Author Memoirs

Brought to you by Penguin. Winner of the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album Winner of the 2020 Audie Award for Autobiography/Memoir An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir; 17 million copies sold worldwide THE NO. 1 BESTSELLER BRITISH BOOK AWARDS, NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR THE...

Bestselling author and renowned professor Mary Karr offers a master class in the essential elements of great memoir—delivered with her signature wit, insight, and candor. Credited with sparking the current memoir explosion, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club spent more than a year at the top of...

A luminous memoir by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jayne Anne Phillips Jayne Anne Phillips grew up in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. The distinctly American landscape of Appalachia - dense with forests and small churches, rich in history and misunderstandings - has been the great...

Embark on a captivating adventure through the Argentine Pampas and the little-known Chaco territory of Paraguay with Gerald Durrell, the much-loved author of My Family and Other Animals. A riveting account of one of Durrell's expeditions in search of rare animals, The Drunken Forest is...

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Arsenio Hall, America’s beloved late-night TV host, reveals the ups and downs of his remarkable career as a trailblazing pioneer with this “vivid, outrageous” (The New York Times) behind-the-scenes, star-studded, no-holds-barred memoir of celebrity, race...

'Rooms in Bombay are not big in size, but huge in heart. Manil Suri's memoir will make you want to hug your mother. Written in clean, direct prose and without sentimentality, it explores all the dimensions of the complicated bond between parent and child -- while also being laugh-out-loud funny...

Born into one of the wealthiest families in America—he was the youngest son of Standard Oil scion John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the celebrated patron of modern art Abby Aldrich Rockefeller—David Rockefeller has carried his birthright into a distinguished life of his own. His dealings with...

After the birth of her first child in 2006, Turkish writer Elif Shafak suffered from postpartum depression that triggered a profound personal crisis. In this elegantly written memoir, she retraces her journey from free-spirited, nomadic artist to dedicated but emotionally wrought mother. As she intersperses her own experience with the lives of prominent authors such as Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Alice Walker, Ayn Rand and Zelda Fitzgerald, Shafak looks for a solution to the inherent conflict between artistic creation and responsible parenting.

She was only nine when her world fell apart. The struggle to understand took a lifetime. In 1960s Bristol, Susan's family was like any other with its joys and frustrations, and fierce loyalties. Then tragedy struck and left a legacy that was to last a lifetime. Susan was only nine when her...

Contains Forty New, Never-Before-Published DevotionsAt the height of Nazi power, amid the horrors of a concentration camp, the seeds of faith and forgiveness grew to fruition in the heart of a young Dutch woman named Corrie ten Boom. Outlasting Ravensbrück and Hitler’s regime, Corrie went on...

A powerful and intensely moving true-life account from two sisters who were among the very few children to survive Auschwitz. On 28 March 1944, Italian sisters Tati (six) and Andra (four) were roused from their sleep and taken to Auschwitz, to the infamous Kinder Block presided over by Josef...

A quasi-memoir written from the perspective of Gertrude Stein's lifelong partner, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is a lively, playful account of the literary giant's vibrant life in the early twentieth century. Captivating and characteristically self-assured, this glittering memoir recounts Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas's artistically rich life in Paris.

Brought to you by Penguin. Part deeply personal memoir, part masterclass in storytelling, Plot Twist is a refreshingly honest look at the life of a writer whose stories have thrilled us for decades. With 100 million books in print worldwide and over twenty blockbuster television and film...

The follow-up to Hanif Kureishi’s extraordinary hospital memoir, Shattered, this is the story of what came next – a year of living at home in London after paralysis, told through scenes of carers, physio, insomnia, sex, money, football, film sets, festivals and family. The song ‘Are You...

'If there's any message I want people to take from this book, it is hope that, even in the hardest of times, life is worth living, one precious moment at a time.' Vicky Phelan When Vicky Phelan delivered an emotionally charged statement from the steps of the Four Courts in April 2018 - having...

This is the very personal and frank account of A.W.J. Pilgrim’s battle with schizophrenia, in the context of his whole life story. He is a Londoner, dad and talented prolific artist painter and author. Learn how his illness progressed, how he struggled, his personal thoughts about it, detailed accounts of being sectioned, effects of medications, psychosis, hallucinations & delusions. At the end of his story, he begins a weight loss journey, and a more peaceful life out of the city. The story not all sad, he has had some good luck too, and still has dreams.

Translating Myself and Others is a collection of candid and disarmingly personal essays by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, who reflects on her emerging identity as a translator as well as a writer in two languages. With subtlety and emotional immediacy, Lahiri draws on Ovid's myth of Echo and Narcissus to explore the distinction between writing and translating, and provides a close reading of passages from Aristotle's Poetics to talk more broadly about writing, desire, and freedom.

In 1954, Joyce Johnson’s Barnard professor told his class that most women could never have the kinds of experiences that would be worth writing about. Attitudes like that were not at all unusual at a time when “good” women didn’t leave home or have sex before they married; even those who broke the rules could merely expect to be minor characters in the dramas played by men. But secret rebels, like Joyce and her classmate Elise Cowen, refused to accept things as they were.

“Smart, fast, clever, and funny (As f*ck!)” (Tiffany Haddish), this collection of side-splitting and illuminating essays by the popular stand-up comedian, alum of Chelsea Lately and The Mindy Project, and host of truTV’s Talk Show the Game Show is perfect for fans of the New York Times...

Let me take you on a journey - a journey where you can hear my pain. Learn about all the techniques I've tried when dealing with my bouts of depression and self-hatred. Some techniques are actively encouraged by professionals across the world; other techniques (prostitutes, drugs, self-harm) are pretty much frowned upon. The spoilsports. What worked for me and what most certainly didn't! Told with the blackest of humor to keep things fun!