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Are you trying to find biographies or memoirs here at Kirkwood? They aren’t shelved in a single section like in some public libraries, they are filled in the regular run of non-fiction books where they belong. An athlete’s biography is shelved with the sports books, a politician is shelved with history books or social change books, a scientist with the science books, an actor with the movie and television books, etc.
Enjoy some of the titles we’ve added this year. You can also find a memoirs list laid out a different way on this LibGuide. These titles are housed in Cedar Rapids, but you can request them to be delivered to any of the other centers at any time.
Check out our previous lists:
There are also specialized lists for example Sport Stars or Movie Stars and Directors.
Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea by Steven Callahan, Call Number: 910.916 C156a
NOTE: “Steven Callahan shares his dramatic tale of survival at sea in this undeniable seafaring classic. His engrossing firsthand account reveals how he survived more than a month alone at sea, fighting for his life in an inflatable raft after his small sloop capsized only six days out.”
Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe by Carl Safina, Call Number: 598.97 S128a
NOTE: A memoir of a family who rescues a baby owl and what happens afterward.
American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin, Call Number: 322.42 H436a
Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman by Abby Chava Stein, Call Number: 296.833 B819b
The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen, Call Number: 616.898 R813b
NOTE: “Michael blazed through college in three years, graduating summa cum laude and landing a top-flight consulting job. But all wasn’t as it seemed. One day Michael Laudor had suffered a serious psychotic break and was in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Michael was still in the hospital when he learned he’d been accepted to Yale Law School, and still battling delusions when he decided to trade his halfway house for the top law school in the country. He not only managed to graduate, but after his extraordinary story was featured in The New York Times, sold a memoir for a large sum. Ron Howard bought film rights, completing the dream for Michael and his tirelessly supportive girlfriend Carrie. But then Michael, in the grip of an unshakeable paranoid fantasy, stabbed Carrie to death with a kitchen knife and became a front-page story of an entirely different sort.”
Bruno Schulz: An Artist, A Murder, and the Hijacking of History by Benjamin Balant
NOTE: “Schulz was a master of twentieth-century imaginative fiction who mapped the anxious perplexities of his time; Isaac Bashevis Singer called him “one of the most remarkable writers who ever lived.” Schulz was also a talented illustrator and graphic artist whose masochistic drawings would catch the eye of a sadistic Nazi officer. Schulz’s art became the currency in which he bought life. Drawing on extensive new reporting and archival research, Benjamin Balint chases the inventive murals Schulz painted on the walls of an SS villa―the last traces of his vanished world―into multiple dimensions of the artist’s life and afterlife. Sixty years after Schulz was murdered, those murals were miraculously rediscovered, only to be secretly smuggled by Israeli agents to Jerusalem. The ensuing international furor summoned broader perplexities, not just about who has the right to curate orphaned artworks and to construe their meanings, but about who can claim to stand guard over the legacy of Jews killed in the Nazi slaughter.”
Burn the Page: A True Story of Torching Doubts, Blazing Trails, and Igniting Change by Danica Roem, Call Number: 975.504 R715b
Capitan Chiquito: A Personal History of an Apache Chief, 1821-1919 by John Paul Hartman, Call Number: 979.004 H333c
The Daughter of Auschwitz: My Story of Resilience, Survival, and Hope by Tova Friedman and Malcolm Brabant, Call Number: 940.531 F911d
NOTE: “Tova Friedman was one of the youngest people to emerge from Auschwitz. After surviving the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Central Poland where she lived as a toddler, Tova was four when she and her parents were sent to a Nazi labour camp, and almost six when she and her mother were forced into a packed cattle truck and sent to Auschwitz II, also known as the Birkenau extermination camp, while her father was transported to Dachau. During six months of incarceration in Birkenau, Tova witnessed atrocities that she could never forget, and experienced numerous escapes from death. She is one of a handful of Jews to have entered a gas chamber and lived to tell the tale. As Nazi killing squads roamed Birkenau before abandoning the camp in January 1945, Tova and her mother hid among corpses. After being liberated by the Russians they made their way back to their hometown in Poland. Eventually Tova’s father tracked them down and the family was reunited.”
Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family by Rabia Chaudry, Call Number: 305.891 C496f
NOTE: “At once a love letter (with recipes) to fresh roti, chaat, chicken biryani, ghee, pakoras, shorba, parathay and an often hilarious dissection of life in a Muslim immigrant family, Fatty Fatty Boom Boom is also a searingly honest portrait of a woman grappling with a body that gets the job done but that refuses to meet the expectations of others.”
Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, Call Number: PB KOB
NOTE: “Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.”
Girl Archaeologist: Sisterhood in a Sexist Profession by Alice Beck Kehoe, Call Number: 930.109 K269g
NOTE: “Girl Archaeologist recounts Alice Kehoe’s life, begun in an era very different from the twenty-first century in which she retired as an honored elder archaeologist. She persisted against entrenched patriarchy in her childhood, at Harvard University, and as she did fieldwork with her husband in the northern plains. A senior male professor attempted to quash Kehoe’s career by raping her. Her Harvard professors refused to allow her to write a dissertation in archaeology. Universities paid her less than her male counterparts. Her husband refused to participate in housework or childcare.”
A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney, Call Number: 618.929 D337h
NOTE: Delaney’s exploration of his young son’s death via brain tumor. From the illness to the impact of grief and the blind, furious rage, through to the forceful, unstoppable love that remains. “In the madness of his grief, Delaney grapples with the fragile miracle of life, the mysteries of death, and the question of purpose for those left behind.”
How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair, Call Number: PB SIN
NOTE: “Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair’s father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a woman’s highest virtue was her obedience. In an effort to keep Babylon outside the gate, he forbade almost everything. In place of pants, the women in her family were made to wear long skirts and dresses to cover their arms and legs, head wraps to cover their hair, no make-up, no jewelry, no opinions, no friends. Safiya’s mother, while loyal to her father, nonetheless gave Safiya and her siblings the gift of books, including poetry, to which Safiya latched on for dear life. And as Safiya watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under housework and the rigidity of her father’s beliefs, she increasingly used her education as a sharp tool with which to find her voice and break free. Inevitably, with her rebellion comes clashes with her father, whose rage and paranoia explodes in increasing violence. As Safiya’s voice grows, lyrically and poetically, a collision course is set between them.”
Hysterical: A Memoir by Elissa Bassist, Call Number: 362.109 B321h
NOTE: “Between 2016 and 2018, Elissa Bassist saw over twenty medical professionals for a variety of mysterious ailments. Bassist had what millions of American women had: pain that didn’t make sense to doctors, a body that didn’t make sense to science, a psyche that didn’t make sense to mankind. But then an acupuncturist suggested some of her physical pain could be caged fury finding expression, and that treating her voice would treat the problem. It did. Growing up, Bassist’s family, boyfriends, school, work, and television had the same expectation for a woman’s voice: less is more. She was called dramatic and insane for speaking her mind; she was accused of overreacting and playing victim for having unexplained physical pain; she was ignored or rebuked like women throughout history for using her voice “inappropriately” by expressing sadness or suffering or anger or joy. Because of this, she said “yes” when she meant “no”; she didn’t tweet #MeToo; and she never spoke without fear of being “too emotional.” So, she felt rage, but like a good woman, repressed it. In Hysterical, Bassist explains how girls and women internalize and perpetuate directives about their voice, making it hard to emote or “just speak up” and “burn down the patriarchy.” But her silence hurt more than anything she could ever say. Hysterical is a memoir of a voice lost and found, and a primer on new ways to think about a woman’s voice, where it’s being squashed and where it needs amplification. Bassist breaks her own silences and calls on others to do the same—to unmute their voice, listen to it above all others, and use it again without regret.”
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy, Call Number: PB MCC
NOTE: “A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life.”
A Living Remedy: A Memoir by Nicole Chung, Call Number: 362.734 C559l
NOTE: “Nicole Chung couldn’t hightail it out of her overwhelmingly white Oregon hometown fast enough. As a scholarship student at a private university on the East Coast, no longer the only Korean she knew, she found community and a path to the life she’d long wanted. But the middle class world she begins to raise a family in – where there are big homes, college funds, nice vacations – looks very different from the middle class world she thought she grew up in, where paychecks have to stretch to the end of the week, health insurance is often lacking, and there are no safety nets.”
The Longest Race: Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping, and Deception on Nike’s Elite Running Team by Kara Goucher with Mary Pilon, Call Number: 796.42 G688l
NOTE: “Kara Goucher grew up with Olympic dreams. She excelled at running from a young age and was offered a Nike sponsorship deal when she graduated from college. Then in 2004, she was invited to join a secretive, lavishly funded new team, dubbed the Nike Oregon Project. Coached by distance running legend Alberto Salazar, it seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime. Kara was soon winning a World Championship medal, going to the Olympics, and standing on the podium at the New York and Boston marathons, just like her coach. But behind the scenes, Salazar was hiding dark secrets. He pushed the limits of anti-doping rules, and created what Kara experienced as a culture of abuse, the extent of which she reveals in her book for the first time. Meanwhile, Nike stood by Alberto for years and proved itself capable of shockingly misogynistic corporate practices.”
Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home by Nando Parrado, Call Number: 613.69 P259m
Mussolini’s Daughter: The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe by Caroline Moorehead, Call Number:945.091 M825m
My Friend Anne Frank: The Inspiring and Heartbreaking True Story of Best Friends Torn Apart and Reunited Against All Odds by Hannah Pick-Goslar, Call Number: 940.531 P594m
No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War by Hirro Onoda, Call Number: 940.548 O589n
NOTE: For 30 years after World War II one Japanese solider refused to believe the war was over and continued to fight all by himself on the Philippines, confidently waiting for Japanese troops to arrive, relieve him, and tell him about how Japan had gloriously won WWII. He finally emerged in 1974 and this is his story.
The Odyssey of Philis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence by David Waldstreicher, Call Number: 881.1 W557o
Pageboy: A Memoir by Elliot Page, Call Number: PB PAG
NOTE: “ It was two months before the world premiere of Juno, and Elliot Page was in his first ever queer bar. The hot summer air hung heavy around him as he looked at her. And then it happened. In front of everyone. A previously unfathomable experience. Here he was on the precipice of discovering himself as a queer person, as a trans person. Getting closer to his desires, his dreams, himself, without the repression he’d carried for so long. But for Elliot, two steps forward had always come with one step back. With Juno‘s massive success, Elliot became one of the world’s most beloved actors. His dreams were coming true, but the pressure to perform suffocated him. He was forced to play the part of the glossy young starlet, a role that made his skin crawl, on and off set. The career that had been an escape out of his reality and into a world of imagination was suddenly a nightmare. As he navigated criticism and abuse from some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, a past that snapped at his heels, and a society dead set on forcing him into a binary, Elliot often stayed silent, unsure of what to do, until enough was enough.”
Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History by Kyle Harper, Call Number: 614.49 H293p
NOTE: “Plagues upon the Earth is a monumental history of humans and their germs. Weaving together a grand narrative of global history with insights from cutting-edge genetics, Kyle Harper explains why humanity’s uniquely dangerous disease pool is rooted deep in our evolutionary past, and why its growth is accelerated by technological progress. He shows that the story of disease is entangled with the history of slavery, colonialism, and capitalism, and reveals the enduring effects of historical plagues in patterns of wealth, health, power, and inequality. He also tells the story of humanity’s escape from infectious disease―a triumph that makes life as we know it possible, yet destabilizes the environment and fosters new diseases.”
The Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins by Aidan Levy, Call Number: 7883716 L668s
Sink: A Memoir by Joseph Earl Thomas, Call Number: 362.293 T454s
NOTE: “Thomas guides readers through the unceasing cruelty that defined his circumstances, laying bare the depths of his loneliness and illuminating the vital reprieve geek culture offered him. With remarkable tenderness and devastating clarity, he explores how lessons of toxic masculinity were drilled into his body and the way the cycle of violence permeated the very fabric of his environment. Even in the depths of isolation, there were unexpected moments of joy carved out, from summers where he was freed from the injurious structures of his surroundings to the first glimpses of kinship he caught on his journey to becoming a Pokémon master. ”
Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora, Call Number: 305.906 Z25s
NOTE: The story of a 9 year old whose parents take him on an incredibly dangerous trip across South America and ultimately over the U.S. border. The trip was expected to take 2 weeks – it takes 2 months.
Son of Elsewhere: A Memoir in Pieces by Elamin Abdelmahmoud, Call Number: 971.004 A135s
NOTE: “In his debut collection of essays, Abdelmahmoud gives full voice to each and every one of these conflicting selves. Whether reflecting on how The O.C. taught him about falling in love, why watching wrestling allowed him to reinvent himself, or what it was like being a Muslim teen in the aftermath of 9/11, Abdelmahmoud explores how our experiences and our environments help us in the continuing task of defining who we truly are.”
Stay True by Hua Hsu, Call Number: 979.467 H873s
NOTE: “In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken—with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity—is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes ’zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn’t seem to have a place for either of them. But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become friends, a friendship built on late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet. Determined to hold on to all that was left of one of his closest friends—his memories—Hua turned to writing. Stay True is the book he’s been working on ever since.”
To the Temple of Tranquility… and Step On It!: A Memoir by Ed Begley, Jr., Call Number: 791.43 B417t
NOTE: “Begley shares a fountain of hilarious and poignant stories throughout his life. The memoir is candid and endearing; in one chapter, he is summoned to Marlon Brando’s house to discuss the practical uses of electric eels. In another, he tells the story of taking Annette Bening to the Oscars in ‘an oddball kit-car that had gull wing doors, and was nearly impossible to get in or out of, unless you were a yoga master, which fortunately she was.’ Not to mention insightful and surprising tales about The Beatles, Monty Python, Richard Pryor, Cesar Chavez, Jeff Goldblum, Tom Waits, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carrie Fisher, and so many more luminaries.”
Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger by Nigel Slater, Call Number: 641.3 S631t
NOTE: “Toast is Nigel Slater’s truly extraordinary story of a childhood remembered through food. In each chapter, as he takes readers on a tour of the contents of his family’s pantry—rice pudding, tinned ham, cream soda, mince pies, lemon drops, bourbon biscuits” and what they mean to him and meant to his childhood.”
Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism by Brooke Kroeger, Call Number: 070.408 K931u
Vigilance: The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad by Andrew Diemer, Call Number: 973.711 D561v
A Visible Man by Edward Enninful, Call Number: 746.92 E591v
NOTE: The true story of a man who learned fashion from his mother as a boy in Ghana and rose to lead British Vogue.
When I Fell From the Sky by Juliane Koepcke, Call Number: 613.69 K783w
NOTE: “The true story of one woman’s miraculous survival: On December 24th 1971, the teenage Juliane boarded the packed flight in Peru to meet her father for Christmas. She and her mother fought to get some of the last seats available and felt thankful to have made the flight. The LANSA airplane flew into a heavy thunderstorm and went down in dense Amazon jungle hundreds of miles from civilization. She fell two miles from the sky, still strapped to her plane seat, into the jungle. She was the sole survivor among the 92 passengers, which included her mother, and Juliane s unexplainable survival has been called a modern-day miracle. With incredible courage, instinct and ingenuity, she crawled and walked alone for eleven days in the green hell of the Amazon. She survived using the skills she d learned in assisting her parents on their research trips into the jungle before coming across a loggers hut, and, with it, safety. Now she tells her fascinating story for the first time and on its 40th anniversary she shares not only the private moments of her survival and rescue but her inspiring life in the wake of the disaster.”
Where You Are Is Not Who You Are: A Memoir by Ursula Burns, Call Number: 338.768 B967w
NOTE: “The first Black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company looks back at her life and her career at Xerox, sharing unique insights on American business and corporate life, the workers she has always valued, racial and economic justice, how greed is threatening democracy, and the obstacles she’s conquered being Black and a woman.”
The Wisdom of Big Bird (and the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch) Lessons from a Life in Feathers by Caroll Spinney with J. Milligan, Call Number: 791.45 S757w
Zig-Zag Boy: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood by Tanya Frank, Call Number: 362.26 F828z
NOTE: “One night in 2009, Tanya Frank finds her nineteen-year-old son, Zach—gentle and full of promise—in the grip of what the psychiatrists would label a psychotic break. Suddenly and inexplicably, Tanya is thrown into a parallel universe: Zach’s world, where the phones are bugged, his friends have joined the Mafia, and helicopters are spying on his family. In the years following Zach’s shifting psychiatric diagnoses, Tanya goes to war for her son, desperate to find the right answer, the right drug, the right doctor to bring him back to reality. Meanwhile, the boy she raised—the chatty, precocious dog-lover, the teenager who spent summers surfing with his big brother, the UCLA student—suffers the effects of multiple hospitalizations, powerful drugs that blunt his emotions, therapies that don’t work, and torturous nights on the streets. Holding on to startling moments of hope and seeking solace in nature and community, Tanya learns how to abandon her fears for the future and accept the mysteries of her son’s altered states.”
Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.
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