Biography & Memoir

“It's a meditative act,” they said. But it was far from meditative for Alexandra when yet another wave slammed into her face. It was survival.When she laced up her shoes in Running Like a Girl, all she had to do was get out there and run. But swimming...

The inspiring, hilarious memoir of a “Bridget Jones-like writer” (The Washington Post) who transforms her life by learning to run, with stories of miserable defeat, complete victory, and learning to choose the right shoes.When Alexandra Heminsley decided...

Scotland Yard had Sherlock Holmes. However, Kate Winkler Dawson shows us in American Sherlock that we, too, had someone who knew all too well about deductive reasoning. Our favorite true crime books read like fiction and emphasize that “truth is...

Through raw, hilarious, and relatable stories, Constance fearlessly shares her experiences of growing up in suburban Virginia, scraping by as a struggling actor, falling in love again and again, and confronting her identity and self-worth. This charming...

(Available after October 30th, 2022) We’ve always been fans of poets bearing witness to the heavy that surrounds us each day. It’s their economy of words that cuts to the chase of what weighs on our hearts. Ross Gay returns to the essay format to let us...

(Available after November 30th, 2022) In the pack of well-known founding fathers, Samuel Adams, second cousin to President John Adams, has remained an enigma. In The Revolutionary, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer Stacy Schiff, teases out...

Singer, songwriter, poet, painter, award-winning author, and extremely influential figure in the NYC punk movement, Patti Smith is an icon whose voice is a constant source of wisdom and inspiration, a voice which she shares beautifully throughout this...

This is an important, harrowing and ultimately hopeful memoir about the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War as told through the diary entries of a young Ukrainian girl. An inspiring memoir of resilience by a young survivor of the war in Ukraine, as told...

(Available after November 30th, 2022)Rock legend, activist, icon. Here, Bono invites readers in for the whole story. From his childhood in Dublin to the origin, rise and success of U2, his ongoing philanthropy, and his activism throughout the world...

If you think you know everything about the East End's toughest gangsters, think again.Meet Linda Calvey, aka the Black Widow.Growing up after the war in the East End of London, Linda falls in with local gangsters including the Krays, Freddie Foreman and...

A sharp, funny, and honest collection of real-life stories from Kelly Ripa, showing the many dimensions and crackling wit of the beloved daytime talk show host.   In Live Wire, her first book, Kelly shows what really makes her tick. As a professional, as...

A laugh-out-loud spin on the realities, perks, opportunities, and inevitable courses of midlife.   Laurie Notaro has proved everyone wrong: she didn’t end up in rehab, prison, or cremated at a tender age. She just went gray. At past fifty, every hair’s...

(Available after November 30th, 22022)A true multigenerational story of how one family had and lost it all along the US-Mexican border.   Pietro La Greca Sr. was an intimidating Napolitano con man dubbed “Mexico’s real-life Don Corleone.” He ran Mexico’s...

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER. A daughter’s tale of living in the thrall of her magnetic, complicated mother, and the chilling consequences of her complicity.NAMED A BEST FALL BOOK BY People * Refinery29 * Entertainment Weekly * BuzzFeed * NPR’s On Point * Town...

(Available after April 30th, 2022)For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong, Sigh, Gone shares an irreverent, funny, and moving tale of displacement and assimilation woven together with poignant themes from beloved works of classic literature...

A man mourning his alcoholic father faces a paradox: to pay tribute, lay scorn upon, or pour a drink. A wrenching, dazzling, revelatory debutWeaving between the preparations for his father's funeral and memories of life on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico...

An affecting memoir from the country’s youngest sommelier, tracing her path through the glamorous but famously toxic restaurant world    At just twenty-one, the age when most people are starting to drink (well, legally at least), Victoria James became...

This love letter to the cities of the world—from the airline pilot–author of Skyfaring—is "a journey around both the author's mind and the planet's great cities that leaves us energized, open to new experiences and ready to return more hopefully to our...

LGBTQ advice columnist John Paul Brammer writes a “wise and charming” (David Sedaris) memoir-in-essays chronicling his journey from a queer, mixed-race kid in America’s heartland to becoming the “Chicano Carrie Bradshaw” of his generation.“A master class...

(Available after February 30th, 2022)“[C]harming and surprising. . . The work of Admissions is laying down, with wit and care, the burden James assumed at 15, that she — or any Black student, or all Black students — would manage the failures of a...