Our extensive memoir collection spans decades and features the personal stories of award-winning authors from around the world. Read on to learn about Sarah M. Broom’s childhood in New Orleans in The Yellow House; activist Ishmael Beah’s experiences as a boy in war-torn Sierra Leone in A Long Way Gone; and clinical psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison and her experiences living with bipolar disorder.
A Chance in the World: An Orphan Boy, a Mysterious Past, and How He Found a Place Called Home is a 2012 memoir by author Steve Pemberton. In three parts, it tells the story of his quest to learn the truth about his past. The book examines themes of identity, abuse, family, racism, and how peoples’ pasts can influence their futures. Part 1 begins with Steve’s recurring memory of the day that his mother abandoned... Read A Chance in the World Summary
A Dream Called Home is a memoir published in 2018 by the award-winning Mexican American author Reyna Grande. The book is the sequel to her bestselling 2012 memoir, The Distance Between Us, which addresses Reyna’s experiences crossing the US-Mexico border as a child. The title alludes to the American dream while also gesturing to varied concepts of home. This summary refers to the 2018 English-language edition published by Atria Books.Plot SummaryReyna divides her memoir into... Read A Dream Called Home Summary
Clive Staples Lewis (1888-1963) C.S. Lewis was a British writer and academic, renowned for his works on Christianity, and best remembered today as the author of the children’s book series The Chronicles of Narnia. He graduated from Oxford University and taught there until 1954 when he became Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University. A Grief Observed was originally publishedunder the pseudonym N.W. Clerk and attributed to Lewis only after his death. A Grief... Read A Grief Observed Summary
This book is a memoir written by a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Rick Bragg, who works for the New York Times. It describes the author’s childhood in rural Alabama, the middle child of three brothers raised by an almost-always single mother in conditions of extreme poverty. His father was a veteran of the Korean War and an alcoholic, who abandoned his family for long periods of time.The book is dedicated “To my Momma and my brothers.” The author grows... Read All Over but the Shoutin' Summary
All Souls: A Family Story From Southie is a 1999 memoir by Michael MacDonald. It examines his experiences growing up in the Old Colony neighborhood of South Boston, also known as Southie. The memoir examines themes of family, racism, xenophobia, police corruption, and justice, all set against the backdrop of one family’s tragedy.When the book begins, an adult Michael is returning to Southie in order to give a tour of the neighborhood to a reporter... Read All Souls Summary
Esmeralda’s family relocates from Puerto Rico to Brooklyn in 1961, when Esmeralda is 13 years old. On the cusp of womanhood, Esmeralda receives warnings from her family members, and especially her mother, Mami, to watch out for the many algos or dangers lurking in the city. Struggling to adjust to city life in Brooklyn, Esmeralda misses Puerto Rico, and she dreams of the day when she will return. Initially put into remedial classes because she... Read Almost a Woman Summary
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Solider is a memoir published in 2007 by the Sierra Leonean author and activist Ishmael Beah. The book recounts the author’s experiences as a 12-year-old boy in war-torn Sierra Leone. Forced to serve as a child soldier for three years in the 1990s during the Sierra Leone Civil War, Beah wrote the book to highlight the horrific impact of war on children. Nominated for a 2007 Quill... Read A Long Way Gone Summary
A Long Way Home is a 2013 memoir by Saroo Brierley, an Indian-born author who was accidentally separated from his biological family at the age of five and adopted by an Australian couple. The memoir traces Saroo’s remarkable journey from India to Australia and back again 25 years later. The book inspired the 2016 film Lion and became a New York Times Best Seller after the film’s release. This guide refers to the 2015 edition published... Read A Long Way Home Summary
A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy, first published in Germany 2007, is author Thomas Buergenthal's account of his childhood during the Nazi Occupation. Buergenthal was 6 years old when forced to abandon his home and spend the rest of his childhood running from Nazis and struggling to survive the Holocaust. Buergenthal’s horrific journey took him through bombings, labor camps, concentration camps, and “death marches.” He lost most of his... Read A Lucky Child Summary
Always Running is the autobiography of Luis J. Rodriguez, a Mexican-American former gang member who grew up in dangerous East Los Angeles in the 1960s and 70s. Luis’ family moved to Los Angeles from Mexico after Luis’ father was accused of theft, and Luis spends his early years in Watts, a particularly crime-ridden LA neighborhood. Luis’ father struggles to find work, and the family struggles to find adequate shelter and food. After they are evicted... Read Always Running Summary
America is in the Heart is a semi-autobiographical novel published in 1946 by the Filipino American author Carlos Bulosan. A coming of age narrative told in four parts, the story begins in the Philippines, ends in America, and spans decades. Scholars compare it to other social activism classics like John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, but America is in the Heart is unique in that it portrays the plight of Filipino immigrants in America during... Read America is in the Heart Summary
American Sniper is the autobiography of Chris Kyle, the single deadliest sniper in the history of the United States military. The narrative, co-written by Chris Kyle, Jim deFelice, Scott McEwen, and Chris’s wife Taya, opens with events that took place in 2003 in Iraq. At the time, Chris was providing protective fire for a group of Marines; a female insurgent attempted to attack the Marines with a grenade, but Chris shot her, registering his first... Read American Sniper Summary
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard wrote the autobiographical memoir An American Childhood (1987). In this memoir, Dillard (born in 1945) describes her intellectual development, from her first true intellectual awakening, at 5 years old, through her busy and happy pre-teen years and her turbulent adolescence, to her acceptance at a prestigious private college at age 18. An exploration of her childhood during the 1950s, this memoir operates as a coming-of-age story in which the author... Read An American Childhood Summary
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (2007) is, on its surface, a memoir detailing a year in the life of one family, told through an account of their food. However, it is also at times a manifesto and frequently veers into academic exploration of themes like sustainability and the current state of farming in the US. Author Barbara Kingsolver sets out to chronicle a year in her family’s food life when they undertake an experiment: to “attempt to... Read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Summary
Author Laura Schroff’s 2012 New York Times bestseller An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny recounts a fateful meeting between two vastly different individuals: Maurice, a young boy living in poverty and a broken home, and Schroff, a successful ad executive enjoying a fast-paced career. In the memoir, the author posits that an invisible thread joins their lives. It is beyond her... Read An Invisible Thread Summary
An Unquiet Mind, written by Kay Redfield Jamison and first published in 1995, is a memoir about a clinical psychologist’s experience living with manic-depressive illness. The book details her life, from her early experiences as a child, through the beginning of her mood swings, her diagnosis of manic-depressive illness, her struggles with the disease, and her eventual management of and control over it, following years of therapy and medication. Aside from having experienced it, Jamison... Read An Unquiet Mind Summary
Jimmy Santiago Baca, born in 1952, is an American poet and author of A Place to Stand. This memoir begins with Baca’s early years at home with his drunken, abusive father and his unhappy mother. Baca loves his father, who is continually in and out of jail, but Baca’s mother abandons her three children to marry a man who can provide her a more stable life.Baca, his brother, and his sister live with their grandparents... Read A Place to Stand Summary
A Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder and Its Aftermath (2004) is a true-crime story and memoir by Jeanine Cummins. The book recounts the violent rape and murder of two young women, Julie and Robin Kerry, the author’s cousins, and focuses on the aftermath for their families. Tom Cummins, their cousin who is present during the crimes, is thrown off a bridge into the Mississippi River with the two women but survives. Innocent, he... Read A Rip in Heaven Summary
Philip Caputo’s 1977 memoir, A Rumor of War, depicts Caputo’s true experiences serving as a Marine during the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Caputo arrived in Vietnam in March 1965, with the first fighting troops assigned to combat there, and soon learned that his romantic notions of war bore no resemblance to the bloody brutality he and his men confront in fighting the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. As well as acknowledging the dehumanizing brutality... Read A Rumor of War Summary
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid is a work of creative nonfiction originally published in 1988. Kincaid shares memories of her home country, Antigua, both while it was under colonial rule and self-governance. She illustrates how life has and hasn’t changed for Antiguan citizens because of government corruption, the legacies of slavery, and the preoccupation with tourism over public welfare. Though the book won no awards, Kincaid has won a plethora of awards for her... Read A Small Place Summary
Shakur: An Autobiography traces events from Shakur Shakur’s early childhood to her time as a political refugee in Cuba. While the book was first published in 1988, this guide references the 2014 edition of the autobiography, which features a foreword written by Angela Davis and Lennox Hill.Content Warning: The source text and this study guide contain descriptions of racism, racist violence, and sexual abuse in a carceral context.SummaryShakur Olugbala Shakur (born JoAnne Deborah Byron) grew... Read Assata: An Autobiography Summary
Published in 1994, Autobiography of a Face is award-winning poet Lucy Grealy’s prose debut, a widely-celebrated memoir concerning the author’s struggles with cancer and disfigurement.At the age of 9, Lucy collides with a classmate during a game of dodgeball. The subsequent toothache leads her to seek medical assistance and doctors discover that she has Ewing’s sarcoma, a form of cancer with a 5% survival rate. She undergoes an operation to remove half of her jaw... Read Autobiography Of A Face Summary
A Woman in Berlin is a memoir first published in 1954. The memoir documents the experiences of a German woman as the Russian Army invades Berlin at the end of the Second World War. The book remained unpublished in German until 1959; until 2003, the identity of the author remained a mystery. Originally, the book was published as the work of an anonymous woman, but the author was eventually revealed to be journalist Marta Hillers... Read A Woman in Berlin Summary
Bad Boy is a 2001 memoir spanning roughly the first seventeen years of YA writer Walter Dean Myers’s life. In it, Myers explores how the time he spent growing up in a mixed-race, working-class family in 1940s-and-50s Harlem impacted his eventual career as a writer.To do so, Myers first explains his complicated family history: Myers’s biological parents were both black, but he was adopted at a very young age by his father’s first wife, Florence—a... Read Bad Boy: A Memoir Summary
Barrio Boy is a memoir by Ernesto Galarza that narrates the author’s journey from a small village in Mexico to a barrio in the United States. Considered a founding text in ethnic studies, the book was originally published in 1971 and was reissued as a 40th anniversary edition in 2011. Barrio Boy follows the author from his birth in the small town of Jalcocotán in 1905 up until high school. Galarza, who went on to... Read Barrio Boy Summary
Published in 2008, David Sheff’s memoir, Beautiful Boy, explores his experiences of coming to terms with his son’s addiction to methamphetamine. Sheff and his wife Vicki are overjoyed when they have their son, Nic. For the first three years, they live a happy, contented life, providing Nic with everything he needs. However, when Sheff and Vicki's marriage collapses, Nic, now aged three, is deeply affected by the change. This worsens when Sheff and Vicki move... Read Beautiful Boy Summary
Becoming is a memoir by Michelle Obama, the former First Lady of the United States from 2008-2016, originally published in 2018. In addition to describing her time in the White House, Obama details her upbringing, her education, her work in community outreach, and her relationship with former president Barack Obama, all of which contribute to the process of becoming the woman she is today. Becoming was the bestselling book of the year in 2018 and... Read Becoming Summary
Between a Rock and a Hard Place is a 2004 adventure and survival memoir by American mountain climber Aron Ralston. The narrative focuses on Ralston’s near-death experience when his arm became stuck under a boulder in a canyon in Utah, where he remained trapped for five days until he amputated his arm. Dealing with profound existential themes, the book garnered critical acclaim and became a New York Times bestseller. A 2010 film adaptation titled 127... Read Between a Rock and a Hard Place Summary
The Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge published Biographia Literaria, his semiautobiographical work on aesthetic theory, in 1817. Charting the history of his literary career and melding amusing autobiographical anecdotes with what Coleridge calls “transcendental philosophy” (91), the text is an influential work of literary criticism. Capturing Coleridge’s political ideas about the French Revolution and the American Declaration of Independence, the work is also an important historical document. In its pages, Coleridge uses 19th-century philosophical ideas... Read Biographia Literaria Summary
Peter Balakian’s Black Dog of Fate: A Memoir (1997) tells the story of the author’s path to embracing his Armenian identity and understanding the legacies of a dark history. Born into the comfortable and consumerist suburbs of mid-century American suburbia, Balakian experienced the vestibules of his family’s Armenian culture mostly through the influence of his maternal grandmother. As he grew up, he caught other glimpses of the family’s heritage; in particular, home rituals in their... Read Black Dog of Fate Summary
Black Elk Speaks (1932) is a book written by John G. Neihardt that relates the life of Black Elk, a member of the Ogalala band of the Lakota Native Americans. Though Neihardt is the book’s author, the book is based on a conversation between Black Elk and Neihardt and is presented as a transcript of Black Elk’s words, though Neihardt made some edits to the transcript. The book follows Black Elk from his boyhood to... Read Black Elk Speaks Summary
Blood Done Sign My Name (2004), by Timothy B. Tyson, is a nonfiction work of history centered on the racially motivated 1970 murder of Henry Marrow Jr. in Oxford, North Carolina. The killing occurred after Marrow, a 23-year-old Black Army veteran, husband, and father of two, allegedly made a flirtatious remark in the direction of a 19-year-old married white woman. The woman’s husband, brother-in-law, and father-in-law chased Marrow down the street, shot him from behind... Read Blood Done Sign My Name Summary
Born a Crime is a comedic autobiographical work chronicling Trevor Noah’s childhood growing up in South Africa during and after apartheid. Published in 2016, it became a New York Times bestseller, and it is currently being adapted into a film. Born a Crime doesn’t follow a linear timeline; rather, the narrative jumps in time, offering anecdotes from Noah’s past. Before each chapter begins, there is a prologue that’s related to the content of the upcoming... Read Born a Crime Summary
Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant is Daniel Tammet’s memoir and his first published book. In it, he recalls his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood leading up to the point in his life when he became independent with a partner and a career. Born on a Blue Day was a New York Times best seller following its publication in 2006.Tammet is, as identified in the subtitle, an autistic savant... Read Born on a Blue Day Summary
Born on the Fourth of July is a 1976 memoir written by wounded Vietnam veteran and antiwar activist Ron Kovic. The memoir was adapted into a 1989 film directed by Oliver Stone; Kovic and Stone co-wrote the screenplay, which earned an Oscar nomination. In the memoir, Kovic describes his experiences in and surrounding his tours of duty in Vietnam, including why he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, how he was injured, and how... Read Born on the Fourth of July Summary
Bossypants is a humorous memoir published in 2011 by actor and writer Tina Fey. Fey describes growing up as an awkward, smart-mouthed girl and traces the process by which she enters show business, from working at a theater summer camp, to taking night improv classes, to writing for Saturday Night Live, and finally to creating her own television sitcom, 30 Rock. Fey writes of the discrimination and double standards to which women in show business... Read Bossypants Summary
Brain on Fire (2012) is a memoir by New York Post writer Susannah Cahalan that details her struggle with a rare autoimmune disease, anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis. Cahalan recollects the journey through illness that took her from a normal, 24-year-old journalist to a misdiagnosed psychotic patient, and back again. In 2018, Netflix released a film based on Cahalan’s story, produced by Cahalan and Charlize Theron.Plot SummaryCahalan wakes in a hospital with no understanding of how she... Read Brain On Fire Summary
Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard is a memoir that opens with an adolescent, Liz Murray, who is homeless. She describes a picture of her mother (her only surviving photograph), and compares her own physical features with her mother’s,then wonders if they were alike in other ways, seeing as how they were both homeless by the age of sixteen. A story about forgiveness and redemption after addiction and... Read Breaking Night Summary
Brother I’m Dying is a family memoir by Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat, originally published in the United States in 2007. Alternating between the author’s past in Haiti and present in the US, this memoir combines personal histories with sociopolitical contextualization to pay homage to Danticat’s father and uncle as well as give voice to Haitian people in their struggle for a peaceful life. The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award, was a finalist... Read Brother, I'm Dying Summary
Call Me American is a memoir written by Somali author Abdi Nor Iftin, co-authored with Max Alexander and published in 2018. It documents Iftin’s escape from a war-town Somali, buoyed by his love of American culture.Plot SummaryAbdi Nor Iftin is born in Somalia “probably in 1985” (7). Both of his parents are nomadic farmers who move to the city of Mogadishu during a drought in the 1970s. The residents of Mogadishu look down on the... Read Call Me American Summary
Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake is a nonfiction book written from the perspective of Frank Abagnale, a famous conartist and check-forger. Though styled as an autobiography, the book was co-written by Abagnale and author Stan Redding. Originally published in 1980, Catch Me If You Can was popularized by a 2002 film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The book also inspired a Broadway musical of the... Read Catch Me If You Can Summary
Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam is a 1999 nonfiction book by Andrew X. Pham. Pham’s other books include The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars and The Theory of Flight. He is a recipient of the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Award, the Whiting Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.Plot SummaryPham, an American citizen, decides to take a cycling trip to Vietnam in a search for identity. It... Read Catfish And Mandala Summary
The Chronicle of the Narváez Expedition by Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was originally written in 1542, with a reprint in 1555. The chronicle follows Cabeza de Vaca’s memories of his survival after the expedition (led by Pánfilo de Narváez) failed and broke apart, and his subsequent peregrinations through the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. His chronicle stands as an important primary document of the age of the conquistadores. Of particular importance are Cabeza... Read Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition Summary
First published in 1968, Coming of Age in Mississippi is an autobiography of Anne Moody, a black civil rights worker in the 1960s. The memoir starts with Moody (born Essie Mae Moody) as a young child, continues through her high school and college years, and finishes with Moody’s work in “the Movement” (civil rights movement). Narrated in the first-person and in a straightforward manner, the book unflinchingly describes poverty, segregated education, violence against black people... Read Coming Of Age In Mississippi Summary
Crazy Brave: A Memoir is an autobiographical work by poet, writer, artist, and musician Joy Harjo that was published by W. W. Norton and Company in 2012. The memoir follows the life of Joy Harjo from birth to adulthood and her struggles with spirituality and creativity while living with various alcoholic and abusive men. Over the course of her life, she discovers that poetry, art, storytelling, and music can liberate her from her oppressive domestic... Read Crazy Brave Summary
Dear America—Notes of an Undocumented Citizen is a collection of essays written by Jose Antonio Vargas, published in 2018. The book relates the author’s struggle of coming to the United States from the Philippines in an illegal manner and growing up in America without the full documentation that would have made him a legal immigrant.As a 12-year-old boy in the Philippines, the author is surprised by his mother one morning. She rushes him to the... Read Dear America Summary
Desert Exile tells the story of the author Yoshiko Uchida and the Uchida family’s experience as Japanese-Americans interned in concentration camps by the U.S. government after the Pearl Harbor attacks during World War II. The book follows a linear narrative arc that details the Uchidas’ experience, while Uchida often reflects discursively, using one point in her life as a vortex for connecting that moment to another memory and in turn creating a larger impression of... Read Desert Exile Summary
Desert Solitaire is Edward Abbey’s 1968 memoir of his six months serving as a park ranger in Utah’s Arches National Park in the late 1950s. Throughout the book, Abbey describes his vivid and moving encounters with nature in her various forms: animals, storms, trees, rock formations, cliffs and mountains. He communicates an uncommon reverence for nature, and an unmistakable disdain for tame, cultured humanity, including the vast majority of the tourists who visit the park... Read Desert Solitaire Summary
Down These Mean Streets is a 1967 memoir written by Piri Thomas detailing his late childhood through young adulthood. Piri is the eldest son of two Puerto Rican immigrants living in the New York City area with his family. He spends his childhood in the Puerto Rican section of Harlem, though his family later moves to the Italian-American section of Harlem, where Piri gets in fights with the Italian-American kids. One of these fights leads... Read Down These Mean Streets Summary
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance is a memoir by Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States. Published in 1995, two years before Obama's run for the Illinois State Senate, the book narrates Obama's attempt to grapple with the legacy of his mostly absent father (hereafter referred to as "Obama Sr.") and to come to terms with his racial identity. The memoir covers Obama's life from his childhood in... Read Dreams From My Father Summary
First published in 1994, Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood is Fatima Mernissi’s memoir of her experience growing up in a harem in Fez, Morocco, in the 1940s. Mernissi, who received her PhD in political science from Brandeis University and won the Prince of Asturias Award and the Erasmus Prize for her feminist writing, was the author of several nonfiction works examining women’s place in the Islamic world.Dreams of Trespass encompasses Fatima’s life... Read Dreams of Trespass Summary
Drinking: A Love Story is Caroline Knapp’s 1997 memoir about her alcoholism and recovery. Knapp examines how her relationship with alcohol turned into a dangerous love affair that threatened to destroy her life. She also explores important aspects of her family life and romantic relationships, both of which contributed to her addiction and were impeded by her drinking.Knapp begins the book with a prologue that helps the reader understand why she quit drinking. She explains... Read Drinking: A Love Story Summary
Dust Tracks on a Road is the memoir of Harlem-Renaissance-era writer Zora Neale Hurston. Originally published in 1943, the book won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Race Relations in the nonfiction category. This guide is based on the 1996 Harper Perennial edition of her original text. The book offers an account of Hurston’s life up until 1941 and her perspective on race relations, friendship, love, and religion.In Chapter 1, Hurston offers cultural and historical background... Read Dust Tracks on a Road Summary
In the memoir, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Janisse Ray describes growing up amidst her family’s junkyard in rural south Georgia. She structures the book in a series of short chapters, each of which focuses on a different aspect of her family life. Between these chapters, Ray also writes descriptions of the longleaf pine forests–an ecosystem that once covered the south Georgia landscape and has been largely destroyed by logging. Ray is born in Baxley... Read Ecology of a Cracker Childhood Summary
Tara Westover’s 2018 memoir, Educated, tells the story of her journey to obtain an education. Westover is the youngest of seven children who grew up in the mountains of southwest Idaho in a radical Mormon family in the late 1980s and 1990s. From an early age, Westover knew that her family was not like other families because hers did not send the children to school, did not visit doctors’ offices or hospitals, and was not... Read Educated Summary
Falling Leaves is an autobiography by Chinese-American author, physician, and activist Adeline Yen Mah. Based on her traumatic childhood and her relationship with an abusive stepmother, as well as her later life in the United States and her troubled first marriage, Falling Leaves explores the Chinese concept of filial duty and the role of women in traditional Chinese culture. Detailing the broader sociocultural and economic changes that form the background of her family’s legacy—spanning from... Read Falling Leaves Summary
Finding Fish is a 2001 memoir by Antwone Fisher, a Hollywood screenwriter. The memoir begins in Cleveland in 1959, when Eddie Elkins is shot and killed by his girlfriend. Shortly after, Antwone Fisher is born to Eva Gardner, whom Eddie dated briefly. The Elkins family never speaks about the tragic incident.Antwone’s first memory is looking out of a window at the home of his foster parents, the Picketts. Though he meets his biological mother once... Read Finding Fish Summary
Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss and Hope in an African Slum is a 2015 nonfiction memoir by husband and wife Kennedy Odede and Jessica Posner. The book took the 2016 nonfiction runners-up designation for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and it was also featured and reviewed on Oprah.com as part of the “Soulful Read” series. The memoir tells the story of their meeting, romance, and eventual collaboration to build schools for under-privileged youth and bring... Read Find Me Unafraid Summary
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers is a nonfiction memoir by the Cambodian author Loung Ung. A survivor of the 1970s Cambodian genocide under Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime, Ung wrote the story as an adult looking back on her childhood years between the ages of five and nine. Although some experts criticized the book over its historical accuracy, other critics lauded Ung for capturing the emotional truth of her experiences... Read First They Killed My Father Summary
Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun: A Personal History of Violence is the 1995 memoir by Geoffrey Canada that details his coming-of-age in the South Bronx. It follows Canada from the age of four to young manhood and describes the different and increasingly lethal forms that violence takes in his life.The memoir begins with Canada living with his three older brothers and his newly-single mother. His father has recently left the family, and his mother is trying... Read Fist Stick Knife Gun Summary
Full Body Burden: Growing up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats is a 2012 nonfiction account by Kristen Iversen. Half memoir, half investigative journalism, the book covers Iversen’s life in a town near Denver, Colorado, as well as Rocky Flats—the nearby nuclear production facility. Quiet, observant, and adventurous, Iversen is the oldest of four children. The family keeps many pets, and Iversen adores horseback riding on their pasture at a new neighborhood near Rocky Flats... Read Full Body Burden Summary
Gang Leader for a Day is Sudhir Venkatesh’s account of the six years he spent doing research in Chicago’s housing projects as a Sociology graduate student. Early in his time at the University of Chicago, Venkatesh stumbles across the Black Kings, a powerful gang heavily involved in Chicago’s crack trade. While he is interested in studying urban poverty, Venkatesh cannot pass up the opportunity to learn more about how gangs operate and what role they... Read Gang Leader For a Day Summary
Ghost Boy: The Miraculous Escape of a Misdiagnosed Boy Trapped Inside His Own Body (2011) is a memoir written by Martin Pistorius with Megan Lloyd Davies. The autobiography details Martin’s childhood misdiagnosis, a mistake that cost him years of his life where he could not communicate with anyone around him. Martin is a native of Johannesburg, South Africa, who at the age of 12 suddenly and mysteriously started losing all control of his muscles and... Read Ghost Boy Summary
Benjamin Solomon Carson, Sr. (b. September 18, 1951) is the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, as well as a 2016 presidential candidate, retired neurosurgeon, motivational speaker, and author of inspirational books. He earned a B.A. from Yale University and an M.D. from University of Michigan School of Medicine.In his memoir, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (1990), Carson and coauthor Cecil Murphey explore how Carson’s gifts from God, his mother and older brother’s influence... Read Gifted Hands Summary
Susanna Kaysen’s 1993, Girl, Interrupted, is a memoir that explores Kaysen’s time as a teenage psychiatric patient in McLean Hospital in the late 1960s. Kaysen explores the murky definitions of mental health and illness, as she recounters her experience of being diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and makes compelling arguments about the subjective nature of personality, behavior, and disorder. Girl, Interrupted is a bestselling book and was adapted into the 1999 film starring Winona Ryder... Read Girl, Interrupted Summary
Girls Like Us: Fighting For a World Where Girls Are Not For Sale, is a memoir by Rachel Lloyd that challenges how sexually exploited girls are treated and perceived in society. The book was originally published by Harper Perennial in February 2012 to positive reviews from various sources and figures such as Elle, Marie Claire, Demi Moore, Harlem Children’s Zone, and Tony Award-winning playwright and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Sarah Jones. Rachel Lloyd, a survivor of... Read Girls Like Us Summary
God Grew Tired of Us, published in 2007, is a Christian memoir that chronicles John Bul Dau’s 1,000-mile journey from his home village of Duk Payuel in Sudan to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. This study guide refers to the 2008 first paperback printing edition.In the Introduction Dau states that although he is just one of thousands of Lost Boys, he wanted to tell his story in hope of using his education and experiences... Read God Grew Tired of Us Summary
Russell Baker (b. August 14, 1925) is an American newspaper columnist, humorist, political satirist, and author. He earned a B.A. from Johns Hopkins in 1947 and began his career at the Baltimore Sun as a police reporter. He was a columnist at the New York Times from 1962 to 1998 and host of PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre from 1992 to 2004.His Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Growing Up (1982), recounts his childhood and adolescence during the Great Depression... Read Growing Up Summary
Heart Berries is a memoir written in connected, lyrical vignettes by Terese Marie Mailhot. It was published in 2018. The book tells the story of Mailhot’s life as a First Nations woman who moves from Canada to the American Southwest, struggles with bipolar disorder, and comes to terms with her past traumas and tumultuous, sometimes violent marriage. Plot SummaryThe beginning of the book chronicles Mailhot’s love affair with a White man named Casey, who leaves... Read Heart Berries Summary
Heartland (2018) is both a memoir of Sarah Smarsh’s upbringing in rural Kansas as the daughter of working-class people and an exploration of the class system in America today. The book is subtitled: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth; this hits the core of the book, as Smarsh seeks to use her family’s anecdotes and memories to get to the truth of why mostly honest, hardworking people... Read Heartland Summary
Heavy is Kiese Laymon’s 2018 memoir. It won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and the LA Times Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose. Earning praise from Alice Walker, The Boston Globe, NPR, Time, and The Paris Review, Heavy acknowledges that “we’ve arrived at the point we have as a country in part because of lies we’ve told ourselves about what America means” (Abdurraquib, Hanif. “Heavy.” 4 Columns, 2018).This guide refers to the... Read Heavy Summary
High Tide in Tucson is a series of essays by heralded American novelist Barbara Kingsolver, collected and published in 1995. The essays are wide-ranging in subject matter, addressing topics from politics, to nature, to midcentury domestic life, but all reflect Kingsolver’s observations about herself and the people around her. Prior to her writing career, Kingsolver had a wide range of other professional experiences that influence essays in the book.Most of the essays in High Tide... Read High Tide in Tucson Summary
American author J. D. Vance’s 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, chronicles Vance’s Appalachian upbringing in a poor Scots-Irish working-class culture. As Vance tells the story of his journey from broken Ohio homes to the Marine Corps, Ohio State University, and Yale Law School, he also documents the numerous factors that comprise white, working-class Appalachians’ descent into poverty, addiction, and despair, leaving them ostracized and, often, in danger... Read Hillbilly Elegy Summary
In Hole in My Life, Jack Gantos recounts the story of his time as an idle teenager turned drug smuggler, including his eventual capture by the government and his time spent in Ashford Federal Penitentiary, in Kentucky. The biography serves as much as a lesson to readers in how Gantos turns his own life around as it does the story of how Gantos developed his writing style. The story moves back and forth in time, starting... Read Hole In My Life Summary
Content Warning: Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body describes and references rape and sexual violence, emotional abuse, and verbal abuse.Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017) is a memoir by Roxane Gay that addresses the emotional, physical, and psychological effects of sexual assault—and how they tie into self-image. Though Gay’s memoir centers her body, food, and self-image, she also confronts society’s fatphobia—the world’s unwillingness to accept fat people as they are due to assumptions about... Read Hunger Summary
Richard Rodriguez (b. July 31, 1944) is a prominent public intellectual, author, and essayist whose writing is especially concerned with education, minority identity, and language. He earned a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.A. from Columbia University, and studied at the doctoral level at the University of California, Berkeley. In his memoir, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982), Rodriguez explores how his education shaped him. Across a prologue and six chapters... Read Hunger of Memory Summary
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban is an autobiographical book written by Christina Lamb and Malala Yousafzai and published in 2013.Malala Yousafzai was born a little different. From the beginning, her father, Ziauddin, treated her differently than most fathers in Swat, Pakistan treated their daughters. He put her on the family tree, a position usually reserved for the men in the family and nicknamed her... Read I Am Malala Summary
I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced tells the story of Nujood Ali, a Yemeni girl who is possibly the youngest divorcée in the world. Nujood published her biography, co-written with French journalist Delphine Minoui, in 2010, two years after her controversial divorce. The novel begins with an introduction to the country of Yemen and to Nujood’s story written by Delphine Minoui, the book’s second and adult writer. Minoui never specifies how she and Nujood... Read I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced Summary
I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond (2011) is a memoir written by NFL player Michael Oher and journalist Don Yaeger. It tells Oher’s story in his own words, describing his childhood and teen years up to his rookie season in the NFL. His story was first brought to the public’s attention in Michael Lewis’s book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, published in 2006. This book was made... Read I Beat the Odds Summary
I Love Yous are for White People is a memoir by Vietnamese-American Lac Su, published in 2009 by HarperCollins. This guide refers to the first US edition. The title paraphrases Pa, the author’s emotionally distant and abusive father, who rebuffs his son’s declaration of love at the age of 14. Su writes in simple prose and organizes the material chronologically, relying on the power of his experiences as a young immigrant in Los Angeles to... Read I Love Yous are For White People Summary
Originally published in 1972, in the same month as his premature death at 53 years old, I Never Had It Made is the autobiography of Major League Baseball legend, businessman, and political activist Jackie Robinson. Written chronologically, from Robinson’s first-person perspective, I Never Had It Made is broken down into two sections: “The Noble Experiment,” detailing Robinson’s early life, military years, athletic career, and his breaking of Major League Baseball’s so-called color line; and “After... Read I Never Had It Made Summary
In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer is a memoir written by Irene Gut Opdyke with help from historical-fiction author Jennifer Armstrong. The book details Opdyke’s experience as a young Polish woman who rescued Jews from the Holocaust during World War II. Armstrong explains in a note at the end of the book that she constructed the narrative after countless hours interviewing Opdyke. For the purpose of this study guide, Opdyke is referred to... Read In My Hands Summary
In the Country We Love: My Family Divided (2016) is a memoir by American actress Diane Guerrero (with Michelle Burford). The narrative chronicles how the US government deported Guerrero’s undocumented parents to Colombia when she was 14 years old. The title emphasizes the author’s patriotism, which she projects onto her parents and the undocumented community more broadly with the use of the plural. Guerrero writes in simple prose and organizes the material chronologically, relying on... Read In the Country We Love Summary
Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart is a work of nonfiction by neurosurgeon and philanthropist Dr. James R. Doty. It is at once a memoir, a self-help book, and a work of popular science; Doty draws on his professional knowledge to explain the scientific underpinnings of meditative practices like visualization, while also exploring the transformative effect these practices can have on... Read Into the Magic Shop Summary
Just Kids, a memoir written by American musician Patti Smith and winner of the 2010 National Book Award for Nonfiction, documents Smith's relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The memoir begins in Smith and Mapplethorpe's childhood, and moves through their young adulthood in the late 1960s and 1970s in New York City. Just Kids begins and ends with Smith learning of Mapplethorpe's death from AIDS in 1989. Raised in "rural South Jersey" (23), the oldest... Read Just Kids Summary
Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa is the true account of the life of Mark (born Johannes) Mathabane, a South African tennis player who grew up during apartheid. The autobiography, published in 1986, describes Mathabane’s poverty-stricken childhood in Alexandra, a black ghetto into which hundreds of thousands of blacks were crammed into sub-standardized housing. During his childhood, the author’s family is subjected to constant police... Read Kaffir Boy Summary
Professor Hope Jahren’s 2016 memoir, Lab Girl, chronicles the author’s life and experience as a geobiologist. The memoir contains three parts, each spanning a major period in Jahren’s life. Autobiographical chapters are followed by brief, lyrical chapters examining various plants and their habits. These chapters on plants contain extensive use of personification, relating plant experience to that of humans.Part 1, “Roots and Leaves,” spans Jahren’s childhood to her first teaching job.The author grows up in... Read Lab Girl Summary
Published in 1990, Lakota Woman is a memoir by Mary Crow Dog, member of the Brule Tribe of the Western Sioux and activist in the American Indian Movement. Crow Dog’s book recounts her increased awareness of the subjugation of her people and of women within her own tribe. It also discusses how poverty, alcoholism, and crime on the reservations are the inevitable results of government regulations that have oppressed and dehumanized Native Americans, forcing them... Read Lakota Woman Summary
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, by Immaculée Ilibagiza is an autobiography published in 2006. Immaculée is a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which lasted from April to July that year. During this 100-day period, it is estimated that nearly a million Tutsis were killed by Hutus, the tribe that comprised the majority of Rwanda’s population at that time. Immaculée is a Tutsi and a 22-year-old college student when the genocide... Read Left To Tell Summary
Life on the Mississippi is a powerful narrative concerning the past, present, and future of the Mississippi River, including its towns, peoples, and ways of life. The narrative is written by Mark Twain, whose real name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Twain explains in the narrative how he “stole” this nickname from an old steamboat captain who was also a writer. Mark Twain is a nautical term and a pilot’s phrase that means “two fathoms.” Two... Read Life on the Mississippi Summary
Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela tells the life story of South Africa’s first post-apartheid president. Mandela rose to the leadership of the antiapartheid struggle to become one of the 20th century’s most iconic world leaders. He began writing the book in prison in 1975, and it was published in 2004.Mandela was born in rural South African in 1918. As a child, he was destined to become a royal advisor, but the... Read Long Walk to Freedom Summary
Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison is a personal memoir published in 2007. Like Temple Grandin’s Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism and Daniel Tammet’s Born on a Blue Day, Robison’s memoir is a personal account of living with autism spectrum disorder. A New York Times best-seller, the book has subsequently been translated into French, Italian, Portuguese, and German.Look Me in the Eye details Robison’s life growing... Read Look Me In The Eye Summary
Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route is a nonfiction work in which US literature scholar Saidiya Hartman journeys to Ghana to explore the history of slavery and her ancestry. The book is unique because it is an admission of failure as much as a description of her findings. She concludes that, as an African American, one cannot return to one’s roots because slavery has erased them. Content Warning: The source text... Read Lose Your Mother Summary
Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive is Stephanie Land’s first book. Land is a former professional house cleaner whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. Her writing explores issues related to systemic poverty, the hardships and stigmas associated with social services, surviving in the gig economy, and the challenges of motherhood. Maid was originally inspired by a Vox article she wrote about... Read Maid Summary
Nathan McCall’s 1994 autobiography, Makes Me Wanna Holler, is about growing up in a working-class black section of Portsmouth, Virginia in the 1960s and 1970s. McCall was a smart boy, but despite a strong family unit and a caring community, he fell into crime. From a young age, he was tormented by racism. He recounts violent racism when attending an integrated elementary school, a depressing level of inequality of opportunity when looking for work as... Read Makes Me Wanna Holler Summary
Man’s Search for Meaning details the author, Victor Frankl’s experience in a concentration camp and his attempts to overcome and understand the trauma of that experience. The book is in three parts: I. Experiences in a Concentration Camp; II. Logotherapy in a Nutshell; and III. Postscript 1984: The Case for Tragic Optimism.Victor Frankl was born in 1905 and later became a psychiatrist in Vienna. Although he was Jewish, Frankl was protected from arrest by the Nazis... Read Man's Search for Meaning Summary
Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog (2005) is an autobiography by journalist John Grogan. This guide is based on the 2005 first edition. The story was inspired by the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Grogan’s obituary for his dog Marley.The book was adapted into a full-length film in 2008 and has also been adapted into a series of children’s stories about Marley. The title is borrowed from a chapter near the... Read Marley And Me Summary
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed (2019) is a nonfiction book by American writer and psychotherapist, Lori Gottlieb. A combination of memoir and popular science, it brings together Gottlieb’s personal life experience and her therapeutic work to illuminate the role therapy can play in everyone’s lives. The work has become a New York Times bestseller and Time magazine Must-Read Book of the Year. It was shortlisted for... Read Maybe You Should Talk to Someone Summary
In her 2013 memoir Men We Reaped, Jesmyn Ward pays tribute to five young Black men from her hometown of DeLisle, Mississippi. She honors each man’s life and death in individualized chapters and explores her own personal and family history as she navigates the complex experiences of grief. Ward seeks to understand the forces that led to each man’s death and chronicle the impact of their deaths on her life and community.Ward begins her memoir... Read Men We Reaped Summary
Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali is a work of narrative nonfiction written by Kris Holloway and published in 2006. Told through Holloway’s perspective, the book recounts the incredible life and death of a young Malian woman named Monique Dembele and her unlikely friendship with Holloway, who came to Mali as a young American woman serving in the Peace Corps in 1989.The book follows Monique, a midwife who strives... Read Monique and the Mango Rains Summary
Sonia Sotomayor (b. June 25, 1954) is an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Born and raised in the Bronx, NY to Puerto Rican parents, she graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude in 1976 and Yale University’s law school in 1979. After four and a half years working as an assistant district attorney in New York City, she joined Pavia & Harcourt, a small Manhattan law firm, eventually becoming a partner. In... Read My Beloved World Summary
Frederick Douglass’s memoir My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), published a decade after the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), is his revision of his original narrative. According to historian and Douglass scholar, David W. Blight, it may be the greatest slave narrative ever written. Written during a period after Douglass had attained freedom, it is more revealing than his first memoir and more politically sophisticated. Douglass was older and better educated when... Read My Bondage and My Freedom Summary
My Friend Dahmer is a graphic novel/memoir by American cartoonist and writer Derf Backderf, known for utilizing darkness and shading in his comic strips and graphic novels. Evolving from a 24-page cartoon created in 2002, My Friend Dahmer (2012) depicts the author’s memories of his high school friend, notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, in novelistic form—exploring the ways Dahmer himself could have been helped and his 17 murders prevented. The graphic novel was adapted into... Read My Friend Dahmer Summary
My Losing Season is a 2002 memoir by author Pat Conroy. The book largely chronicles Conroy’s senior season as the starting point guard and captain of the 1966-67 Citadel Bulldogs basketball team. The value of losing is the book’s overarching theme, and the author’s coming-of-age is a strong secondary theme. Conroy’s relationship with his abusive father, his love of basketball, and his team’s rapport with its authoritarian coach are the central focuses throughout the memoir... Read My Losing Season Summary
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an autobiography by Frederick Douglass that was first published in 1845. Douglass escaped from slavery in 1838 and became a prominent abolitionist, orator, and writer. His autobiography describes his experiences under slavery and his eventual freedom. The book was widely read and influenced public opinion in favor of the abolition of slavery. It remains one of the most read memoirs from the antebellum period. The autobiography includes... Read Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Summary
Newjack is a nonfiction book written by Ted Conover. Conover, a journalist, spends a year as a correction officer in Sing Sing Prison and keeps a detailed record of events in a spiral notebook. The story takes place largely at Sing Sing, a historic prison located in Ossining, New York. Sing Sing is a palimpsest of structures dating back to the 1800s: spread across fifty-five acres, the prison includes massive cell blocks, a solitary-housing unit... Read Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing Summary
Nisei Daughter recounts Monica Sone’s childhood in Seattle’s Japanese American community and her experience in the internment camps that housed residents of Japanese ethnicity between 1942 and 1946. The memoir, which has become a seminal text in Asian American studies, was first published in 1953 and then republished in 1979 and 2014, each time with an introduction that reframes the work in its context.The memoir begins with Sone’s realization that she is “a Japanese” when... Read Nisei Daughter Summary
No Apparent Distress: A Doctor’s Coming of Age on the Front Lines of American Medicine is author Rachel Pearson’s 2017 account of her intensive medical education and the initial years of her career as a physician. She focuses on stories that illustrate her themes of medical ethics, regret, depression, bias against the poor, and racism. Rather than bogging the reader down in medical jargon, Pearson uses anecdotes to convey her experiences to a layman audience.Pearson... Read No Apparent Distress Summary
Stephen King’s 2000 memoir, On Writing, details King’s formation as an author and provides writing advice. The memoir is divided into five sections: “C.V.,” “What Writing Is,” “Toolbox,” “On Writing,” and “On Living.”In “C.V.,” King provides a curriculum vitae describing how he was formed as a writer. He begins in his early childhood and describes his life with his mother, Nellie, and older brother, David. King’s father is not in the picture, and the family... Read On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft Summary
Piper Kerman’s 2010 memoir, Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, chronicles the 13 months she spent in a federal women’s prison in Danbury, Connecticut. In 2013, Netflix adapted the memoir into an original series featuring the experiences of fictional character Piper Chapman. The memoir follows a linear timeline, starting with the crime Kerman unknowingly commits right after college, the process leading up to the sentencing, and her time in Danbury... Read Orange Is The New Black Summary
Permanent Record is the memoir of Edward Snowden, released in 2019. Snowden is a former intelligence contractor who worked for the CIA and NSA. In 2013, he became a world-famous whistleblower, leaking highly classified documents which detailed how American intelligence agencies were conducting secret mass surveillance of their own citizens. The book begins with a description of Snowden’s childhood. He is raised by parents who work for the government and eventually move to the Beltway... Read Permanent Record Summary
Though the book moves around to some degree, the three parts are loosely divided by time period. Part I describes Wolff’s life prior to joining the military, his reasons for doing so, and his experiences in the relatively safe and quiet Delta up to the Tet Offensive. Part II is about his life following Tet, up to his return to the United States. Part III describes his adjustment back into civilian life. Chapter 1, “Thanksgiving... Read In Pharaoh's Army Summary
Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption is a 2009 memoir written by Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino. The coauthors share a unique relationship. When she was 22, Jennifer mistakenly identified Ronald as the man who raped her in her apartment. He was wrongfully convicted and spent 11 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA testing. Together, they tell their story, which explores themes of Victimization, Guilt, and Shame; The Unreliability of Eyewitness... Read Picking Cotton Summary
In 2008, Francisco Jiménez published Reaching Out, the third in his series of autobiographical memoirs for young adults. The first two books in the series chart Jiménez’s childhood and teenage years as the son of Mexican immigrants in southern California. Reaching Out starts in 1962 as Francisco (known as Frank) travels with his family to the campus of Santa Clara University to begin college. Attending university is a hard-won blessing for Frank, the fruit of... Read Reaching Out Summary
Michelle Kuo’s memoir, Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship, was published in 2017 to high acclaim. Kuo has won numerous fellowships and awards for her work in teaching, writing, and law. In addition to her memoir, she has also published essays and articles. She is currently an associate professor at American University in Paris where, since 2015, she has taught in its History, Law, and Society department.In the mid-2000s, Michelle... Read Reading with Patrick Summary
Redefining Realness is the 2014 memoir of Janet Mock, the editor of People.com who came out in 2011 as a trans woman via a Marie Claire profile. The book is a work of creative nonfiction, chronicling Mock’s trajectory from a lonely and unhappy child who does not feel understood to a fiercely independent and self-motivated young adult. Since her disclosure in 2011, Mock has become a prominent trans advocate who people respect for her honesty... Read Redefining Realness Summary
When Bill Browder’s 2015 nonfiction book Red Notice begins, he is a naive investor; when it ends, he is a crusader for human rights. In between is a narrative of ambition, greed, corruption, violence, death, and, finally, retribution and justice. Red Notice chronicles the life of a financier and his quest to repair the terrible damage done to him and his business team by Russian operatives, and, most of all, to get justice for Sergei... Read Red Notice Summary
Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution (1997) by Ji-li Jiang covers two and a half years in the author’s life, from the spring of 1966 when she was 12 years old to the fall of 1968 when she was 14 (although the Cultural Revolution continued until Mao Ze-dong’s death in 1976). The memoir is also Jiang’s coming-of-age story, as it focuses on a key time in her adolescent development. This study guide... Read Red Scarf Girl Summary
Riding the Bus With My Sister: A True Life Journey is the New York Times bestselling author Rachel Simon’s 2002 memoir chronicling her experiences with her intellectually disabled sister, Beth. Over the course of a year, Simon rides the bus with Beth and writes about the journey. She learns to confront her own ignorance about her sister’s condition and forms a close bond with her. The book chronicles Rachel’s emotional and spiritual growth, as Rachel’s... Read Riding The Bus With My Sister Summary
Shoe Dog is a first-person memoir written by Nike co-founder Phil Knight. It was published in 2016. Shoe Dog primarily recounts the events from 1962, the year Knight traveled around the world as a young man, to 1980, the year Nike went public and Knight became a multimillionaire. The years in between are comprised of the struggles and challenges Knight faced as he worked to build the company that would ultimately be known worldwide as... Read Shoe Dog Summary
Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County is a 2015 nonfiction book by Kristen Green about the closing of public schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia from 1959 to 1964, following the 1954 United States Supreme Court ruling that school segregation is unconstitutional. During the five years the public schools were closed, black students in Prince Edward County largely went uneducated while a new private school for whites, Prince Edward Academy, opened. The book... Read Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County Summary
Son of the Revolution (1983), written by Liang Heng with his wife, Judith Shapiro, is a memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and is both the story of Liang’s own coming-of-age and a chronicle of China’s political and cultural upheaval following the Communist Party’s rise to power in the mid-1900s.Content Warning: The source material and this guide contain references to violence and death by suicide.Liang Heng is born in Changsha, a large city in central... Read Son of the Revolution Summary
After his brother Lenny joins the Marine Corps, Williams dreams of following in his footsteps. When Lenny dies a few years later, Williams joins the Marine Reserves. For a year he serves as a “weekend warrior,” while attending college, until, in August of 1990, Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Army invades Kuwait. Williams’s unit is activated in November and he is forced to leave college and go to war.Through training, deployment, and eventually combat, Williams journeys toward... Read Spare Parts Summary
Stealing Buddha’s Dinner is a memoir by Bich Minh Nguyen that tells the story of her childhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan as a young Vietnamese refugee. Bich’s family, made up of her father; her grandmother, Noi; her sister, Anh; and her uncles, Chu Anh, Chu Cuong, and Chu Dai; flee to the United States from Vietnam in April 1975, just as Saigon is falling to the North Vietnamese. Her mother is left behind, and the... Read Stealing Buddha's Dinner Summary
Storm of Steel, written by Ernst Jünger, is a memoir of World War I first published in German as In Stahlgewittern in 1920. The final revised edition came in 1961 and was translated into English in 1978. The book documents Jünger’s account as a German officer on the Western Front and begins the moment Jünger detrains in France, on December 27, 1914, at the age of 19. As the Introduction says: “It has no pacifist... Read Storm of Steel Summary
In 1933, Vera Brittain’s honest and compelling account of her young adult experiences during World War I appeared in the form of an autobiography titled Testament of Youth. This important work of British literature became an immediate sensation upon publication in both England and the United States. Full of poetry and excerpts from personal letters, this deeply personal account of Brittain’s life from 1914 to 1925 documents the impact of World War I on Brittain... Read Testament of Youth Summary
Writer and professor Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, originally published in 2015, is a work of “autotheory”— it combines Nelson’s personal experiences of marriage and motherhood with reflections on the writing process, queer and feminist theory, and psychoanalysis and developmental psychology. This blending of genres gives the book its unconventional form; unlike a more traditional memoir, The Argonauts jumps backwards and forwards in Nelson’s life as she explores ideas and images related to pregnancy, sexuality, identity... Read The Argonauts Summary
The Autobiography of Malcolm X is a nonfiction memoir published in 1965 by American human rights activist Malcolm X, in collaboration with American author Alex Haley. The book is the result of numerous interviews Haley conducted in the two years leading up to Malcolm’s assassination in February 1965. It covers Malcolm’s upbringing in Michigan, his career as a burglar and drug dealer in New York and Boston, his conversion to Islam in prison, his involvement... Read The Autobiography of Malcolm X Summary
The Basketball Diaries: The Classic About Growing Up Hip On New York’s Mean Streets is an autobiography written by Jim Carroll and published in 1978. The book comprises a series of short diary entries which serve as anecdotes and insights into his daily life as a teenager on the streets of New York City in the 1960s. Jim Carroll became a celebrated writer and poet, overcoming his addiction to heroin in the mid-1970s and publishing... Read The Basketball Diaries Summary
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Beautiful Struggle, published in 2009, is the writer’s memoir of his childhood and early teenage years. It is a true bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story, but it also is a character study of Coates’s father, and secondarily, of his brother Big Bill. The book profiles Coates’s experiences growing up in various Baltimore neighborhoods with a family always somewhat in flux, attending different schools as he matures into early adulthood. Coates’s first two chapters... Read The Beautiful Struggle Summary
The Color of Water is a nonfiction autobiography published in 1996 by the American author and musician James McBride. Subtitled A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, The Color of Water chronicles the author’s challenges growing up in the 1960s and 1970s as a child with a white Jewish mother and Black father. Interspersed with the author’s recollections are interview transcripts describing his mother’s abusive upbringing as an Orthodox Jewish woman living in the... Read The Color of Water Summary
The Distance Between Us is a 2012 memoir by Reyna Grande, who is also the author of the novels Across a Hundred Mountains and Dancing With Butterflies. A finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Award and required reading in schools and colleges across the country, The Distance Between Us is followed by A Dream Called Home, which continues the story of Grande’s life. In addition to writing, Grande also teaches and works as a... Read The Distance Between Us Summary
This memoir is a series of autobiographical vignettes that was composed over the span of two months (July-August, 1996) by Jean-Dominique Bauby, with the help of a publishing assistant named Claude. He dispatches from room 119 of the Naval Hospital at Berck-sur-Mer, France. The vignettes do not follow a chronological order, and interweave recollections of various eras in Bauby’s life with his contemporary reality. Bauby suffered a massive stroke on December 8, 1995 that left... Read The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Summary
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe is the nonfiction debut of American journalist and author, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, first published in 2011. It chronicles the story of Kamila Sidiqi, a young woman living under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, who became a fashion entrepreneur at a time when the rights of women were strictly limited. Lemmon traveled to Afghanistan to study... Read The Dressmaker of Khair Khana Summary
First published in Italy in 1986 as I sommersi e i salvati, The Drowned and the Saved, is a collection of eight essays by Primo Levi about his experiences in the concentration camp at Auschwitz. The book was translated into English in 1988 by Raymond Rosenthal. Some critics categorize The Drowned and the Saved as a memoir, while others believe it to be an autobiography; still other critics name this book a treatise in which... Read The Drowned and the Saved Summary
The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild (2009) is a memoir by Lawrence Anthony, detailing his experiences with rehabilitating a traumatized herd of elephants on his game reserve in South Africa. The book explores themes of bonding and communicating with animals, the inherent interconnectedness of nature, and the challenges of conservation efforts.Anthony was an internationally renowned conservationist and environmentalist. He was the co-owner and head of conservation at the Thula... Read The Elephant Whisperer Summary
Siddhartha Mukherjee’s book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, is nothing less than an account of the 4,000-year quest to understand and treat cancer, a malady that continues to plague us over the centuries. Mukherjee, an Indian-American oncologist and author, received a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for the 2010 work. The autobiography opens with Mukherjee’s fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he treats a 31-year-old mother named Carla Reed, who has... Read The Emperor of All Maladies Summary
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After is a 2018 memoir by Clemantine Wamariya, who at age six escaped the Rwandan genocide of 1994 with her older sister Claire. The memoir, which is co-authored by Elizabeth Weil, follows a dual narrative that alternates between scenes from Wamariya’s journey through seven African countries and from her life in America, where she moved in 2000. Wamariya describes the dehumanization of refugees... Read The Girl Who Smiled Beads Summary
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story, is Hyeonseo Lee’s 2015 autobiography. Lee leaves North Korea shortly before her eighteenth birthday. She does not intend to defect. She has received a lifetime of propaganda and truly believes her country is the best in the world. She is simply a curious child who wanted to see China, and intends to return to North Korea within days. Once in China, however, she is exposed... Read The Girl with Seven Names Summary
The Glass Castle is a nonfiction memoir published in 2005 by the American journalist Jeannette Walls. The book chronicles Walls and her three siblings’ nomadic and impoverished upbringing by their severely maladjusted parents. An enormous critical and popular success, The Glass Castle remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for 260 weeks in hardcover and 440 weeks in paperback. In 2017, director Destin Daniel Cretton adapted the book into a film starring Brie... Read The Glass Castle Summary
The Happiest Refugee is a 2010 autobiography by Vietnamese-born, Australian author, actor, comedian, and artist Anh Do. Following his journey from a perilous escape from Communist-ruled Vietnam as a toddler with his large family, to his working-class childhood in Australia where he struggled to fit into the predominantly white society, to his rise as one of Australia’s most sought-after comedians and motivational speakers, The Happiest Refugee is considered one of the most well-received stories of... Read The Happiest Refugee Summary
Kao Kalia Yang was born in Thailand’s Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in 1980 and immigrated to St. Paul, Minnesota when she was six years old. She is agraduate of Carleton College and Columbia University and co-founder of Words Wanted, an organization committed to helping immigrants with writing, translating, and business services.In her memoir, The Latehomecomer (2008), Yang explores what it means to be Hmong. By remembering her time in Thailand’s Ban Vinai Refugee camp, and... Read The Latehomecomer Summary
The Liars’ Club is a memoir by Mary Karr and was first published in 1995. It won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for nonfiction and was a New York Times bestseller.The subject of the memoir is Karr’s turbulent childhood. Karr and her older sister Lecia grew up in Leechfield, Texas and lived briefly in Colorado. Their father was a World War II veteran who worked at an oil refinery and came from a modest Texan background... Read The Liars' Club Summary
The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border by Francisco Cantú is a work of literary nonfiction published in 2018. It was a New York Times best-seller, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Nonfiction Award, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Current Interest, and was named a Top 10 Book of 2018 by NPR and The Washington Post. The book combines memoir with history, anthropology, sociology, and psychology to... Read The Line Becomes a River Summary
The Long Loneliness, by Dorothy Day, is a memoir about Day’s lifelong relationship with Christianity, and how it pulled her away from communism and socialism toward a movement that combined political theory with Christian love and community. The memoir also tells the story about how her devotion to Catholicism allowed her to meet Peter Maurin, another devoted Catholic and liberal who created part of the theoretical basis of the Catholic Worker Movement.Day begins her book... Read The Long Loneliness Summary
The Lost Boy is the sequel to Dave Pelzer’s first memoir, A Child Called “It,” which tells the story of how he was severely abused by his mother as a young child. In The Lost Boy, Pelzer recounts how he is finally removed from his parents’ custody and placed in foster care. After years of neglect and abuse, David struggles to adjust to his new living situations and the uncertainty that comes with the life... Read The Lost Boy Summary
The Motorcycle Diaries is, as its title suggests, a record of a motorcycle journey, based on a diary by its author – a young Argentinian medical student – kept during the trip. What makes it remarkable isthat the young medical student who wrote it was Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna, now known as a leader of the Cuban revolution, a guerrilla strategist, a Cuban government official, and a fomenter of revolution in the Congo... Read The Motorcycle Diaries Summary
The Other Side of the Sky is the memoir of Farah Ahmedi, written with Tamim Ansary. The following summary and analysis is based on the 2005 paperback edition published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Ahmedi was born in Afghanistan in 1987 at the height of the war with the Soviet Union. She came to the US in 2002, when she was 14. She had only been in the US a... Read The Other Side of the Sky Summary
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates (2010) is a narrative nonfiction story that chronicles the lives of two young black men who share the same name: Wes Moore. The author was inspired to write this story because of this fact and their similar start in Baltimore, Maryland. While one Wes Moore was sentenced to life in prison, the writer Wes Moore became a Rhodes Scholar and a best-selling author. Moore’s purpose in writing... Read The Other Wes Moore Summary
Władysław Szpilman writes his 1946 memoir, The Pianist, about his experiences in Poland during World War II. Before the war, he is a well-known pianist and composer who works with Radio Poland. When the Germans invade Poland in September 1930, Władysław and his family are relegated to the Warsaw ghetto. Though not as wealthy as some of the other inhabitants of the ghetto, Władysław is part of the intelligentsia, a class of artists and intellectuals... Read The Pianist Summary
The Pillow Book is a collection of reflections written by Japanese gentlewoman Sei Shonagon as a kind of journal during the 990s and early 1000s. Though her world would have been familiar to her audience, which experienced her reflections only after they were unintentionally released, parts of The Pillow Book may seem opaque to 21st-century readers unfamiliar with Japan’s 11th-century Heian court.Even so, Shonagon’s vivid descriptions of nature, her fascination with royal spectacle, and her... Read The Pillow Book Summary
The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood is a memoir published in 2014 by Richard Blanco, President Barack Obama’s inaugural poet. Blanco describes his childhood living in Miami with parents and grandparents who’d immigrated to America from Cuba. It offers a picture of his family’s nostalgia for Cuba and his simultaneous struggle to relate to a world he’s never seen. His book recounts his quest to reconcile his Cuban heritage with his American upbringing... Read The Prince of Los Cocuyos Summary
Chris Gardner’s memoir, The Pursuit of Happyness, details his pursuit of the American Dream and desire to rise against the challenging circumstances of his birth and attain success. From the outset, life is difficult for Gardner, a poor black child growing up in the Milwaukee ghetto with his mother, sisters and violent, abusive stepfather, Freddie. Gardner’s mother, Bettye Jean, had her own dreams taken away from her, when her father refused to pay for her... Read The Pursuit of Happyness Summary
The Quiet Room: A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness is a 1994 memoir that chronicles the years-long struggle of Lori Schilling, a bright, promising, high-achieving Jewish woman, born to affluent parents and afflicted with schizophrenia. Ultimately, Schilling will emerge triumphant from her journey, which includes many stints, both voluntarily and involuntarily, in mental hospitals, several suicide attempts, and a constant battle with hallucinated voices that viciously assail Lori and bid her to kill... Read The Quiet Room Summary
The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing (1999) is the autobiography of Dr. Lori Arviso Alvord. It details her journey to become the first Navajo female surgeon, overcoming the challenges presented to her by her own Navajo culture as well as the prevailing stereotype at the time that only men could be surgeons. Along this journey, Lori realizes that western medicine is facing a crisis... Read The Scalpel and the Silver Bear Summary
Kao Kalia Yang’s The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father was published in 2016; this guide refers to the Kindle edition of the text. The book won the Minnesota Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Chautauqua Prize. The Song Poet presents the story of Kalia’s father, Bee Yang, as an artist and a song poet.Song poetry is a traditional form of Hmong art. The Hmong... Read The Song Poet Summary
In her autobiography, The Story of My Life, Helen Keller recounts her early childhood through to her college years, outlining the various wonders and struggles she encountered on the way to achieving her dream. Growing up in a small Alabama town, Keller suffers an illness just shy of her second birthday which robs her of her eyesight and hearing. She finds herself isolated due to her disabilities and her inability to communicate or be understood... Read The Story of My Life Summary
The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row, is a 2018 memoir written by Anthony Ray Hinton (with cowriter Lara Love Hardin)—a man who spent nearly three decades on death row in Alabama. For his book and for subsequent activism to fight the death penalty at large, public figures from Desmond Tutu to Richard Branson praised Hinton's efforts. Hinton is now a renowned speaker on prison reform, forgiveness, and hope... Read The Sun Does Shine Summary
The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative is a 2003 nonfiction book written by American Canadian novelist Thomas King. King describes the roles storytelling plays in the Native American tradition, his own life, and the world in general. He argues that the stories we all tell really are all that we are as people, and that Native American storytelling has too often been seen as primitive because of the power dynamic between whites and indigenous... Read The Truth About Stories Summary
First published in 1972, novelist Pat Conroy’s book, The Water Is Wide: A Memoir, recounts his experiences teaching on an island off the South Carolina coast. Plot SummaryA young teacher, Pat considers the Vietnam War to be unjust and intends to join the Peace Corps in order to avoid being drafted. When he does not hear back about his application, he volunteers to teach on Yamacraw Island instead. In his first week, Pat is shocked... Read The Water Is Wide Summary
The Woman Warrior (1976) is an experimental memoir by Chinese-American author Maxine Hong Kingston. The book weaves together stories of Kingston’s childhood in California and her mother’s youth in rural China with folklore, legend, and myth, defying easy genre classification.The book is divided into five parts. In the first, “No-Name Woman,” Kingston imagines different life stories for an aunt she never met—a woman who drowned herself and her baby after being expelled from her village... Read The Woman Warrior Summary
They Cage the Animals at Night is an autobiographical work by Jennings Michael Burch, published by Berkley in 1984. The bestselling memoir follows a period in the childhood of Jennings Michael Burch in which he passed in and out of the American foster care system. Jennings is forced to cope with abusive and negligent foster homes as well as a family that is constantly on the verge of collapsing. Over the course of these years... Read They Cage the Animals at Night Summary
Cylin and John Busby’s The Year We Disappeared is a true crime memoir originally published in 2008. An expanded, 10th-anniversary edition was published in 2018. The book falls into both the memoir and true crime genres and is told from the perspective of the victims rather than a third party, such as a reporter. The Busby’s story was also featured on CBS’s newsmagazine, 48 Hours. It originally aired in 2010.Plot SummaryIn the summer of 1979... Read The Year We Disappeared Summary
The Yellow House is a nonfiction memoir published in 2019 by the American author Sarah M. Broom. In a narrative centered around her childhood home, “The Yellow House,” Broom chronicles the history of New Orleans through three generations of her family. The Yellow House won the 2019 National Book Award for Nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize for best debut book.Plot SummaryIn 1961, Broom's mother, Ivory Mae, becomes a widow at the... Read The Yellow House Summary
Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism (1995) is a scientific memoir by author Temple Grandin. Grandin is a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, where she fomented her specialized career as one of only a handful of livestock-handling equipment designers in the world. Thinking in Pictures narrates Grandin’s experiences as a world-renowned cattle handler, a professor, and a woman living with autism. Grandin fills each chapter with anecdotal stories and empirical research.Thinking... Read Thinking in Pictures Summary
Thirteen Days is Robert Kennedy’s personal account of the Cuban missile crisis.As the Attorney General of the United States and President’s Kennedy’s brother and most trusted confidant, Robert Kennedy played a significant role in that critical period. The first-person narrative is organized into titled sections, rather than chapters, and proceeds chronologically, describing the meetings, conversations, developments, and decisions that shaped the American response to the crisis.The chronicle begins on the morning of Tuesday, October 16... Read Thirteen Days Summary
Published in 1962, Travels With Charley: In Search of America is a narrative travelogue by John Steinbeck. The book follows a cross-country road trip the author took with his dog, a brown poodle named Charley. They travel in a camper-style pickup truck named Rosinante, which Steinbeck had custom built for the trip. Steinbeck embarked on the journey because he felt disconnected from the larger picture of American life after years of living in New York... Read Travels With Charley Summary
True Notebooks: A Writer's Year at Juvenile Hall is a 2003 nonfiction book by Mark Salzman. In the first three chapters, Salzman, currently writing his latest novel, and stuck, begins volunteering as a writing teacher at Central Juvenile Hall, in Los Angeles. Mark has little connection with the correctional system, and is ambivalent about taking on the role. The facility leaves a powerful impression on Mark; he decides that it might prove to be helpful... Read True Notebooks Summary
Nic Sheff’s 2007 memoir, Tweak, focuses on Nic’s early 20s, during which he experienced two serious relapses and attempts to recover and remain clean from drugs. Throughout the narrative, Nic reflects on his troubled youth and his early history with drugs and alcohol. The memoir comprises his recollections of events that transpired over the course of a number of years. Nic narrates his struggles in the present tense, allowing the reader to experience the relapses... Read Tweak Summary
Twelve Years a Slave is a memoir by Solomon Northup, a black man who was born free in New York and kidnapped by two men who sold him into slavery. Northup spent 12 years as a slave in the Deep South, encountering slave markets in Washington, DC and New Orleans and working on numerous cotton and sugar plantations throughout Louisiana. Northup narrated his memoir to American lawyer and writer David Wilson, who then edited Northup’s... Read Twelve Years a Slave Summary
Two or Three Things I Know for Sure is a 1995 memoir by American author and activist Dorothy Allison, a native of Greenville, South Carolina. A coming-of-age story that examines feminism and lesbian identity in the context of the patriarchal norms of the South, the book uses both narrative and photographs to tell the stories of the women in Allison’s family and their complex relationships with the men who both loved and abused them. Her... Read Two or Three Things I Know for Sure Summary
Unbowed, written by Wangari Maathai, is a memoir of the Kenyan politician and environmental activist who founded the Green Belt Movement. In 2004, Maathai became the first African woman and environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize. First published in 2006, the memoir describes Maathai’s path to activism, which was fueled by a familiarity with and fondness for the Kenyan landscape of her childhood, as well as an early awareness of social injustice. Maathai was born... Read Unbowed Summary
The book’s first part, “Incentives,” introduces the key conflict: Wiener, a 25-year-old Brooklyn native, desires “momentum” and fulfilment in her professional life but has tired of her job as an underpaid assistant at a Manhattan literary agency. After a brief stint at a New York e-book startup, she secures a customer support position at a mobile analytics company in San Francisco. She optimistically immerses herself in the workplace culture, shrugging off incidents of sexism, the... Read Uncanny Valley Summary
Content Warning: This study guide and the memoir contain references to antisemitism and violence, as well as descriptions of conditions in a concentration camp during the Nazi holocaust. Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968, a memoir by Heda Margolius Kovály, was first published under this title in 1986. The memoir was originally published in Czech as Na vlastní kůži (On your own skin) in 1973, by 68 Publishers, an independent press operated... Read Under a Cruel Star Summary
Published in 2020, Glennon Doyle’s Untamed is her third memoir. An accomplished writer, philanthropist, and activist, Doyle documents her lifelong journey of self-discovery and uses personal experiences to encourage women on their own respective journeys towards freedom. Through the intersections of gender, sexuality, religion, and race, Doyle unpacks the social conditioning that affects the lives of all humans, particularly women. Ultimately, Doyle offers a reflective guide to navigating life by looking internally and honoring one’s... Read Untamed Summary
Walden opens with Thoreau’s explanation of his two-year independent living project on Walden Pond, which spanned from 1845 to 1847. He illuminates his desire to live a solitary, simple life outside of civilization. Over the course of these two years, Thoreau describes his experiences including his immersion in nature, the process of growing his own food, and the pleasure he derives from contemplating the beauty of the woods. He also reflects on the most basic elements... Read Walden Summary
When Breath Becomes Air is a memoir by Paul Kalanithi. It was published in 2016. Kalanithi tells the story of his battle with cancer while being a practicing neurosurgeon. The book is organized chronologically, following the trajectory of his life from childhood to death, and is laced with deep philosophical thought and literary prose. His meditations combine the expertise of a professional with the experience of a patient, resulting in a book that communicates extremely... Read When Breath Becomes Air Summary
Chanrithy Him’s memoir, When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge, was first published in 2000. This study guide refers to the 2001 Kindle edition. In the text Him details her experiences as a young child in Cambodia. Him was only five when the autocratic communist Khmer Rouge took over the country, and she recounts the trauma she endured during the five years the regime remained in power. Him’s father was beaten to... Read When Broken Glass Floats Summary
The memoir When I Was Puerto Rican recounts author Esmeralda Santiago’s early years. It is the first of her three memoirs chronicling her childhood in Puerto Rico to her eventual residence in the United States. It is a coming of age story, but mines richer material than that. Questions of identity—national identity, hereditary identity, familial identity, female identity, spiritual identity, and semantic labels—underpin the stories Santiago tells.The book begins in Puerto Rico, when Esmeralda is... Read When I Was Puerto Rican Summary
When They Call You a Terrorist is a nonfiction memoir published in 2018 by the American authors and activists Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele. Subtitled A Black Lives Matter Memoir, the book chronicles Cullors’s early life in Los Angeles and her role in cofounding Black Lives Matter, a decentralized racial justice movement established after George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the Trayvon Martin shooting. The book’s title refers to accusations of terrorism lobbed at Cullors and her... Read When They Call You a Terrorist Summary
E.B. Sledge’s memoir recounts his experiences fighting in the South Pacific during World War II. Serving in the First Marine Division, he was present at the some of the deadliest battles of that war. The book begins with the author’s experiences being trained as a new marine recruit, enduring boot camp and mortar man training. He then vividly describes his participation in two seminal conflicts of the Pacific campaign: Peleliu and Okinawa. Written in a... Read With the Old Breed Summary
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name is a biomythography concerning the coming-of-age of poet Audre Lorde (1934-1992). This work of creative nonfiction conflates the author’s memoir—which spans from the time of her birth to her early twenties—with West Indian mythology and stories, as well as the author’s own poetry. In this way, the work exists as something other than a simple autobiography, as it emphasizes the importance of dreams, stories, and songs within the... Read Zami: A New Spelling of My Name Summary