Recommended Biographie & Autobiographie Books

At the age of twenty-three, James Frey woke up on a plane to find his four front teeth had been knocked out. His nose was broken and there was a hole through his cheek. He had no idea where the plane was headed or what had happened over the preceding...

In a candid memoir, a successful entrepreneur traces his journey from growing up with an abusive stepfather, to life on the streets as a homeless man with a small toddler in tow, to his triumphant battle to the top as a self-made millionaire.

There is a passage early in Augusten Burroughs's harrowing and highly entertaining memoir, Running with Scissors, that speaks volumes about the author. While going to the garbage dump with his father, young Augusten spots a chipped, glass-top coffee...

A dramatic and entertaining memoir by the award-winning actor and director describes growing up with a schizophrenic mother and renowned actor father, looking at the various turning points in his life and exploring the world around him with humor,...

A memoir of the Gulf War by a front-line infantry Marine recounts his struggles with the conflict on the front lines, his girlfriend's infidelity, his battles with fear and suicide, his brushes with death, and his identity as a soldier and an...

The events of five years in the life of Augusten Burroughs, as recounted in a memoir that is both horrifying and mordantly funny, are so unbelievable, they make even the most outrageous episode of 'The Jerry Springer Show' seem rational by...

We've all got our idiosyncrasies when it comes to writing--a special chair we have to sit in, a certain kind of yellow paper we absolutely must use. To create this tremendously affecting memoir, Jean-Dominique Bauby used the only tool available to...

Clay Aiken, the undeniably talented American Idol runner up and self-proclaimed 'nerdy, geeky, momma's boy' (and boy, does he love to talk about his momma), has written a strange hybrid of memoir, self-help and religious testimony--and in spite of it...

Julia Child became a household name when she entered the lives of millions of Americans through our hearts and kitchens. Yet few know the richly varied private life that lies behind this icon, whose statuesque height and warmly enthused warble have...

Expecting nothing, a divorced, middle-aged woman from Missouri vacationing in Venice whimsically accepts a date with a man named Fernando and, miraculously, finds true love. Here she recalls the details of their rapid courtship, their marriage, and...

Presents the life and accomplishments of the sixth president of the United States.

Jean Harris belonged to the last generation of American women brought up to believe that all good girls get married. But instead she embarked upon a fourteen-year affair with Dr. Herman Tarnower, the charismatic man behind the famous Scarsdale Diet....

At an early age, Ruth Reichl discovered that 'food could be a way of making sense of the world. . . . If you watched people as they ate, you could find out who they were.' Her deliciously crafted memoir, Tender at the Bone, is the story of a life...

An inspirational memoir of the teenage author's struggles to survive her youth in war-torn Kabul describes her witness to brutal conflicts between the mujahideen and the Soviets during her earliest years, her extensive injuries after stepping on a...

Based on a selection of more than ten thousand internal documents of the Hughes organization, including three thousand pages of the billionaire's own handwritten memos, a revealing biography of the enigmatic Howard Hughes and his empire reveals his...

Drawing on letters, diaries, eyewitness accounts, oral histories, and other primary source material, this incisive portrait focuses on the accomplishments of Wilbur and Orville Wright, in a volume celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of their...

In Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience Mumia Abu-Jamal, America's best known political prisoner, offers poetic observations and reflections on life on this planet and on death row. In this collection of short essays and...

In this tough, candid memoir, Anthony Bourdain, who has been a chef at several well-known restaurants, takes the reader backstage to reveal the secrets of restaurant kitchens--some of them not so appetizing, most of them hilarious, all of them...

Immediately after September 11, 2001, Carmen bin Laden knew that her name would engender responses from others--for she knew in her heart that the person behind the events of that day was her brother-in-law, Osama bin Laden. In her revealing memoir,...

Delivering the brilliant comic musings that are Bryson's hallmarks, I'M A STRANGER HERE MYSELF recounts his sometimes-disconcerting reunion with his homeland....[It] chronicles the quirkiest aspects of life in America, right down to our...

...Burroughs's story of getting dry will go straight to your bloodstream and leave you buzzing, exhilarated, and wiped out....Didn't think you'd ever feel even an ounce of sympathy for--let alone root for--a drunken adman, did you? Meet Mr....

In a memoir about the joys and difficulties of straddling two cultures, the author of Arabian Jazz describes her life in upstate New York with an extended Arab and American family, her family's move 'home' to Jordan, and her return to the United...

Compared by critics to the work of Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, and James Thurber, a hilarious New York Times best-selling collection of essays chronicles the author's oddball adventures in eccentric company. Reprint. 100,000 first printing. Tour....

Without compromising on her beliefs and moral convictions, Marie Andari left the restricted life of her calling as a nun to pursue her goals in academia, and thence to campaign tirelessly for humanitarian Arab causes and for the emancipation of women...

The first volume of the long-awaited Bob Dylan autobiography, CHRONICLES, is a first-person journey through three decades. Dylan travels in time from his Minnesota youth to his 1960s Greenwich Village early years--a period of cultural upheaval whose...

From the wickedly hilarious pen of Southern humorist Celia Rivenbark comes a collection of essays that brings to mind Dave Barry (in high heels) or Jeff Foxworthy (in a prom dress).Step into the wacky world of "womanless wedding"...

The son of a convicted bank robber and con artist describes their complicated relationship, relating how his father, while in jail, sent the author letters throughout his childhood and turned up in a Boston homeless shelter where the author was a...

Mariane Pearl, a journalist herself, was in Karachi with her husband Danny Pearl, the South Asian bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, on the day he was kidnapped, January 23, 2002. Here she tells the story of their marriage, their careers, and...

This book is a set of reflections and recollections of a driver's 40 plus years in the hard and unforgiving world of the haulage and transport industry. It delves into the methods resorted to, in order to survive and make ends meet for him and his...

In his earlier books, TV news anchor Tom Brokaw has leaned heavily on the experiences of others to remember and define what he calls 'the Greatest Generation'--those who came of age during World War II and its aftermath. In A Long Way Home Brokaw...