Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

This memoir that "will take your breath away" chronicles a harrowing journey through homelessness and poverty in New York City, followed by a turbulent experience in foster care (Jeanette Walls, New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle). This powerful memoir exposes the harsh...

Fraud is a raw, unfiltered memoir by Tom Gitchel Jr. that takes listeners deep inside the chaos of addiction, self-deception, and recovery. Chance James had a nursing license, a job, and a family who believed in him. But behind the mask, he was unraveling—addicted, ashamed, and living a lie he could no longer maintain. In a desperate attempt to escape, he faked his own abduction—and that is where the real story begins. This powerful true account follows his journey through rock bottom, detox, rehab, and the painful but redemptive process of learning to live again.

A profoundly moving celebration of love under the darkest of circumstances From the moment they met in 1940 in Ravensbrück concentration camp, Milena Jesenska and Margarete Buber-Neumann were inseparable. Czech Milena was Kafka’s first translator and epistolary lover, and a journalist opposed...

A poignant, funny, and lively memoir of sexual awakening, music, and discovering one's true self. Pete Crighton came of age in the early/mid 1980s in the shadow of HIV/AIDS. Growing up in Toronto, he was terrified that his friends and schoolmates would find out that he was “different” at a...

The radical, bold, and timelessly free life of America’s first and only openly gay First Lady could not stay forgotten for long Rose Cleveland—sister of President Grover—was the United States’ first and only openly gay First Lady, and that’s only about the fifth-most-interesting thing...

From being misunderstood to making history: The incredible story of Aryan Pasha. On the day Aryan Pasha stepped onto the bodybuilding stage, he wasn't just competing-he was claiming his truth. Born a girl and raised in a body that never felt like his own, Aryan's journey from a suffocating...

Questo libro nasce dal desiderio dell'autore di condividere, con sincerità e senza filtri, il percorso che lo ha portato a diventare la persona che è oggi. Non è il racconto di imprese straordinarie, ma di scelte, cadute, cambiamenti e piccoli momenti che hanno segnato il suo cammino. Pagina dopo pagina, il lettore troverà riflessioni, domande e frammenti di vita in cui potersi riconoscere.

He wrote one of the biggest hits of our age in ‘about an hour’ in his childhood bedroom. He would go on to collaborate with some of the greatest musicians of all time, from Aretha Franklin to Stevie Wonder. He was a pop star who bleached his hair blonde, wore tiny shorts and, at the same...

A brilliant representation of anxiety made hilarious.' - Romesh Ranganathan Does peaking in high school ruin you for life? Was Miley Cyrus right, is it all about the climb (when it comes to building a career?) And what - scientifically - is the best way to mend a broken heart? Comedian Suzi...

Shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize 2020 ‘Eloquent, empathetic and passionate, this book will not just resonate with a new generation of queer people, but with all those who seek to be their allies. A brilliant book.’ Owen Jones Today, the options and freedoms on offer to LGBTQ+...

LitHub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2025 “I am forever changed after reading this book.” —Javier Zamora, author of Solito From the renowned Palestinian scholar, a memoir of political and queer awakening, of impossible love amidst generations of displacement, and what it means to return...

Victoria Alonso takes listeners on her journey from Argentina to America to Hollywood and illuminates the ways everyone can live in a heightened state of possibility and use their voice for change. “If it has been done, you can do it. But if it hasn’t been done, you should.” It was these words from Victoria Alonso’s mother that imbued in her the power of possibility. First as a young person in Argentina living through a dictatorship, then as a nineteen-year-old alone in America, saying yes to possibility again and again laid the path for Victoria to become who she is today.

Laurie Lee Hall’s growing-up years were defined by the conflict between her physical condition as a boy and her inherent identity as a girl. Unable to explain or resolve her gender dysphoria, she committed to living her adult life as a male. She joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, eventually becoming chief architect of its temples and an ecclesiastical leader. In her church and community, rigid adherence to gender roles is not only the norm, but the defining issue of a faith that doctrinally declares one’s gender as an “eternal identity.

In this funny and poignant memoir and cultural history, the television personality, columnist, and author of Drag pays homage to Lou Reed’s groundbreaking album Transformer on its fiftieth anniversary and recalls its influence on his coming of age and coming out through glam rock. In November...

A debut book from Entertainment Weekly writer and former Out magazine editor Lester Fabian Brathwaite, Rage is a darkly comedic exploration of Blackness, queerness, and the American Dream, at a time when creative anger feels like the best response to inequality. One romantic hopeful had greeted...

Ryan never envisioned just how far his football career would take him. But bubbling under the surface of his entire NFL career was a collision course between his secret sexuality and his hidden drug use. As injuries mounted and his daily intake of opioids reached a near-lethal level, he wrote his suicide note to his parents and plotted his death. Yet, someone had been watching. A member of the Chiefs organization stepped in, recognizing the signs of drug addiction. Ryan reluctantly sought psychological help, and it was there that he revealed his lifelong secret for the very first time.

The Right Side of History tells the 100-year history of queer activism in a series of revealing close-ups, first-person accounts, and intimate snapshots of LGBT pioneers and radicals. This diverse cast stretches from the Edwardian period to today, including first-person accounts of the key protest that is at the heart of the 2015 movie Stonewall. The book shows how LGBT folk have always been in the forefront of progressive social evolution in the United States.

¿Por qué ser feliz cuando puedes ser normal?, preguntó la señora Winterson a su hija Jeanette cuando ella, recién cumplidos los dieciséis años, le confesó haberse enamorado de otra chica. Extraña pregunta, pero poco más podía esperarse de una mujer que había adoptado a una niña para hacer de ella una aliada en su misión religiosa, y en cambio se las tuvo que ver con un ser extraño que pedía a gritos su porción de felicidad.

The superb classic memoir from a dazzlingly eccentric and endlessly fascinating author - a woman very much ahead of her time - including her time spent on the glorious island of Skiathos. Nancy Spain was one of the most celebrated - and notorious - writers and broadcasters of the '40s, '50s and '60s. Hilarious, controversial and brilliant, she lived openly as a lesbian (sharing a household with her two lovers and their various children) and was frequently litigated against for her newspaper columns - Evelyn Waugh successfully sued her for libel...twice. 

As dramatic, graceful and deeply felt as a pas de deux, Shanghai Tango is a deeply personal and inspiring account of growing up in a body that feels alien and of braving pioneering surgery in communist China.