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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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'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)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Aku-Aku
by Thor Heyerdahl
from Rand McNally
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
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)
An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth
by M. K. Gandhi
from Navajivan Publishing House
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$6.00 (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)
Annotated Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
by Ulysses S. Grant
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Ashley Bryan: Words to My Life's Song
by Ashley Bryan
First Edition from Atheneum
for 5th-7th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
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
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)
$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)
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)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Best of James Herriot
by James Herriot
from St. Martin's Press
for 10th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$8.00 (2 in stock)
Best of James Herriot
by James Herriot
from St. Martin's Press
for 10th-Adult
in Animal Stories (Location: FIC-ANI)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Black Panther of Sivanipalli
by Kenneth Anderson
1960 printing from Rand McNally
for Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
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 Free
by Joy Adamson
Anniversary from Pantheon Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.00 (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)
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)
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)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Confessions of St. Augustine
by St. Augustine (translation by Philip Burton)
from Everyman's Library
for 10th-Adult
in Medieval Literature (Location: LIT2-MED)
$17.60
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
Reprint from Avon Books
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
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)
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)
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 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)
Fighting the Flying Circus
by Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker
1965 Edition from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
From Scotland to Silverado
by Robert Louis Stevenson
from Harvard University Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
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)
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
by John Bunyan
from Hendrickson Publishers
Autobiography for 10th-Adult
in Hendrickson Christian Classics (Location: XCL-DEV)
$8.00 (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
Guest of the Revolution
by Kathryn Koob
from Thomas Nelson Publishers
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by Dave Eggers
1st edition from Simon and Schuster
for Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
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)
$5.00 (2 in stock)
Homesick: My Own Story
by Jean Fritz
from Penguin Putnam
for 4th-8th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
How I Learned Geography
by Uri Shulevitz
1st edition from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for 2nd-5th grade
Caldecott Honor Book
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$21.99
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)
In Search of History
by Theodore H. White
from Harper & Row
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$7.00 (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'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)
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)
Last Grain Race
by Eric Newby
1st Printing from Houghton Mifflin
for Adult
in Nautical History (Location: VIN-NAUT)
$32.00 (1 in stock)
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)
$24.00 (1 in stock)
Life and Letters of Benjamin Franklin
by Benjamin Franklin
from E.M. Hale and Company
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$4.00 (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 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)
Living Free
by Joy Adamson
from Harcourt, Brace & World
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Lonely Sea and the Sky
by Francis Chichester
First American Edition from Coward McCann
for Adult
in Nautical History (Location: VIN-NAUT)
$10.00 (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)
Lost Garden
by Laurence Yep
from Simon and Schuster
Autobiography for 6th-9th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Marco Polo
by Marco Polo
from Book League of America
for Adult
in Medieval Literature (Location: LIT2-MED)
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)
My First Summer in the Sierra
by John Muir
from Gibbs M. Smith
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$16.95
My First Summer in the Sierra
by John Muir
from Living Book Press
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
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)
Of Yachts and Men
by William Atkin, illustrations by Charles G. Davis, introduction by Charles F. Chapman
from Sheridan House
for Adult
in Nautical History (Location: VIN-NAUT)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
Off the Record
by Harry S. Truman, edited by Robert H. Ferrell
from Harper & Row
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
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)
$19.99
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 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
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)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Out of My Life and Thought
by Albert Schweitzer
Reprint from Henry Holt and Company
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Out of the Frying Pan
from Thomas Dunne Books
for Adult
in Miscellaneous Cookbooks (Location: COOK-MIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Patrol
by Walter Dean Myers, illustrated by Ann Grifalconi
from HarperCollins
for 3rd-6th grade
in Vietnam War (1957-1975) (Location: HISA-20VIE)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Pioneer Woman Cooks
by Ree Drummond
from William Morrow & Company
in American Cooking (Location: COOK-US)
Present Indicative
by Noel Coward
from Doubleday, Doran & Company Inc.
for Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Ranch under the Rimrock
by Dorothy Lawson McCall
from Binford & Mort Publishing
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Rev. William S. White, D. D., and His Times [1800-1873]
by Rev. H. M. White, D. D., editor
from Sprinkle Publications
for Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$9.00 (2 in stock)
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)
Sea Trip in Clipper Ship Days
by Mary Matthews Bray
from Gorham Press
for Adult
in Nautical History (Location: VIN-NAUT)
$8.00 (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 (1860-1865) (Location: HISA-19CW)
Snakes: The Keeper and the Kept
by Carl Kauffeld
First Edition from Doubleday & Company
for Adult
in Vintage Science & Math (Location: VIN-SCI)
So Long Until Tomorrow
by Lowell Thomas
from William Morrow & Company
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Sons of Sinbad
by Alan Villiers
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for Adult
in Nautical History (Location: VIN-NAUT)
$35.00 (1 in stock)
Story of Elsa
by Joy Adamson
from Harcourt, Brace & World
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Strawberry Point
by Florence Roe Wiggins
from T.S. Denison & Company
for 7th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Surprised by Joy
by C. S. Lewis
from Harcourt
Autobiography for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Tasting the Sky
by Ibtisam Barakat
Fifth Printing from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
That Quail, Robert
by Margaret A. Stanger
Eighth Printing, August 1966 from J.B. Lippincott Co.
for 5th-8th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
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)
$17.99
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)
$25.00 (1 in stock)
Through My Eyes
by Ruby Bridges, Compiled and Edited by Margo Lundell
from Scholastic Inc.
for 1st-4th grade
2000 NCTE Orbis Pictus Award
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$17.99
To Live Again
by Catherine Marshall
from McGraw-Hill
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$4.50 (1 in stock)
Trails Plowed Under
by Charles M. Russell
from Doubleday & Company
for 7th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
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