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Biography and Memoir November 2025 |
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| Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America by Jeff ChangBruce Lee’s arrival on the big screen was seismic, as recounted here by Asian American author Jeff Chang. Lee leveraged a potent mix of “magnetism and physical talents” (Kirkus Reviews) to gain renown as a martial arts teacher and later as an actor in Hong Kong and Hollywood, soon becoming the original Asian megastar. For fans of: The Golden Screen: The Movies That Made Asian America by Jeff Yang. |
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Run Like a Girl: A Memoir of Ambition, Resilience, and Fighting for Change
by Catherine McKenna
From Olympic dreams to the frontlines of politics and climate action, Run Like a Girl is a bold, unfiltered memoir from Catherine McKenna, Canada's former Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Known for leading the charge on Canada's carbon pricing plan and enduring sexist attacks as "Climate Barbie," McKenna shares an inspiring journey of reinvention, resilience, and defiance in the face of expectations.
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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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| 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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| 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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| Soft As Bones by Chyana Marie SageEssayist Chyana Marie Sage relates a harrowing tale of surviving severe poverty and sexual abuse at the hands of her drug-dealing father, a Woodland Cree tribe member from Alberta. As Sage entered adulthood and found therapy and writing, she gradually began to heal from her past and rescue a sense of hope and identity from the Canadian legacy of boarding schools, forced integration, and intergenerational trauma. “Readers will be as inspired as they are horrified” (Publishers Weekly). |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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