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Overbooked specializes in providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable nonfiction. Overbooked has been online since 1994. Overbooked is a work in progress . . .

Booklists and Suggested Reading

Memoir Stars

Page Modified: April 5, 2008

Family, friends, food, illness, life changing events and more are featured in these very personal autobiographical writings.

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

The Language of Baklava
Author: Abu-Jaber, Diana
Publisher: Pantheon $ 23 ISBN: 0375423044 Date: 2005
LJBooklist
Abu-Jaber's early life seemed defined by the rites and rituals of cooking andeating and she weaves her charming story around vividly remembered, sensually described meals.
Updated 3.3.05
Ghetto Celebrity: Searching for the Delbert in Me: A Memoir
Author: Alexander, Donnell
Publisher: Crown $ 22.95 ISBN: 1400046025 Date: 2003
Library Journal
Vivid, stylish, at times outrageous, Ghetto Celebrity traces author Alexander's rollercoaster journey out of small-town obscurity and drug abuse through self-reinvention as a writer, and his rise to underground fame in the West Coast alternative press scene.
Updated 4.29.03
Big Kiss
by Alford, Henry
Publisher: Villard $ 19.95 ISBN: 0679483734 Date: 2000
PW
In this memoir of Alford's hilarious attempts at becoming a performer, he is rejected by directors, ignored by casting people, abused by a sadistic acting teacher, and educated in the finer points of Shakespearean acting. Finally, Alford finds his niche as the co-host of VH1's new hit series, Rock of Ages.
Body Toxic: An Environmental Memoir
by Antonetta, Susanne
Publisher: Counterpoint $ 26 ISBN: 1582431167 Date: 2001
Booklist
The author's family tried to realize the American dream with a summer escape where the rural and industrial collide. But the land was contaminated and made them all ill. Body Toxic merges the personal and familial with the historical, political, and environmental.
Life in the Middle Ages: A Survivor's Tale
Author: Atlas, James
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060196297 Date: 2005
Kirkus
This literary and confessional memoir is made up of a collection of unified essays about the pleasures and pathos that haunt us on the threshold of old age.
Updated 12.16.04
Epileptic
Author: B., David
Publisher: Pantheon $ 25 ISBN: 0375423184 Date: 2005
PWKirkusBooklist
With stunning black-and-white illustrations, a noted cartoonist chronicles growing up with an epileptic older brother. The author charts his complicated relationship with his brother from childhood to adulthood, and the effects of the illness on the entire family.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Graphic Novels and Comic Stars
Updated 12.25.04
The Prisoner's Wife: A Memoir
by Bandele, Ashaby
Publisher: Scribner Book Company ISBN: 0-684-85073-7 $ 23 Date: 1999
Booklist Kirkus
The intensely moving story of a young black poet who marries a prisoner convicted of murder, this lyrical memoir attests to the redemptive power of love, even when it is found behind barbed wire and gun towers.
Ava's Man
by Bragg, Rick
Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 0375410627 Date: 2001
KirkusBooklistPW
No one writes about the South like Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg (All Over But the Shoutin). Once again, he lends his voice to the working people of the Deep South, and tells the story of a memorable figure in a singular time--a man on a lost stretch of dirt road along the Alabama/Georgia border.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Confessions of a Country Lawyer: Memoir
Author: Bumpers, Dale
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375505210 Date: 2003
Kirkus
"Human interest and high politics blend with rare harmony in this charming autobiography."--James McPherson.
Updated 11.18.02
Education of a Felon: A Memoir
by Bunker, Edward
Publisher: St Martins $ 25.95 ISBN: 031225315x Date: 2000
PW
Spending half of his life behind bars, the reigning champion of prison writers tells his own story of a life lived "close to the bone" (Los Angeles Times).
Dry: A Memoir
Author: Burroughs, Augusten
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312272057 Date: 2003
Kirkus
With unconventional wit and a wonderfully weird way of looking at things, Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors, chronicles his life on the edge after leaving his deeply eccentric foster family. Dry is at times howlingly funny, devastatingly moving and, in the end, uplifting.
Updated 4.7.03
Colors of the Mountain
by Chen, Da
Publisher: Random $ 25 ISBN: 0375502882 Date: 2000
BooklistPW
A unique, winning, and beautifully told memoir of growing up in rural China during Mao's Cultural Revolution, Colors of the Mountain proves once again that the concerns of childhood transcend time and place.
Sounds of the River
Author: Chen, Da
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060199253 Date: 2002
KirkusPW
Teenager Da Chen gathers soil from the riverbank near his village before he leaves to attend the University of Beijing. Those grains bear witness to his past and contain the now-silent sounds of the river. Later spilled onto the dry soil of the North, they will merge two parts of Da's life in the second volume of his lyrical trilogy of memoirs.
Updated 1.31.02
My Life in France
Author: Child, Julia
Publisher: Knopf $ 25.95 ISBN: 1400043468 Date: 2006
KirkusPW
This delightful memoir of Julia's years in Paris, Marseille, and Provence opens with Paul and Julia--a tall, wide-eyed girl from Pasadena who can't cook and doesn't speak a word of French--disembarking in Le Havre, and ends with the launching of the two "Mastering" cookbooks and Julia winning the heart of America as "The French Chef."
Suggested Reading: Cooked Books
Updated 2.13.06
The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph and the Vietnam War
by Chong, Denise
Publisher: Viking $ 23.95 ISBN: 067088040x Date: 2000
LJ
The world will never forget the 1972 Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of nine-year-old Kim Phuc, running naked in terror after a napalm strike in Vietnam. Chong presents the timely, sensitive story of the "napalm girl" as she struggles to reclaim her life.
Tiger's Eye
by Clendinnen, Inga
Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743206002 Date: 2001
PW
From the author of Reading the Holocaust comes a celebrated memoir that reveals how the imagination can be liberated even when the body is disabled.
Youth: Scenes from a Provincial Life
Author: Coetzee, J.M.
Publisher: Viking $ 22.95 ISBN: 067003102x Date: 2002
Booklist
Set against the background of the 1960s--Sharpeville, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam--Youth is a remarkable memoir of an artistic and sexual coming of age by the Booker Prize-winning author of Disgrace.
Updated 6.30.02
Blindsided: Lifting a Life Above Illness: A Reluctant Memoir
Author: Cohen, Richard
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0060014091 Date: 2004
LJ
This is a hopeful memoir of coping with serious chronic illness by an accomplished journalist and once senior producer of the CBS Evening News.
Updated 1.15.04
As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl
by Colapinto, John
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26 ISBN: 0060192119 Date: 2000
Kirkus
The riveting story of the famous "twins case" of Joan/John, which became a major touchstone in the hotly contested "nature vs. nurture" debate on human sexuality.
An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland
Author: Dirda, Michael
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393057569 Date: 2003
KirkusLJ
A funny, wistful memoir by a Pulitzer Prize--winning critic that recalls the charm of growing up and the tenderness of one writer's beginnings.
Updated 8.14.03
Nasty: My Family and Other Glorious Varmints
Author: Doonan, Simon
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 24 ISBN: 0743267044 Date: 2005
Kirkus
In his breakthrough memoir, Doonan revisits his formative years and the defiantly eccentric, loveably odd family he calls his own. The essays chronicle the misadventures of the Doonan clan in all their endearingly dysfunctional glory.
Updated 3.25.05
The Gatekeeper
Author: Eagleton, Terry
Publisher: St Martins $ 17.95 ISBN: 0312291221 Date: 2002
Booklist
From the author of The Truth About the Irish and the bestselling Literary Theory comes a sharp-witted coming-of-age memoir of being caught between colliding worlds as a Catholic in Protestant England.
Updated 6.30.02
Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by Eggers, Dave
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 23 ISBN: 0684863472 Date: 2000
BooklistLibrary Journal
One of the most mesmerizing memoirs of the literary season: a wrenching, hilarious, and stylistically groundbreaking story of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother.
McSweeney's - a literary journal and web site, founded by Dave Eggers.
Ghosting: A Double Life
Author: Erdal, Jennie
Publisher: Doubleday $ 24 ISBN: 0385514263 Date: 2005
Booklist
In the early eighties, Erdal was hired by a flamboyant British publisher and she ended up becoming his ghostwriter. With superb intelligence and quiet comedy, Erdal relates how she became seduced into this peculiar job.
Updated 3.10.05
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir
Author: Flynn, Nick
Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393051390 Date: 2004
LJ
In bold, dazzling prose, Flynn tells the story of two lives and the trajectory that led him and his father into that homeless shelter, onto those streets, and finally to each other.
Updated 9.20.04
When Katie Wakes
Author: Fowler, Connie May
Publisher: Doubleday $ 23.95 ISBN: 038550201x Date: 2002
Kirkus
In this piercing memoir, the author of Before Women Had Wings chronicles the emotional battery and physical abuse that marked her own passage to adulthood and describes the unexpected gifts of love that helped her survive.
Updated 11.27.01
Cap: The Price of a Life
by Frister, Roman
Publisher: Grove $ 25 ISBN: 0802116590 Date: 2000
BooklistPWLibrary Journal
Uncompromisingly frank and unsparing, The Cap is an unconventional Holocaust memoir that defies all moral judgment and ventures into the darkest terrain imaginable, that of a soul blackened by the unforgiving cruelty of its surroundings.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Dont' Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
by Fuller, Alexandra
Publisher: Random House $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375507507 Date: 2002
KirkusBooklistPW
Magnificently original and affecting, Fuller's memoir of a childhood dominated by the Rhodesian civil war of 1971-1979 captures the fascinating life of a white family living in one of the most remote regions of Africa.
Suggested Reading: Reading Group Stars || Adult Books for Teens
Updated 11.27.01
Piano Girl: Lessons in Life, Music, and the Perfect Blue Hawaiian
Author: Goldsby, Robin
Publisher: Backbeat $ 22.95 ISBN: 0897308249 Date: 2005
PW
This entertaining memoir provides a glimpse into the comedies, tragedies, andmundane miracles witnessed from the business perspective of a world-traveling lounge musician.
Updated 3.21.05
A Woman Unknown: Voices from a Spanish Life
by Graves, Lucia
Publisher: Counterpoint $ 25 ISBN: 1582430977 Date: 2000
Booklist
Graves, daughter of poet Robert Graves, was raised in a multi-cultural environment on the island of Majorca in post-war Spain. Her beautifully nuanced memoir, already published in England to great acclaim, is a profound meditation on how the English, Catalan, and Spanish cultures have shaped her life and thought.
Them: A Memoir of Parents
Author: Gray, Francine Du Plessix
Publisher: Penguin $ 29.95 ISBN: 1594200491 Date: 2005
KirkusPWBooklist
The much-acclaimed biographer gives an unflinchingly honest, wise, and forgiving portrait of her own famous parents, two wildly talented Russian emigres who fled wartime Paris to become one of New York's first and grandest "power couples."
Updated 4.22.05
My Life in Orange
Author: Guest, Tim
Publisher: Harvest $ 14 ISBN: 015603106x Date: 2005
Booklist
At the age of six, Tim Guest was taken by his mother to a commune modeled on the teachings of the notorious Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. In this extraordinary memoir, Guest chronicles the heartbreaking experience of being left alone on earth while his mother hunted heaven.
Updated 12.6.04
Tea That Burns: A Family Memoir in Chinatown
by Bruce Edward Hall
Publisher: Free Press ISBN: 068483989x $25 Date: 1998
BL LJ
A compelling saga of one man's journey through his heritage, his quest to know and exorcize the ghosts of his ancestors, and the ways they brought to a magical corner of New York known as Chinatown.
It Takes a Worried Man: A Memoir
Author: Halpin, Brendan
Publisher: Villard $21.95 ISBN: 0375507167 Date: 2002
Library Journal
An unsentimental, inspiring, and surprisingly funny account is written by a husband trying to deal with his wife's cancer--by turns horrifying and funny, but most of all, a love story.
Updated 1.31.02
Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers
by Hammett, Jo
Publisher: Carrol & Graf $ ISBN: 30 0786708921 Date: 2001
PWBooklist
A daughter's intimate memoir of the celebrated Dashiell Hammett is richly illustrated with never-before-published photos from family albums.
Finding Annie Farrell: A Family Memoir
Author: Harpaz, Beth
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312301510 Date: 2004
LJ
This true story begins with five sisters from rural Maine. One girl, Annie Farrell, dreams of being a model and moves to New York. Yet Annie falls into a numbing depression. Twenty years after her death, her daughter embarks on a journey to uncover her mother's secret history and explain her sorrow. What Harpaz discovers is laid out in a narrative that is both compelling and irresistible.
Updated 1.15.04
Greene on Capri: A Memoir
by Hazzard, Shirley
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 22 ISBN: 0374166757 Date: 2000
LJ
In this intimate portrait, Hazzard highlights Graham Greene's mercurial character, his work and talk, and the extraordinary literary culture that long thrived on the legendary, enchanted island of Capri.
Yonder: A Place in Montana
by Hemingway, John
Publisher: National Geographic $ 25 ISBN: 0792276876 Date: 2000
Booklist
This affecting memoir tells the story behind the "Bar 20", Heminway's 36-acre ranch, and his search for traces of the ranch's former owners.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
Sky of Stone: A Memoir
by Hickham, Homer H.
Publisher: Delacorte $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385335229 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Once again, the bestselling author of October Sky takes readers on a literary ride back to the West Virginia hometown of his youth. In 1961, a scandal at the mine threatens to ruin his father, so Sonny returns home for the summer and discovers truths not just about his parents, but about himself and the true nature of his dreams.
Compass Points: How I Lived
by Hoagland, Edward
Publisher: Pantheon $ 25 ISBN: 0375402462 Date: 2001
Kirkus
In the mid-1980s writer Hoagland began to lose his sight--and his connection to a world he had vividly recorded for 35 years. But technology caught up with his condition nine years ago, and his sight was restored. Out of that jubilation has come this memoir: the story of a life that has embraced the contradictions and complexities of the panoramic experience.
Woman Who Watches over the World: A Native Memoir
by Hogan, Linda
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393050181 Date: 2001
Booklist
Hogan, an award-winning Chickasaw poet and novelist, renders a powerful history of her family and the way in which tribal history informs her own past. Ultimately, the author sees herself and her people whole again and presents an illuminating story of personal spiritual triumph.
Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories from a Decade Gone Mad
Author: Holman, Virginia
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 23 ISBN: 0743222857 Date: 2003
KirkusPWLJ
In a dexterous portrait of madness and shadows, Pushcart Prize winner Holman recounts the dark days her family was held hostage by her mother's delusions and her country was beset with the folly of the Watergate era.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 1.3.03
Growing Seasons: An American Boyhood Before the War
Author: Hynes, Samuel
Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670031933 Date: 2003
Kirkus
Looking back with a clear-eyed, unsentimental gaze, Hynes describes his Midwestern boyhood during the lean times of the Great Depression. With eloquence and humor Hynes recaptures the dreams, adventures, sins, and triumphs of his American boyhood in the years of hardship and innocence before the war.
Updated 12.16.02
Time to Be in Earnest: A Fragment of Autobiography
by James, P.D.
Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 037541066x Date: 2000
Kirkus
Taking to heart Dr. Johnson's advice that, at the age of 77, it was "time to be in earnest, " the acclaimed mystery writer decided to keep a diary. The result is this frank and wonderfully engaging memoir.
A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance
Author: Juska, Jane
Publisher: Villard $ 23.95 ISBN: 1400060117 Date: 2003
Library Journal
This funny, poignant utterly unique memoir tells of a schoolteacher who, in her later years, went in search of a sexual relationship via the personals section of The New York Review of Books.
Updated 3.13.03
Still Love in Strange Places: A Memoir
Author: Kephart, Beth
Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393050742 Date: 2002
Kirkus
When Beth Kephart met and fell in love with the artist who would become her husband, she had little knowledge of the place he came from - an exotic coffee farm high in the jungle hills of El Salvador. Yet, love, she finds, means taking in not only the stranger who is one's lover, but also a stranger's history - in this case, a country, language, people and culture utterly foreign to a young American woman. Kephart's transcendently lyrical prose (often compared to the work of Annie Dillard) has already earned her a National Book Award nomination. - from the author's web site.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
Updated 3.15.02
Space: A Memoir
by Kercheval, Jesse Lee
Publisher: Algonquin ISBN: 1565121465 $18.95 Date: 1998
BL LJ
The author of The Dogeater and The Museum of Happiness presents a memoir in the tradition of Tobias Wolff's This Boys Life. Weaving personal and public concerns inextricably, this brilliant rendering of an era tells the story a nation's love affair with its space program and one girl's search for herself.
A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana
by Kimmel, Haven
Publisher: Bantam $ 21.95ISBN: 0385499825 Date: 2001
PW
When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet. Nicknamed "Zippy", she possessed big eyes and even bigger ears. In this loving memoir, Kimmel takes readers back in time to when small-town America was still in the innocent postwar period and treats readers to an appealing, and knowing, heroine.
Suggested Reading: Reading Group Stars
The Secret Life of a Schoolgirl: A Memoir
Author: Kingsland, Rosemary
Publisher: Crown $ 24.95 ISBN: 140004782X Date: 2003
PWKirkus
With the same appeal as literary memoirs like Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight and The Road from Coorain, The Secret Life of a Schoolgirl is a vivid evocation of life in foreign cultures and a keenly observed portrait of a wildly dysfunctional family.
Updated 5.19.03
Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota
by Klosterman, Chuck
Publisher: Scribner $ 23 ISBN: 0743202279 Date: 2001
Kirkus
Powered by a sharp and wholly original voice, Klosterman delivers a real-life High Fidelity in this savvy, deliriously funny memoir of growing up a shameless heavy-metal devotee in 1980s North Dakota.
Suggested Reading: Musical Nonfiction
Saving Milly: Love, Politics and Parkinson's Disease
by Kondracke, Morton
Publisher: Public Affairs $ 25 ISBN: 1586480375 Date: 2001
Booklist
A deeply moving, unflinchingly honest memoir by the renowned political journalist tells of his extraordinary relationship with his wife, Milly, and how her battle with Parkinson's Disease has transformed their lives.
Goat: A Memoir
Author: Land, Brad
Publisher: Random $ 22.95 ISBN: 1400060931 Date: 2004
PWLJ
A searing memoir of masculinity, violence, and brotherhood which chronicles a young man's painful recovery from a terrifying assault that leads him, ironically, to undergo the brutalizing initiation rites of a southern university fraternity.
Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
Updated 11.18.03
Blackbird: A Childhood Lost
by Lauck, Jennifer
Publisher: Pocket $ 23.95 ISBN: 0671042556 Date: 2000
KirkusBooklist
Lauck's heartbreaking and inspiring memoir--debuting to advance critical acclaim--tells how an ordinary child growing up under the blue skies of Carson City, Nevada, in the early 1970s lost her childhood after her world became unhinged by family tragedy.
Chasing Hepburn
Author: Lee, Gus
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0609608762 Date: 2003
Booklist
In the spirit of his lauded novel China Boy, Lee's richly textured memoir is the story of the uniting of two culturally displaced clans as the Cultural Revolution sweeps China. Provocative, wise, and bittersweet, this is an unforgettable story of the clash between cultural ties and an ancient way of life.
Updated 12.16.02
Daughter of Heaven: A Memoir With Earthly Recipes
Author: Li, Leslie
Publisher: Arcade $ 25 ISBN: 1559707682 Date: 2005
PW
This powerful, touching memoir vividly recounts how Leslie Li's grandmother's traditional Chinese cuisine helped the author bridge the cultural divide in an America in which she is a minority. Interspersed throughout this poignant memoir are the author's personal recipes, most from her grandmother's kitchen.
Updated 3.28.05
All Souls: A Family Story from Southie
by MacDonald, Michael Patric
Publisher: Beacon Press ISBN: 0-8070-7212-5 $ 24 Date: 1999
Kirkus
In this searing, coming-of-age memoir, told through the eyes of the troubled yet keenly gifted observer he was even as a child, MacDonald describes growing up in Irish South Boston.
Too Late To Die Young: Nearly True Tales From a Life
Author: McBryde Johnson, Harriet
Publisher: Holt $ 23 ISBN: 0805075941 Date: 2005
KirkusLJ
With a voice as disarmingly bold, funny, and unsentimental as its author, this is a thoroughly unconventional memoir that shatters the myth of the tragic disabled life.
Updated 4.19.05
Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran
Author: Moaveni, Azadeh
Publisher: Public Affairs $ 25 ISBN: 1586481932 Date: 2005
Kirkus
A young Iranian-American journalist returns to Tehran and discovers not only the oppressive and decadent life of her Iranian counterparts who have grown up since the revolution, but the pain of searching for a homeland that may not exist.
Updated 2.7.05
The Black Veil: A Memoir With Digressions
Author: Moody, Rick
Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316578991 Date: 2002
Library Journal
Looking for familial clues to his own melancholy, one of the most renowned writers of our time ties past and present, family legend, and serious scholarship into a dazzling original memoir.
Updated 4.1.02
The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams
by Nasdijj
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 23 ISBN: 0618048928 Date: 2000
Booklist
The author, born on a Navajo reservation in 1950, transports readers to the magic landscapes and the Native American culture of the desert Southwest as he tells the story of his life on the jagged-edge margins of American society.
Geronimo's Bones: A Memoir of My Brother and Me
Author: Nasdijj
Publisher: Ballantine $ 24.95 ISBN: 0345453913 Date: 2004
PWLJBooklist
Geronimo's Bones is a powerful and intimate account of the love between brothers, from the acclaimed author of The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams and The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 2.13.04
Dreambirds
by Nixon, Rob
Publisher: Picador $ 23 ISBN: 0312245408 Date: 2000
Booklist Library Journal
Dreambirds is a quirky memoir of the author's upbringing on an ostrich farm and a delightful history of that prehistoric bird's unlikely role in fashion and food.
Boy With Loaded Gun: A Memoir
by Nordan, Lewis
Publisher: Algonquin $ 23.95 ISBN: 1565121996 Date: 2000
Library Journal
Itta Bena, Mississippi's, most famous son and one of the South's most respected writers, proves in his first work of nonfiction - a soul-baring autobiography - that truth is indeed stranger than fiction . . . even his fiction.
Lost in America
Author: Nuland, Sherwin B.
Publisher: Random $ 24 ISBN: 0375412948 Date: 2003
KirkusBooklistPW
From the author of the National Book Award-winning How We Die comes a deeply moving account of his father's life and the shadow it cast over his own. Nuland reveals what it cost him to live with the specter of his father and to struggle for peace with the man's legacy, and with himself.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 12.16.02
Taking a History: A Doctor's Training at Bellevue
Author: Ofri, Danielle
Publisher: Beacon $ 24 ISBN: 0807072524 Date: 2003
BooklistLJ
This gripping memoir of learning medicine in the trenches is the story of becoming a doctor by immersion at Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the country--and perhaps the most legendary.
Updated 3.13.03
The Book of Kehls
Author: O'Hagan, Christine Kehl
Publisher: St Martins $ 21.95 ISBN: 0312329555 Date: 2005
Kirkus
A luminous memoir about five generations of an Irish-American family whose fate was shaped by muscular dystrophy. - Publisher Marketing.
Updated 11.25.04
Fried Butter: A Food Memoir
Author: Opincar, Abe
Publisher: Soho $ 18 ISBN: 156947334x Date: 2003
Kirkus
Food is life, and Opincar relishes it in this food memoir that brings back the moments and people he broke bread with and loved. The author's memories are joined to food, with references to eggs sunny-side up and first sex, cornmeal mush and his dotty aunt, garlic and his father's love.
Suggested Reading: Cooked Books
Updated 1.10.03
Dances with Luigi: A Grandson's Determined Quest to Comprehend Italy and the Italians
by Paolicelli, Paul E.
Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312251882 Date: 2000
Booklist
Why would a man who was a hero to his home village in Italy suddenly break all ties and never speak of his homeland again? This is the question at the heart of Paolicelli's spirited memoir as he travels back to Italy in hopes of piecing together his grandfather's mystery.
Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
Shooting: A Memoir
Author: Powers, Kemp
Publisher: Thunder's Mouth $ 22 ISBN: 1568583206 Date: 2005
Kirkus
In 1987, Kemp Powers, a good kid raised by a single mother in Brooklyn oblivious to the violence around him, accidentally shot his best friend. Forgiven by everyone but unable to forgive himself, Kemp promised to never make a mistake again, a promise naively made by a child that the adult couldn't keep.
Updated 11.9.04
Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table
Author: Reichl, Ruth
Publisher: Random $ 23 ISBN: 0679449876 Date: 1998
Kirkus
NYTBR Notable
The candid and comical memoir by the renowned New York Times restaurant critic whose high-spirited life has always been defined and enriched by food. Reichl's childhood and young-adult life provide a smorgasbord of wit and wisdom, sprinkled with recipes that perfectly capture her endlessly entertaining world.
Comfort Me With Apples: More Adventures at the Table
by Reichl, Ruth
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375501959 Date: 2001
PW
Picking up where Tender at the Bone leaves off, Comfort Me with Apples recounts Reichl's transformation from chef to food writer, a process that led her through restaurants from Bangkok to Paris to Los Angeles and brought lessons in life, love, and food.
Suggested Reading: Cooked Books
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
Author: Reichel, Ruth
Publisher: Penguin $ 24.95 ISBN: 1594200319 Date: 2005
PWLJ
This delicious new volume of Reichl's acclaimed memoirs recounts her "adventures in deception," as she goes undercover in the world's finest restaurants. The editor-in-chief of "Gourmet," she is the author of the bestsellers Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples.
Suggested Reading: Cooked Books
Updated 3.21.05
Bad Blood: A Memoir
Author: Sage, Lorna
Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 0066214432 Date: 2002
LJPW
In this extraordinary personal history, the late author and influential literary critic Lorna Sage tells the searing tale of her escape from a claustrophic childhood in post-World War II Britain--a phenomenal story of courage, humor, and pain that brings to life the nature of family life, memory, and marriage through three generations.
Updated 2.18.02
A Primate's Memoir
by Sapolsky, Robert M.
Publisher: Scribner $ 25 ISBN: 0743202473 Date: 2001
PWBooklist
Award-winning scientist Robert Sapolsky reinvents the traditional account of field research with this exhilarating and daring memoir of his 20-plus years studying a troop of Kenyan baboons.
Suggested Reading: Nature
Girl Walks into a Bar: A Memoir
Author: Saroyan, Strawberry
Publisher: Random $ 19.95 ISBN: 037550611x Date: 2003
Booklist
In a voice reminiscent of Liz Phair one moment and Mary McCarthy the next, Saroyan's debut memoir depicts the often rocky path from girlhood to womanhood, and what it is like to come of age in New York, Los Angeles, and London in the 21st century.
Updated 3.13.03
Let Me Go
Author: Schneider, Helga
Publisher: Walker $ 19 ISBN: 0802714358 Date: 2004
Booklist
In this extraordinary memoir, a daughter's sense of obligation collides with inescapable horror when she discovers that her mother abandoned her in 1941 Berlin to become a guard in Nazi concentration camps.
Updated 4.21.04
All in Good Time: A Memoir
Author: Schwartz, Jonathan
Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 037550480x Date: 2004
PW
A melodious family memoir about growing up in the shadow of the golden age ofsongwriting and Sinatra is written by the acclaimed author, singer, and radiopersonality Jonathan Schwartz.
Updated 1.26.04
Home and Away: Memoir of a Fan
by Simon, Scott
Publisher: Hyperion $ 23.95 ISBN: 078686415x Date: 2000
Booklist
The best of NPR's Weekend Edition comes through with the perfect Father's Day gift: a memoir of Scott Simon, devout sports fan, proud son of Chicago, and a devoted son and stepson - an ideal blend of wit, reportage, and plain old-fashioned storytelling.
Lying
by Slater, Lauren
Publisher: Random House $ 21.95 ISBN: 0375501126 Date: 2000
PW
"The beauty of Lauren Slater's prose is shocking", said Newsday about Welcome to My Country. And now, in this unusual memoir, Slater - diagnosed with a strange illness afflicting her memory - brilliantly explores a mind under siege, telling her personal story of seizures, diagnoses, misdiagnosis and cures.
Name All the Animals: A Memoir
Author: Smith, Alison
Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743255224 Date: 2004
KirkusLJ
A story of grief and secret love, of a family holding on to the memory of a lost child, Name all the Animals is an extraordinary memoir about a girl who learns to define herself beyond the death of her brother.
Suggested Reading: Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 3.1.04
Five Fingered Discount: A Crooked Family History
by Stapinski, Helene
Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 0679463062 Date: 2001
LJBooklist
The Mafia, the Catholic Church, toxic waste, the DMV, and corrupt local officials are all part of this sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking family history, a story as polluted as the Jersey City air. Stapinski tells an extraordinary tale of her crooked family that, unlike the swag of her childhood, is her very own.
Learning Joy from Dogs Without Collars: A Memoir
Author: Summer, Lauralee
Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 24 ISBN: 0743201027 Date: 2003
Kirkus
In a memoir of a life in which nothing is taken for granted, Summer tells a moving story of triumph over adversity. Imbued with the wisdom of a woman who has seen life as a homeless girl and as a student within Harvard University's esteemed walls, this is a stirring tale of the power of the human will.
Updated 4.7.03
In My Brother's Shadow
Author: Timm, Uwe
Publisher: FSG $ 18 ISBN: 0374103747 Date: 2005
LJKirkus
Both nuanced and measured, this meditation on German history and guilt is a renowned German novelist's memoir of his brother, who joined the SS and was killed at the Russian front.
Updated 3.10.05
Tomorrow to Be Brave: A Memoir of the Only Woman Ever to Serve in the French Foreign Legion
by Travers, Susan
Publisher: Free Press $ 25 ISBN: 0743200012 Date: 2001
KirkusLJ
A memoir of the only woman to ever serve in the French Foreign Legion, the unique story of Susan Travers is told against the backdrop of war-torn France.
Love in the Driest Season: A Family Memoir
Author: Tucker, Neely
Publisher: Crown $ 23.95 ISBN: 0609609769 Date: 2004
PWBooklistLJ
In the heart of conflict-torn Zimbabwe, an American couple fights to save the life of--and ultimately adopt--an infant girl who had been abandoned beneath an acacia tree on the day she was born.
Suggested Reading: All Stars | Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 1.15.04
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
by Ung, Luong
Publisher: harperCollins $ 23 ISBN: 0060193328 Date: 2000
Booklist
From a childhood survivor of the brutal Pol Pot regime comes an unforgettable narrative of tragedy and spiritual triumph.
Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia In America Reunites With the Sister She Left Behind
Author: Ung, Loung
Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060733942 Date: 2005
PWBooklist
In this lyrical sequel to First They Killed My Father, Ung describes her school years in Vermont as a Cambodian refugee and her sister Chou's struggle to survive in Cambodia.
Updated 2.21.05
Working Fire: A Memoir
Author: Unger, Zac
Publisher: Penguin $ 24.95 ISBN: 1594200017 Date: 2004
Kirkus
This remarkable memoir, by turns funny and deeply moving, explores one man's coming into his calling and his transformation from ambivalent Ivy League grad to skilled and dedicated firefighter.
Suggested Reading: On Fire | Adult Books for Teens
Updated 12.29.03
Flim-Flam Man: A True Family History
Author: Vogel, Jennifer
Publisher: Putnam $ 23 ISBN: 0743217071 Date: 2004
Kirkus
An intense psychological portrait of a man--a doting father, a scheming philanderer, a charming scammer, counterfeiter, and would-be killer--is recorded by the daughter who loved him.
Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
Updated 10.8.03
Last Marlin: A Father-Son Story
by Waitzkin, Fred
Publisher: Viking $ 23.95 ISBN: 0670882615 Date: 2000
Booklist
The author of Searching for Bobby Fischer reaches back to his own childhood to write this sweeping family saga of love and betrayal, interwoven with scenes of deep sea fishing, a passion that helped Waitzkin cope with his problems.
The Glass Castle: A Memoir
Author: Walls, Jeannette
Publisher: Scribner $ 25 ISBN: 0743247531 Date: 2005
PWKirkusBooklist
In the tradition of Mary Karr's The Liars' Club and Rick Bragg's All Over But the Shouting, Jeannette Walls has written a stunning and life-affirming memoir about surviving a willfully impoverished, eccentric and severely misguided family.
Suggested Reading: All Stars
Updated 2.15.05
A Celtic Childhood
by Watkins, Bill
Publisher: Hungry Mind Press ISBN: 1-886913-31-5 $ 24 Date: 1999
PW
In this memoir of an Irish childhood split between England and Ireland, Watkins vividly creates a child's eye view of the world.
Auto Da Fay
Author: Weldon, Fay
Publisher: Grove $ 25 ISBN: 0802117503 Date: 2003
PW
The acclaimed British author Weldon turns her gimlet-eyed wit and keen eye on--herself. In this engaging autobiography, Fay looks back on her own life and times--as a child in New Zealand, as a poor girl in London, as an unmarried mother, wife, lover, playwright, feminist, antifeminist, and winer-and-diner.
Updated 4.7.03
Oh the Glory of It All
Author: Wiley, Sean
Publisher: Penguin $ 25.95 ISBN: 1594200513 Date: 2005
Kirkus
In what may become the most talked-about memoir of the year, the founding editor of "McSweeney's" takes readers on an exhilarating tour of life in the strangest, wealthiest, and most grandiose of families.
Updated 3.25.05
Smashed: Growing Up A Drunk Girl
Author: Zailckas, Koren
Publisher: Viking $ 21.95 ISBN: 0670033766 Date: 2005
KirkusPW
From earliest experimentation to full-blown abuse, 24-year-old Zailckas leads readers through her experience of binge drinking in this vivid cautionary tale.
Updated 12.6.04

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