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Autobiographies & Memoirs

What you won't find here: tell-all celebrity confessions ghostwritten by a former member of the staff or entourage.

We like to keep our memoirs classy, and by that we mean literary. We're not saying you should never read just-the-facts-ma'am bios (we suggest you steer clear of the celebrity trash mentioned above), but there's something to be said for reading autobiographical works as good or better than any critically acclaimed novel.

Famous people have been penning reflections on their own lives almost as long as writing and people have existed simultaneously. Even portions of the Old Testament are written in first person, and though subsequent autobiographers have preferred to chronicle themselves in the third person, the fact remains that we generally want to hear how things transpired from the mouths of the principle players themselves.

It's an established fact that a lot of untruth and outright lying goes into memoirs. Authors either want to appear better than they were, want their opponents to appear worse than they were, or simply like to invent stories about themselves (they're writers, after all). But how much can we actually know about someone else's life? and if they're proven untrustworthy as their own narrators, doesn't that say something significant about them, too?

Not all of these are happy books. In fact, most of them aren't "happy" in the sense of things always going well for the protagonists, or things ending well, or even wellness as a general theme. But part of the attraction of the inside scoop is that we get to know and better understand the human condition as it is, rather than as we would like it to be.

Ben Franklin was one of the true geniuses of the American Revolution. In his Autobiography (as though there could, or would, be no other), he talks about being a vegetarian. He permitted himself to eat fish, however, because though they were meat, they ate each other, and were thus unsoiled by the things that usually taint other meats. How would we know this brilliant man could be so illogical were it not for his own record of his own life?

If all autobiographies were similarly entertaining, we'd read them all. They often are, but there are others (like The Lost Executioner, about a genocidal commandant of a Cambodian death camp) that we read for far different reasons. They show us the black human heart, fully exposed. We are terrified when we read these memoirs, and we weep, as often as not because we recognize ourselves in the faces of the men and women on the cover.

Memoirs, whether confessional or obscurantist, are secrets whispered from the author to the reader. Sometimes the author writes as through a megaphone, at other times as though whispering through mittened hands. It's not our job to untangle every objectively true statement from those that aren't. It's our job to listen to the words spoken, and to hear the underlying truth each memoirist conveys.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he is a husband and father, teaches adult Sunday school in his Presbyterian congregation, and likes weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.

 

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Active Filters: 9th grade (Ages 14-15)
84, Charing Cross Road
by Helene Hanff
from Penguin Random House
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.00
Account of Mary Rowlandson and Other Indian Captivity Narratives
by Mary Rowlandson
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 17th Century Literature (Location: LIT4-17)
$6.95
Adventures of Davy Crockett
by David Crockett, illustrated by John W. Thomason
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$18.00 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Theodore Roosevelt
by Theodore Roosevelt
from National Geographic
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$16.00
Aku-Aku
by Thor Heyerdahl
from Rand McNally
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
All Creatures Great and Small
James Herriot Series Book 1
by James Herriot
from St. Martin's Press
Realistic Fiction for 7th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$18.00
All Hands Aloft!
by Lou A. Schmitt
from Howell-North
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
All Things Bright and Beautiful
James Herriot Series Book 2
by James Herriot
from St. Martin's Press
Realistic Fiction for 7th-12th grade
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$18.00
All Things Wise and Wonderful
James Herriot Series Book 3
by James Herriot
from St. Martin's Press
Realistic Fiction for 7th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$17.99
Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary
by Ruud van der Rol & Rian Verhoeven
from Scholastic Inc.
for 6th-10th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank, translated by B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt
Book Club Edition from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 6th-10th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
Dover Giant Thrift Editions
by John Henry Newman
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.00
Authentic Life of Billy the Kid
by Pat F. Garrett
from University of Oklahoma Press
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Dover Thrift Editions
by Benjamin Franklin
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$6.00 $2.50 (1 in stock)
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
World's Greatest Literature
by Benjamin Franklin
from Spencer Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
by Benvenuto Cellini
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
$11.50 (1 in stock)
Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge
by Calvin Coolidge, Edited with an Introduction by Amity Shlaes and Matthew Denhart
from ISI Books
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Autobiography of Charles G. Finney
by Charles G. Finney
from Bethany House
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$19.00
Autobiography of Josiah Henson
by Josiah Henson
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and Other Writings
Signet Classics
by Benjamin Franklin
Reprint from Signet Classics
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$5.95
Black Like Me
by John Howard Griffin & Robert Bonazzi
35th anniversary from Signet Classics
for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.99 $6.00 (1 in stock)
Blood Brothers
by Elias Chacour with David Hazard
from Baker Books
for 9th-12th grade
in Near & Middle East (Location: HISMC-NME)
$14.99
Blue Remembered Hills
by Rosemary Sutcliff
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for 6th-10th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Blue Remembered Hills
by Rosemary Sutcliff
from William Morrow & Company
for 6th-10th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Bombs and Blessings
by Retha Hazel Eldridge
from Review and Herald Publishing Association
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Born Again
by Charles Colson
from Chosen Books
for 9th grade-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$19.99
Born to Run
by Christopher McDougall
from Vintage Books
for 9th-Adult
in Biography Anthologies (Location: BIO-ANTH)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Boswell's London Journal 1762-1763
by Frederick A. Pottle
1st edition from McGraw-Hill
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Breakfast with Bonhoeffer
by Jon Walker
from Leafwood Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in Practical Christian Living (Location: XCL-PRAC)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Chasing the Horizon
by Patrick Kinkade, Thomas Kinkade
from Harvest House
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.50 (1 in stock)
Children of the Storm
by Natasha Vins
from Bob Jones University Press
Autobiography for 8th-10th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$8.99
China Cry
by Nora Lam with Richard Schneider
from Thomas Nelson Publishers
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Co. Aytch
by Sam Watkins
from Touchstone
Historical Non-fiction for 8th-Adult
in American Civil War (1860-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
$17.00
Cross Creek
by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Dandelion Wine
by Ray Bradbury
from Spectra Books
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.99
Dandelion Wine
by Ray Bradbury
Reprint from Avon Books
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Defeating the Totalitarian Lie
by Hilmar Von Campe
from HighWay
for 8th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
from Anchor Books
for 7th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
from Bantam Books
Biography for 7th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$7.99 $4.50 (1 in stock)
Early Days of a Cowboy on the Pecos
by James F. Hinkle
from Unknown Publisher
for 7th-12th grade
in Cowboys & Cattlemen (Location: HISA-19CO)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
Egg and I
by Betty MacDonald
from HarperCollins
Biography for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.99
Eleanor's Story
by Eleanor Ramrath Garner
from Peachtree Publishers, Ltd.
for 7th-9th grade
in WWII: European Theater (Location: HISA-20WW2E)
Escape from Corregidor
by Edward D. Whitcomb
from Regnery Publishing, Inc.
for 6th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Every Falling Star
by Sungju Lee and Susan McClelland
from Amulet Books
for 6th-9th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$9.99
Every Living Thing
by James Herriot
1st edition from St. Martin's Press
for 8th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Every Living Thing
by James Herriot
from St. Martin's Press
for 7th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$17.99
Eyewitnesses at the Battle of Franklin
by David R. Logsdon
4th edition
for 9th-Adult
in Clearance: History & Geography (Location: ZCLE-HIS)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Falcons of France
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
for 7th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Farewell Summer
by Ray Bradbury
1st edition from William Morrow & Company
for 7th-12th grade
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.99
Fighting the Flying Circus
by Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker
1965 Edition from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
For Those Tears
by Nora Lam and Cliff Dudley
1978 Printing from New Leaf Press
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$2.50 (1 in stock)
Four Voyages
by Christopher Columbus
from Penguin Classics
Historical Primary Sources for 9th-Adult
in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
$17.00
Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon
by Dhan Gopal Mukerji
from Dutton Juvenile
for 4th-9th grade
1928 Newbery Medal winner
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$14.00 (2 in stock)
Going Solo
by Roald Dahl
from Puffin Books
for 7th-9th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$8.99 $4.50 (1 in stock)
Great Christian Classics - Volume I
by Kevin Swanson
2nd edition from Generations with Vision
for 9th-12th grade
in Classical Literature Guides (Location: LIR-CLA)
$42.00
Helen Keller: The Story of My Life
Signet Classics
by Helen Keller
Reprint from Signet Classics
Autobiography for 7th-10th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$5.95
Helen Keller: The Story of My Life
Signet Classics
by Helen Keller
from Living Book Press
Autobiography for 7th-10th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$15.99
Here Is Your War
by Ernie Pyle; illustrated by Carol Johnson
1943 Printing from World Publishing Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Hiding Place
by Corrie Ten Boom
from Bantam Books
Biography for 6th-10th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$8.99
Hiding Place
by Corrie Ten Boom
35th Anniversary Edition from Chosen Books
Biography for 6th-10th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$15.99
House with Four Rooms
by Rumer Godden
from Quill
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
How the Heather Looks
by Joan Bodger
Reprint from Living Book Press
for 7th-Adult
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$24.99
I Remember Laura
by Stephen W. Hines
3rd printing from Thomas Nelson Publishers
Biography for 7th-Adult
in Little House Materials (Location: LIR-LHM)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
by Harriet Jacobs
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.00 $3.00 (1 in stock)
Indian Boyhood
by Charles A. Eastman, illustrated by E.L. Blumenschein
from E.M. Hale and Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Innocents Abroad
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Mark Twain
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
James Herriot Series
by James Herriot
from St. Martin's Press
Realistic Fiction for 6th-10th grade
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$71.97
James Herriot's Dog Stories
by James Herriot
1st edition from St. Martin's Press
for 7th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
James Herriot's Favorite Dog Stories
by James Herriot
First Printing from St. Martin's Press
for 8th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
James Herriot's Yorkshire
by James Herriot, photography by Derry Brabbs
1996 Printing from Mermaid Books
for 7th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Journals of Jim Elliot
by Jim Elliot
from Fleming H Revell Co.
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Journals of Lewis & Clark
Signet Classics
by John Bakeless, editor
from Signet Classics
Primary Source Documents for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.95
Journey and Ordeal of Cabeza de Vaca
Dover editions
by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
from Dover Publications
for 5th-Adult
in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
$10.95
Kid on the River
by Dean Nichols
1st edition from Binford & Mort Publishing
for 8th-Adult
in Pacific States (Location: HISV-PNW)
Kit Carson's Autobiography
by Kit Carson
from University of Nebraska
Autobiography for 9th-12th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Kon-Tiki
by Thor Heyerdahl
from Pocket Books
Non-fiction/Adventure for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.99
Kon-Tiki
by Thor Heyerdahl, Translated by F. H. Lyon
from Rand McNally
Non-fiction/Adventure for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Laura Ingalls Wilder: Pioneer Girl
by Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Pamela Smith Hill
from South Dakota State Historical Society Press
for 7th-Adult
in Little House Materials (Location: LIR-LHM)
$39.99
Lewis and Clark Expedition - 3-volume Set
by Meriwether Lewis
from J.B. Lippincott Co.
Primary Source Documents for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$32.00 (1 in stock)
Life on the Mississippi
Signet Classics
by Mark Twain
from Signet Classics
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.95
Life on the Mississippi
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Mark Twain
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Life With Father
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Clarence Day
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Life with Father and Mother
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Little Britches Series
by Ralph Moody
from University of Nebraska
Biography for 5th-9th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
$111.88
Log of Christopher Columbus
by Christopher Columbus, translated by Robert Fuson
1992 Printing from International Marine / McGraw-Hill
for 9th-Adult
in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
Lord God Made Them All
by James Herriot
from St. Martin's Press
for 7th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$17.99
Lost Garden
by Laurence Yep
from Simon and Schuster
Autobiography for 6th-9th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
March (Book One)
by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin
from Top Shelf Productions
for 5th-9th grade
Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Winner, Coretta Scott King Honor Book
in Comic Books & Graphic Novels (Location: FIC-COMIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
March (Book Three)
by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin; illustrated by Nate Powell
from Top Shelf Productions
for 5th-9th grade
2017 Robert F. Sibert Medal winner, Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Winner, Coretta Scott King Honor Book
in Comic Books & Graphic Novels (Location: FIC-COMIC)
March (Book Two)
by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin
from Top Shelf Productions
for 5th-9th grade
Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Winner, Coretta Scott King Honor Book
in Comic Books & Graphic Novels (Location: FIC-COMIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
March - Boxed Set
by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin
from Top Shelf Productions
for 5th-9th grade
Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Winner, Coretta Scott King Honor Book
in Comic Books & Graphic Novels (Location: FIC-COMIC)
$24.00 (1 in stock)
Marcus Aurelius and His Times
by Marcus Aurelius
from Walter J. Black, Inc.
Classic Literature for 9th-Adult
in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
Maria
by Maria von Trapp
from Creation House
for 7th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Meditations
by Marcus Aurelius
from Modern Library
Classic Literature for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$11.00
Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler, translated by Ralph Manheim
from Houghton Mifflin
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler, translated by Michael Ford
from Elite Minds, Inc.
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$29.95
Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln
by Gluckel of Hamelin
from Schocken
for 8th-Adult
in 17th Century Literature (Location: LIT4-17)
Memories of a Berlin Childhood
by Marianne Buchwalter
First Edition from Premier Publishing
Biography for 7th-12th grade
in WWII: European Theater (Location: HISA-20WW2E)
$13.95
Million Miles in a Thousand Years
by Donald Miller
from Thomas Nelson Publishers
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
12
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