Biographies & Memoirs

A House Can Hurt, a Home Can Heal
Even the Stars Look Lonesome
by Maya Angelou
I have written of the black American experience, which I know intimately. I am always talking about the human condition in general and about society in particular. What it is like to be human, and American, what makes us weep, what makes us fall

Corn Mother: Genealogies
Tori Amos: Piece by Piece
by Tori Amos, Ann Powers
Tori Amos: Piece by Piece is a firsthand account of the most intricate and intimate details of Amos's life as both a private individual and a very public performing musician. In passionate and informative prose, Amos explains how her songs come to her

Don't Notice Anything
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned
by Alan Alda
He's one of America's most recognizable and acclaimed actors-a star on Broadway, an Oscar nominee for The Aviator, and the only person to ever win Emmys for acting, writing, and directing, during his eleven years on M*A*S*H.

Raising an Arab Father in America
The Language of Baklava
by Diana Abu-Jaber
Diana Abu-Jaber's vibrant, humorous memoir weaves together stories of being raised by a food-obsessed Jordanian father with tales of Lake Ontario shish kabob cookouts and goat stew feasts under Bedouin tents in the desert. These sensuously evoked repasts,

Flying High
Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania
by Andy Behrman
Electroboy is an emotionally frenzied memoir that reveals with kaleidoscopic intensity the terrifying world of manic depression. For years Andy Behrman hid his raging mania behind a larger-than-life personality.

Ash Wednesday
The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
by Karen Armstrong
In 1962, at age seventeen, Karen Armstrong entered a convent, eager to meet God. After seven brutally unhappy years as a nun, she left her order to pursue English literature at Oxford.

Part 1
Sunnyvale; The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family
by Jeff Goodell
Splintered by their parent's divorce, Jeff and his siblings careen toward self-destruction, while their parents end up on opposite sides of the technological divide: their mother succeeds beyond her wildest dreams at 'a small company

Chapter 1
The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton
by Joe Klein
Much has been written about Clinton, but The Natural is the first work to cut through the gossip, scandals, media hype, and emotional turbulence that Clinton always engendered, to step back and rationally analyze the eight years of his tenure

Chapter 1
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
by Tracy Kidder
Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that 'the only real nation is humanity' - a philosophy that is embodied in the small public

Preface
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
by Barack Obama
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father

The Last Picture Show
The Diana Chronicles
by Tina Brown
Ten years after her death, Princess Diana remains a mystery. Was she the people's princess, who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic who nearly brought down the monarchy?

9/11
Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia
by Carmen Bin Ladin
The New York Times bestseller by Osama bin Laden's sister-in-law that provides a penetrating look inside the Bin Laden family, Saudi society, and the treatment of Saudi women. She married Osama Bin Laden's brother. Now she dares to tell her story.

A Childhood Filled with Music
Angel on My Shoulder: An Autobiography
by Natalie Cole, Digby Diehl
Sizzlingly talented, yet fragile... achieving, yet insecure... responsible, yet reckless-Natalie Cole has been there and done it all. Her comeback album won an unprecedented seven Grammys as her marriage collapsed into jealousy and abuse.

Chapter 2
The Royals
by Kitty Kelley
They are the most chronicled family on the face of the globe. Their every move attracts headlines. Scores of books have tried and failed to penetrate the royal facade. Now Kitty Kelley has gone behind palace walls to provide the first three-dimensional

Pocahontas Proud
Redneck Woman: Stories from My Life
by Gretchen Wilson, Allen Rucker
Gretchen Wilson may be one of country music's hottest stars, but unlike most people living a rags-to-riches fairy tale, she doesn't play down her humble beginnings. Born to a teenage mother in southern Illinois and raised on stock car races and bar brawls

Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois
by Anonymous
Every one knows that America is called the New World because, until the close of the 15th century, it was unknown to the other nations of the earth - at least it was then unknown to Europe. Until quite near the end of that century

Beginning
Fat, Stupid, Ugly: One Woman's Courage to Survive
by Debrah Constance, J.I. Kleinberg
Despite a life fraught with cycles of abuse and addiction, cancer and catastrophe, Debrah defied the odds, never losing hope in herself or humanity. Her story is one of triumph: how one woman overcame her past and provided a community with the love

Kenosha
Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers
by Elizabeth Edwards
She charmed America with her smart, likable, down-to-earth personality as she campaigned for her husband, then vice-presidential candidate John Edwards. She inspired millions as she valiantly fought advanced breast cancer after being diagnosed only days

Chapter 1
The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky
by Ken Dornstein
In this stunning, emotionally charged memoir, Ken Dornstein interweaves the moving story of his own coming-of-age with the promise of greatness his brother never lived to fulfill. The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky is a heartbreaking but profoundly hopeful

Separation
The Real Deal: My Life in Business and Philanthropy
by Sandy Weill, Judah S. Kraushaar
The Sandy Weill story is truly one for the ages. Starting with $30,000 in borrowed cash in 1960, and relying on uncanny entrepreneurial instincts, Sandy created one of the leading securities firms in the U.S. and became one of the best known businessmen