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Corrections in ink : a memoir
by Keri Blakinger
The former figure skater shares her journey from the ice rink to a life of addiction that led to a two-year prison sentence, getting sober and becoming a reporter dedicated to exposing our flawed prison system.
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Free : a child and a country at the end of history
by Lea Ypi
"A reflection on "freedom" in a dramatic, beautifully written memoir of the end of Communism in the Balkans. Lea Ypi grew up in the last Stalinist country in Europe: Albania, a place of queuing and scarcity, of political executions and secret police. While family members disappeared to what she was told were "universities" from which few "graduated", she swore loyalty to the Party. In her eyes, people were equal, neighbors helped each other, and children were expected to build a better world. Then the statues of Stalin and Hoxha were toppled. Almost overnight, people could vote and worship freely and invest in hopes of striking it rich. But factories shut, jobs disappeared and thousands fled to Italy, only to be sent back. Pyramid schemes bankrupted the country, leading to violence. One generation's dreams became another's disillusionment. As her own family's secrets were revealed, Lea found herself questioning what "freedom" really means. With acute insight and wit, Lea Ypi traces the perils of ideology, and what people need to flourish"
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Blackbird : a childhood lost and found
by Jennifer Lauck
A poignant autobiography describes growing up in Carson City, Nevada, during the 1970s, the shattering effects of tragedy--loss, loneliness, mistreatment--on her family, and her own indomitable will to survive.
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Life undercover : coming of age in the CIA
by Amaryllis Fox
A chronicle of an extraordinary life, and of one woman's courage and passion, follows the author as she spends 10 years in the most elite clandestine ops unit of the CIA, hunting down the world's most dangerous terrorist while marrying and becoming a mother.
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A mind unraveled : a memoir
by Kurt Eichenwald
The New York Times best-selling author of The Informant traces the decades he spent fighting and hiding the symptoms of epilepsy, a battle involving severe depression, and medical mistakes before a dedicated neurologist helped him to survive and thrive
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I was told to come alone : my journey behind the lines of jihad
by Souad Mekhennet
The Washington Post national security correspondent who broke the "Jihadi John" story draws on her personal experience as a multicultural woman with unique access to the world of jihad to share insights into the rise of Islamic radicalism and the gap between the Muslim world and the West.
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Driving Miss Norma : one family's journey saying "yes" to living
by Tim Bauerschmidt
A full-length memoir based on the popular Facebook page of the same name chronicles the remarkable cross-country journey of the effervescent 90-year-old Miss Norma, who in the face of terminal illness embarked on a transformative road trip with her son, daughter-in-law and giant poodle.
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John Adams
by David G. McCullough
Chronicles the life of America's second president, including his youth, his career as a Massachusetts farmer and lawyer, his marriage to Abigail, his rivalry with Thomas Jefferson, and his influence on the birth of the United States
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The sound of gravel : a memoir
by Ruth Wariner
An account of the author's coming-of-age in a polygamist Mormon Doomsday cult describes her childhood on a Mexico hills farm as one of her father's more than 40 welfare-dependent children, the extreme religious beliefs that haunted her daily life and her escape in the aftermath of a devastating tragedy.
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Between the world and me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Told through the author's own evolving understanding of the subject over the course of his life comes a bold and personal investigation into America's racial history and its contemporary echoes.
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The Trip to Echo Spring : on Writers and Drinking
by Olivia Laing
Examines the connection between creativity and alcohol by traveling to locales well-loved by six of America's greatest writers, who were also alcoholics, including John Cheever's New York, Tennessee Williams' New Orleans and Ernest Hemingway's Key West.
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A fort of nine towers : an Afghan family story
by Qais Akbar Omar
This memoir from a carpet designer in Kabul describes his childhood before the Mujahedin took over, being kidnapped, camping in caves and his employing neighborhood girls while teaching them literature and science in his secret shop under Taliban rule.
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The spy who loved : the secrets and lives of Christine Granville
by Clare Mulley
"Documents the story of a first British female agent in World War II, providing coverage of her mixed heritage, daring missions in numerous countries, significant intelligence contributions and subsequent murder by an obsessive colleague. By the award-winning author of The Woman Who Saved the Children."
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Why be happy when you could be normal?
by Jeanette Winterson
The author of the best-selling Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit traces her life-long search for happiness as the adopted daughter of Pentecostal parents who raised her in a north England industrial town through practices of fierce control and paranoia, an experience that prompted her to search for her biological mother and turn for solace to the literary world.
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Townie : a memoir
by Andre Dubus
The author of House of Sand and Fog describes his childhood in a depressed Massachusetts mill town saturated with drugs and crime and his weekly visits with his father, an eminent author who taught on a college campus.
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The memory palace
by Mira Bartók
The Pushcart Prize-nominated daughter of piano prodigy Norma Herr describes how her sister and she were forced by their mother’s violent schizophrenic episodes to discontinue contact with her until the author’s debilitating injury changed her sense of the world and enabled a healing access to family artifacts.
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Making toast : a family story
by Roger Rosenblatt
The National Book Critics Circle Award-finalist author of Children of War describes how, after his adult daughter's sudden death, he and his wife moved in with their son-in-law and three grandchildren, quickly becoming reaccustomed to the world of small children and helping the family grieve and get on with life.
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Abigail Adams
by Woody Holton
In a narrative based on previously un-mined documents, an award-winning historian reveals that the perennially popular "Founding Mother" was: perfectly willing to disagree with her husband (and even countermand his orders), shrewd when investing the family fortune, and eager to correspond about men's subjugation of women.
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My Guantâanamo diary : the detainees and the stories they told me
by Mahvish Rukhsana Khan
An American attorney born to immigrants Afghan parents describes her outrage over the detainments at Guantanamo, her volunteer role as an interpreter for prisoners, and her insights into her Afghan heritage, American freedoms, and the plight of those who have been detained for years without trial.
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The eaves of heaven : a life in three wars
by Andrew X. Pham
A searing memoir by the award-winning author of Catfish and Mandala offers a portrait of his father's experiences over the course of three wars--the French occupation of Indochina, the World War II Japanese invasion, and the Vietnam War--as he captures the trials of everyday life in Vietnam amid the tragedy, violence, and turbulence of war.
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The beautiful struggle : father, two sons, and an unlikely road to manhood
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
An evocative memoir of family and growing up in the tough, violent world of Baltimore in the 1980s chronicles the relationship between the author and his father, a Vietnam vet and Black Panther affiliate, and his steadfast, if sometimes eccentric, campaign to keep his sons from falling victim to the seductive temptations of the streets.
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Heart in the right place
by Carolyn Jourdan
Describes how the author, a successful attorney who worked with some of America's most powerful people in Washington, D.C., returned to her Tennessee hometown to take on the job of receptionist at her father's tiny rural doctor's office while her mother recovered from a heart attack.
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A long way gone : memoirs of a boy soldier
by Ishmael Beah
In a heart-wrenching, candid autobiography, a human rights activist offers a firsthand account of war from the perspective of a former child soldier, detailing the violent civil war that wracked his native Sierra Leone and the government forces that transformed a gentle young boy into a killer as a member of the army.
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Unbowed : a memoir
by Wangari Maathai
The recipient of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize describes her life as a feminist, political activist, and environmentalist in Kenya, detailing her determination to receive an education despite the odds, her confrontations with the brutal Moi government, the 1977 establishment of the Green Belt Movement, her role in the transformation of Kenya's government, and her hope for the future.
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Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
by Azar Nafisi
Describes growing up in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the group of young women who came together at her home in secret every Thursday to read and discuss great books of Western literature, explaining the influence of Lolita, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, and other works on their lives and goals.
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Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire : Duchess of Devonshire
by Amanda Foreman
Provides a dramatic portrait of the colorful life of eighteenth-century British aristocrat Lady Georgiana Spencer, her roles as a society and political hostess, and her disastrous and profligate private life.
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Angela's ashes : a memoir
by Frank McCourt
The author recounts his childhood in Depression-era Brooklyn as the child of Irish immigrants who decide to return to worse poverty in Ireland when his infant sister dies.
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