Author Memoirs

A highly sensitive and intelligent child, Virginia Woolf grew up in a large family prone to psychological instability. Throughout her life, she was subject to periods of mental breakdown, yet when she was lucid she was capable of a uniquely perceptive and frank introspection. Under the influence of the Bloomsbury Group and their progressive social attitudes, she became experimental in her life and art, breaking with convention to produce some of the finest and most unique literary works of the 20th century.

André Gide, a towering figure in French letters, draws upon his friendship with Oscar Wilde to sketch a compelling portrait of the tragic, doomed author, both celebrated and shunned in his time. Rather than compile a complete biography, Gide invites us to discover Wilde as he did - from their first meeting in 1891 to their final parting just two years before Wilde’s death - all told through Gide’s sensitive, incomparable prose. Using his notes, recollections, and conversations, Gide illuminates Wilde as a man whose true art was not writing, but living.

Despite being a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2008, Philip Schultz could never shake the feeling of being exiled to the “dummy class” in school, where he was largely ignored by his teachers and peers and not expected to succeed. Not until many years later, when his oldest son was diagnosed with dyslexia, did Schultz realize that he suffered from the same condition.

Beckett in 90 Minutes offers a concise, expert account of Beckett's life and ideas and explains their influence on literature and on man's struggle to understand his place in the world. The book also includes a list of Beckett's chief works, a chronology of his life and times, and recommended reading for those who wish to delve deeper.

Snyder was eight years old when her mother died, and her distraught father thrust the family into an evangelical, cult-like existence halfway across the country. Furiously rebellious, she was expelled from school and home at age sixteen. Living out of her car and relying on strangers, Rachel found herself masquerading as an adult, talking her way into college, and eventually traveling the globe.

Moss Hart's Act One, which Lincoln Center Theater presented in 2014 as a play written and directed by James Lapine, is one of the greatest American memoirs - a glorious memorial to a bygone age filled with all the wonder, drama, and heartbreak that surrounded Broadway in the early 20th century.

In this book, C.S. Lewis tells of his search for joy, a spiritual journey that led him from the Christianity of his early youth into atheism and then back to Christianity.

In 1857, a woman escaped enslavement on a North Carolina plantation and fled to a farm in New York. In hiding, she worked on a manuscript that would make her famous long after her death. The novel, The Bondwoman’s Narrative, was first published in 2002 to great acclaim, but the author’s identity remained unknown. Over a decade later, Professor Gregg Hecimovich unraveled the mystery of the author’s name and, in The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts, he finally tells her story.

Thoreau's classic account of the solitary life, describing his attempts to simplify his life and sort out his priorities by living alone in a cabin beside Walden Pond for nearly two years, is one of the most influential books ever written. The bible of the environmental movement, Walden vividly portrays Thoreau's reverence for nature, and his understanding of the idea that nature is made up of crucially interrelated parts.

Borges in 90 Minutes offers a concise, expert account of Borges' life and ideas and explains their influence on literature and on man's struggle to understand his place in the world. The book also includes a list of Borges' chief works, a chronology of his life and times, and recommended reading for those who wish to delve deeper.

Christopher and His Kind covers the most memorable 10 years in the writer's life, from 1929, when Isherwood left England to spend a week in Berlin and decided to stay there indefinitely, to 1939, when he arrived in America. When the book was published in 1976, readers were deeply impressed by the courageous candor with which he describes his life in gay Berlin of the 1930s and his struggles to save his companion, Heinz, from the Nazis.

Wendy Fairey grew up among books. As the shy and studious daughter of famed Hollywood columnist Sheilah Graham - F. Scott Fitzgerald's lover during the last years of his life - she began as a child reading her way through the library Fitzgerald had assembled for her mother and escaped into the landscape of classic English novels. Their protagonists became her intimates, starting with David Copperfield, whose sensibility and aspirations seemed so akin to her own.

The Liars’ Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr’s comic childhood in an east Texas oil town brings us characters as darkly hilarious as any of J. D. Salinger’s—a hard-drinking daddy, a sister who can talk down the sheriff at age twelve, and an oft-married mother whose accumulated secrets threaten to destroy them all.

Prodigy Akiane Kramarik shares her artwork, poetry, and the fascinating story surrounding her talent. Growing up in a home with an atheistic mother and a non-participating Catholic father did not stop four-year-old Akiane Kramarik from finding God. This girl's dreams began a conversation in the home that has eventually brought them all to Christianity and the world's attention. Akiane: Her Life, Her Art, Her Poetry is a collection of the best of Akiane's full-color paintings and poetry created from ages 4 to 10.

At six years old, Terry was told by his headteacher that he would never amount to anything. He spent the rest of his life proving that teacher wrong. At 66, Terry had lived a life full of achievements: becoming one of the UK's best-selling writers, winning the Carnegie Medal and being awarded a knighthood for services to literature. Following his untimely death from Alzheimer's disease, the mantle of completing Terry's memoir was passed to Rob Wilkins, his former assistant, friend and now head of the author's literary estate.

"Bunny told me there were secrets about me that she would take to the grave, secrets that no one would ever hear, including me...." Tom Wilson always felt something wasn't quite right. His parents, Bunny and George, were much older than other kids' parents. There were no baby photos of him in the house. At school, classmates called him Indian, despite his parents' Irish-Quebecois background. And as he got older, friends, lovers and even family members remarked on his uncanny resemblance to Bunny's closest relative, her niece Janie Lazare....

In July 1973, Bob Tininenko, his wife Linda, and his brother in-law Jim Fisher set sail from Tacoma, Washington, on a 31-foot trimaran, down the West Coast to Costa Rica. The journey was expected to take a matter of weeks, but 10 days into the cruise, the party encountered a freak storm off the coast of Northern California. When gale-force winds and 50-foot waves capsized their boat, the voyage became a nightmare. For 72 days, the trio was lost at sea. Challenged by nature and compromised by a bitter rivalry, their courage and will to live was put to the ultimate test.

With the lyricism and emotional power of his award-winning poetry, Belcourt cracks apart his history and shares it with us one fragment at a time. He shines a light on Canada’s legacy of colonial violence and the joy that flourishes in spite of it. He revisits sexual encounters, ruminates on first loves and first loves lost, and navigates the racial politics of gay hookup apps. Among the hard truths he distills, the outline of a brighter future takes shape. A History of My Brief Body is a stunning achievement from one of this generation’s finest young minds.

Now 60 - with years of sobriety under his belt - and the father of three sons, James Brown writes about finding a new path in life, making peace with the family whose ghosts have haunted him, and helping the next generation of addicts overcome their disease. Opening with the tragic tale of an elderly couple consumed by opioid addiction and moving through the horrors of a Las Vegas massacre to the loss of a beloved sponsor, these essays draw on Brown's personal journey of recovery to illustrate how an individual life, in all its messiness and charm, can offer a blueprint for healing.

Educated is a memoir by Tara Westover. It tells the story of her experiences growing up in and subsequently leaving a radical, survivalist Mormon home. Abused by a loved and trusted older brother, Westover struggles for years to escape the cycles of abuse and finally finds her escape through her education. It's a story of struggles and triumphs and the conflict in the mind of a woman torn between family loyalty and her survival instincts.