|
|
Biography and Memoir November 2025 |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
| 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. |
|
| 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. |
|
Focus on: Native American Heritage Month
|
|
|
|
Kuleana : A Story of Family, Land, and Legacy in Old Hawai'i by Sara Kehaulani GooAn award-winning journalist's breathtaking story of unexpected homecomings, familial hardship, and fierce devotion to ancestry creates a refreshingly new narrative about Hawai‘i, its native people, and their struggle to hold on to their land and culture today.
|
|
| 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. |
|
| 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. |
|
|
|
We survived the night by Julian Brave NoiseCatBlends history, mythology, memoir, and reportage as it follows a man's journey to reclaim Indigenous identity and culture amid colonial erasure, exploring family, trauma, and Indigenous political and environmental movements across North America through an eclectic storytelling style.
|
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|
|
|
|