she was surprised to find herself passionately drawn to Joseph Smith. The...

Laughing Allegra

by Anne Ford & John-Richard Thompson

When Anne Ford, great-granddaughter of Henry Ford, learned that her four-year-old daughter Allegra’s “differences” were the result of severe learning disabilities, she faced a challenge that neither money...

Solo

by Hope Solo

"My family doesn't do happy endings. We do sad endings or frustrating endings or no endings at all. We are hardwired to expect the next interruption or disappearance or broken promise."

Hope Solo is the face...

Up All Night

by Carol Miller

The all-American chronicle of radio legend Carol Miller, from her rise to success in a male dominated world, to the rockstars she's know along the way, to, for the first time, the private story of her quietly...

Visiting Tom

by Michael Perry

What can we learn about life, love, and artillery from an eighty-two-year-old man whose favorite hobby is firing his homemade cannons? Visit by visit—often with his young daughters in tow—author Michael...

Sharp

by David Fitzpatrick

"Endorphins sped through me. I spun around, growing dizzy, frantic, and silly. I wasn't drunk, but I felt a nice stoned feeling, sans paranoia, and I thought, 'I believe I've found my new pharmaceutical deep...