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Biography and Memoir November 2025 |
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| Girl Warrior: On Coming of Age by Joy HarjoFormer United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s latest book is equal parts memoir and inspirational guide addressed to young Native women. Accordingly, her story is imbued with lyricism, spirituality, and a call to embrace one’s creativity even in the face of the pain, despair, and injustice that many young Indigenous people frequently encounter. For another inspiring memoir that incorporates ethnic identity and creativity, try Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu. |
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Cudi: The Memoir by Scott "Kid Cudi" MescudiA raw, fearless memoir from the Grammy Award-winning artist, actor, and designer Kid Cudi about a kid from Cleveland. Written during a time of deep self-discovery, Cudi is a story of survival—through depression, addiction, isolation, and doubt. In his own words, Scott charts the journey back to himself, offering hard-earned lessons on vulnerability, reinvention, and the courage to keep going. Try this next: Most Dope: The Extraordinary Life of Mac Miller by Paul Cantor.
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| Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America by Beth MacyAuthor Beth Macy tells her life story framed within a recent visit to her hardscrabble Midwestern hometown. Although Macy’s childhood was marked by trauma, she remembers Urbana, Ohio, as a place where neighbors had each other’s backs, a situation since compromised by declining opportunities, opioid addiction, and social polarization. Try this next: Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild. |
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Vagabond: A Memoir by Tim CurryThere are few stars in Hollywood today that can boast the kind of resume Emmy award-winning actor Tim Curry has built over the past five decades. Now, in his memoir, Curry takes readers behind-the-scenes of his rise to fame from his early beginnings as a military brat with difficult family dynamics, to his formative years in boarding school and university, to the moment when he hit the stage for the first time. With the upcoming 50th anniversary of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and the 40th anniversary of "Clue," there’s never been a better time for Tim to share his story with the world. For another memoir about an actor's profound impact on the entertainment industry try, We Did OK, Kid by Anthony Hopkins.
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| Joyride by Susan OrleanCelebrated nonfiction author Susan Orlean chooses her own life as subject in Joyride. Orlean openly reveals her bumpy road through the often challenging life of a professional writer, including her years developing a strong journalistic voice, and as a bonus provides indispensable advice to aspiring writers throughout. For another work-centered memoir from a writer of nonfiction, try Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing by Robert A. Caro. |
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Focus on: Native American Heritage Month
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| Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie DiazMojave poet Natalie Diaz’s second volume of poetry draws details from her own life as an Indigenous American and spotlights themes and sentiments rooted in the Indigenous experience. Diaz employs sensual images to invoke American imperialism, Indigenous protest, assimilation, and desire, the latter of which she explores in numerous love poems that “buzz with erotic energy” (Booklist). For fans of: the socially aware poetry of Ada Limón. |
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| Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian's Journey Home by Chris La TrayMontana Poet Laureate Chris La Tray’s story is one of self-discovery in the face of resistance from one’s own family: La Tray’s father denied his Indigenous ancestry and refused to discuss it with his son. La Tray has spent the years since his father’s death as an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa and advocating for young people curious about where they come from. Try this next: From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle. |
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Whiskey Tender
by Deborah Jackson Taffa
In her thought-provoking debut named a Most Anticipated Book by Elle, The New York Times, and San Francisco Chronicle, Deborah Jackson Taffa, a member of the Quechan (Yuma) and Laguna Pueblo, recounts her fraught coming of age in the 1980s as a "Native girl in a northwestern New Mexico town where cowboys still hated Indians." Try this next: Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land by Toni Jensen.
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| Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity by Leah MyersLeah Myers, a Native American writer of mixed ethnicity, writes about embracing her Jamestown S’Klallam heritage as the last member of her family's bloodline using Pacific Northwest Native tradition to create a totem pole of her female ancestors in the form of spirit animals. For another memoir about family history complicated by multiracial identities, read We Take Our Cities with Us by Sorayya Khan. |
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Poet Warrior: A Memoir by Joy HarjoPoet Laureate Joy Harjo offers a vivid, lyrical, and inspiring call for love and justice in this contemplation of her trailblazing life. In the second memoir from the first Native American to serve as US poet laureate, Joy Harjo invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road. A musical, kaleidoscopic meditation, Poet Warrior reveals how Harjo came to write poetry of compassion and healing, poetry with the power to unearth the truth and demand justice. For further reading: Crazy Brave: A Memoir also by Harjo.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Forsyth County Public Library
660 W. Fifth St., Winston-Salem, NC 27101
336-703-2665forsythlibrary.org |
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