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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's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and 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: 12th grade (Ages 17-18), Hardcover
'Tis
by Frank McCourt
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Autobiographies & Memoirs for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
Again Calls the Owl
by Margaret Craven
from G.P. Putnam's Sons
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$3.20 (1 in stock)
Aku-Aku
by Thor Heyerdahl
from Rand McNally
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
All Creatures Great and Small / All Things Bright and Beautiful
James Herriot Series Book 1
by James Herriot
from MJF Books
Realistic Fiction for 7th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
All Hands Aloft!
by Lou A. Schmitt
from Howell-North
for 9th-Adult
in Nautical History (Location: VIN-NAUT)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
America the Beautiful
by Ben Carson with Candy Carson
from Zondervan
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.40 (1 in stock)
Annotated Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
by Ulysses S. Grant
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
by Benjamin Franklin
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
by Benjamin Franklin
from Barnes & Noble
for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
by Benjamin Franklin
from Walter J. Black, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
World's Greatest Literature
by Benjamin Franklin
from Spencer Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
by Benvenuto Cellini
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in Renaissance & Reformation Literature (Location: LIT3-REN)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Behind the Scenes
by Elizabeth Keckley, edited by Frances Smith Foster
from Lakeside Press
for 10th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.40 (1 in stock)
Ben Franklin: America's Original Entrepreneur
by Benjamin Franklin, illustrated by William Sharp, with an introduction by Carl Van Doren
from Entrepreneur Press
for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Best of James Herriot
by James Herriot
from St. Martin's Press
for 10th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
Best of James Herriot
by James Herriot
from St. Martin's Press
for 10th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
Bombs and Blessings
by Retha Hazel Eldridge
from Review and Herald Publishing Association
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Born Free
by Joy Adamson
Anniversary from Pantheon Books
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$7.20 (1 in stock)
Comes the Comrade!
by Alexandra Orme, translated from the Polish by M.A. Michael and L. Meyer
from William Morrow & Company
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$3.20 (1 in stock)
Complete Book of Marvels
by Richard Halliburton
from Bobbs-Merril Co
for 3rd-Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
Complete Book of Marvels
by Richard Halliburton
from Bobbs-Merril Co
for 3rd-Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Confessions of St. Augustine
by St. Augustine (translation by Philip Burton)
from Everyman's Library
for 10th-Adult
in Medieval Literature (Location: LIT2-MED)
$18.70
Cross Creek
by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Dandelion Wine
by Ray Bradbury
Reprint from Avon Books
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$21.25
Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
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)
$2.80 (1 in stock)
Egg and I
by Betty MacDonald
from J.B. Lippincott Co.
Biography for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.80 (1 in stock)
Escape from Corregidor
by Edward D. Whitcomb
from Regnery Publishing, Inc.
for 6th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$6.40 (1 in stock)
Fighting the Flying Circus
by Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker
1965 Edition from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Flying Carpet
by Richard Halliburton
from Bobbs-Merril Co
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
From a Name to a Number
by Alter Wiener
from Authorhouse
for 11th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$10.40 (1 in stock)
From Immigrant to Inventor
by Michael Pupin
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
From Scotland to Silverado
by Robert Louis Stevenson
from Harvard University Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Gift from the Sea
by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
from Pantheon Books
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Glorious Adventure
by Richard Halliburton
from Bobbs-Merril Co
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
Great Christian Classics Volume I - Curriculum Pack
by Kevin Swanson
2nd edition from Master Books
for 9th-12th grade
in Classical Literature Guides (Location: LIR-CLA)
Great Christian Classics Volume I - Teacher Guide
by Kevin Swanson
2nd edition from Master Books
for 9th-12th grade
in Classical Literature Guides (Location: LIR-CLA)
$21.59
Great Christian Classics Volume I - Text
by Kevin Swanson
2nd edition from Generations with Vision
for 9th-12th grade
in Classical Literature Guides (Location: LIR-CLA)
$39.99
Happy Times in Norway
by Sigrid Undset, translated by Joran Birkeland
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 3rd-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
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)
Hillbilly Elegy
by J. D. Vance
from HarperCollins
for 10th-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)
$21.24
I Remember Laura
by Stephen W. Hines
3rd printing from Thomas Nelson Publishers
Biography for 7th-Adult
in Little House Materials (Location: LIR-LHM)
$9.60 (1 in stock)
In My Father's House
by Corrie Ten Boom
First Edition from Revell Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$3.20 (2 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's Favorite Dog Stories
by James Herriot
First Printing from St. Martin's Press
for 8th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
Just As I Am
by Billy Graham
1st edition from HarperCollins
for 11th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$4.80 (1 in stock)
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)
Kon-Tiki Expedition
by Thor Heyerdahl, illustrated by Eric Palmquist
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
Life and Diary of David Brainerd
by David Brainerd
from Moody Press
Biography for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$19.20 (1 in stock)
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 on the Mississippi
Signet Classics
by Mark Twain
from Harper & Brothers
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$7.20 (1 in stock)
Life Sentence
by Charles W. Colson
Second Printing from Chosen Books
for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$4.00 (2 in stock)
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)
$6.40 (1 in stock)
Living Free
by Joy Adamson
from Harcourt, Brace & World
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Lonely but Not Alone
by HRH Wilhelmina, Princess of the Netherlands
from McGraw-Hill
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$9.60 (1 in stock)
Lost Executioner
by Nic Dunlop
1st edition from Walker and Company
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
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)
Milton Meltzer
by Milton Meltzer
from Franklin Watts
for 8th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$6.40 (2 in stock)
My First Summer in the Sierra
by John Muir
from Gibbs M. Smith
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$14.41
My Heart Lies South
by Elizabeth Borton de Treviño
from Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
Biography for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
My Patients Were Zulus
by James B. McCord, M.D. with John Scott Douglas
from Rinehart & Company, Inc.
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Nickel's Worth of Skim Milk
by Robert J. Hastings, illustrated by Steve Kerr
from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
for 6th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Onions in the Stew
by Betty MacDonald
from J.B. Lippincott Co.
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Ordinary Hazards
by Nikki Grimes
from Wordsong
for 10th-Adult
2020 Robert F. Siebert Honor Book
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$16.99
Oregon Trail
by Francis Parkman, Jr., illustrated by Frederic Remington
1993 printing from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Oregon Trail
by Francis Parkman, Jr., illustrated by Maynard Dixon
from Heritage Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Oregon Trail
by Francis Parkman
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Oregon Trail
Famous Books for Young Americans
by Francis Parkman
from A. L. Burt Company
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Peter Cartwright, the Backwoods Preacher
by Peter Cartwright
Undated from Cranston and Curts
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$9.60 (1 in stock)
Pioneer Woman Cooks
by Ree Drummond
from William Morrow & Company
in American Cooking (Location: COOK-US)
Plague and I
by Betty MacDonald
from J.B. Lippincott Co.
Biography for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Private World of Tasha Tudor
by Tasha Tudor and Richard Brown
1st edition from Little, Brown & Company
for 8th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Ranch under the Rimrock
by Dorothy Lawson McCall
from Binford & Mort Publishing
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Royal Road to Romance
by Richard Halliburton
from Garden City Books
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
Saddles East
by John W. Beard
from Binford & Mort Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in Oregon Trail (Location: HISA-19OR)
Sea Around Us
by Rachel Carlson
from Oxford University
for 9th-Adult
1952 National Book Award (Non-fiction)
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Secret Lives of Walter Mitty and of James Thurber
by James Thurber, illustrated by Marc Simont
1st edition from Collins Design
for 6th-12th grade
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.80 (1 in stock)
Sketches of Home
by Suzanne U. Rhodes
from Canon Press
for 10th-Adult
in Hospitality (Location: SS-HOS)
$12.00 $5.00 (1 in stock)
Sketches of the Life of Captain Hugh A. White
by Hugh A. White, William J. Hoge
from Sprinkle Publications
for 7th-Adult
in American Civil War Era (1850-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
Story of Elsa
by Joy Adamson
First American Edition from Harcourt, Brace & World
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$7.20 (1 in stock)
Tasting the Sky
by Ibtisam Barakat
Fifth Printing from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
This Promise of Change
by Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy
from Bloomsbury Publishing
for 6th-12th grade
2020 Robert F. Siebert Honor Book
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$15.29
Three Against the Wilderness
by Eric Collier
6th Printing, 1960 from E.P. Dutton & Co.
for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
To America
by Stephen E. Ambrose
1st edition from Simon and Schuster
for 10th-Adult
in Clearance: Literature (Location: ZCLE-LIT)
Trails Plowed Under
by Charles M. Russell
from Doubleday & Company
for 7th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Travels in Arabia Deserta
by Charles M. Doughty
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Travels of Marco Polo
by Marco Polo, Translated by W. Marsden, Revised and Edited by Peter Harris
from Everyman's Library
for 10th-Adult
in Medieval Literature (Location: LIT2-MED)
Two Under the Indian Sun
by Jon & Rumer Godden
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$7.20 (1 in stock)
Two Years Before the Mast
by Richard Henry Dana
from Walter J. Black, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
Two Years Before the Mast
by Richard Henry Dana, illustrated by H.A. Mueller
from Heritage Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Two Years Before the Mast
Rainbow Classics
by Richard Henry Dana, illustrated by Alexander Dobkin
from World Publishing Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Two Years Before the Mast
by Richard Henry Dana, with period illustrations and a biographical sketch by H.W.L. Dana
from Dodd, Mead & Co.
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Two Years Before the Mast
by Richard Henry Dana, illustrated by Robert Frankenberg
from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Under a Lucky Star
by Roy Chapman Andrews
from Viking Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Vancouver's Discovery of Puget Sound
by Edmond S. Meany
from Binford & Mort Publishing
for 10th-Adult
in Pacific States (Location: HISV-PNW)
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