Biography and Memoir
May 2025

Recent Releases
Fahrenheit-182 : A Memoir
by Mark Hoppus

"This is the story of an angst-filled kid from the desert, navigating the chaos of his parents' bitter divorce and searching for his place in the world. Each move across the country was a chance to reinvent himself, switching identities from dork to gothto skate punk, and eventually meeting his best friend who just so happens to be his musical soulmate. With sharp humor and raw honesty, Fahrenheit-182 takes readers through Mark's formative years as a latchkey kid in the 1980s, hooked on punk rock, skateboards, and MTV. Along the way, Mark reflects on his lifelong battle with anxiety, his celebrated career with blink-182, and his public fight with cancer, in a voice that's both relatable and unmistakably his own"
The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward
by Melinda French Gates

In her bestselling blend of memoir and self-help, Melinda French Gates candidly reflects on some of the major transitions in her life (including becoming a parent and leaving the Gates Foundation) and offers guidance on how readers can navigate change and thrive. For fans of: What I Know For Sure by Oprah Winfrey.
Matriarch
by Tina Knowles

In her intimate and empowering debut, Tina Knowles, the mother of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Solange Knowles, recounts her coming of age in 1950s and '60s Texas, raising and influencing two Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriters, navigating love and heartbreak, and more. Try this next: Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou.
What Remains : the Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt
by Hannah Arendt

The German-Jewish political philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) is world-renowned for her work on totalitarianism, the human condition, and the banality of evil. Not many people know that she also wrote poems--yet the language of poetry, especially that of Goethe and Schiller, was a banister for Arendt's thinking throughout much of her adult life. Between 1923 and 1961, Arendt wrote seventy-four poems, many of them acting as signposts in her biography, marking moments of great joy, love, loss, melancholia, and remembrance. Now, for the first time in English, Samantha Rose Hill and Genese Grill present these intensely personal poems in chronological order, taking us from the zenith of the Weimar Republic to the Cold War, and from Marburg, Germany, to New York, New York
Focus on: Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month
Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve
by Drew Afualo

In her debut memoir/manifesto, influencer and podcaster Drew Afualo offers an impassioned and inspiring takedown of the patriarchy that's an "unapologetically energizing reading experience" (Kirkus Reviews). Try this next: Foolish: Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation by Sarah Cooper.
My Life: Growing Up Asian in America
by CAPE with an introduction by SuChin Pak

Featuring poetry, comics, essays, monologues, and more, this thought-provoking and intimate anthology compiled by the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE) offers 30 diverse firsthand accounts of the Asian American experience. Further reading: Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy; Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now by Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, and Philip Wang.
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
by Cathy Park Hong

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Korean American poet Cathy Park Hong's candid and thought-provoking essay collection blends memoir with cultural criticism and explores her complicated relationship with her identity. Try this next: Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl by Hyeseung Song; I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying by Youngmi Mayer.
Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit in
by Phuc Tran

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, author Phuc Tran and his family immigrated to America, winding up in a predominantly white small town in Pennsylvania. An outsider among his classmates, Tran found solace in punk music, classic literature, and skateboarding. Equal parts funny and affecting, Tran's coming-of-age memoir will resonate with fans of The High Desert: Black. Punk. Nowhere by James Spooner, and anyone who has ever struggled to fit in.
Don't see what you're looking for in our catalog? You can always make a purchase suggestion, or check our Interlibrary Loan system!
Phillipsburg Free Public Library
200 Broubalow Way
Phillipsburg, New Jersey 08865
908-454-3712
http://www.pburglib.org/