Let's Talk Books: Biographies & Autobiographies

by Beth

Not everyone reads Biographies or Autobiographies, but they should. Both give you a look at a person's life, either through their own eyes (Autobiography) or through the research done by the author into the life of their subject. The perspectives are different but the stories can be equally fascinating. Most biographies are about someone who has a great story to tell or who has had an interesting life - athletes, politicians, scientists, actors, people famous for something they've done or the life they've led.

Thanks to everyone who took part in the Let's Talk Books: Biographies & Autobiographies discussion. If you missed it, not a problem! Here's the list of the books we talked about.

To find the upcoming Let's Talk Books events check out https://www.icpl.org/events/ages/adults

The diary of a young girl : the definitive edition

Frank, Anne, 1929-1945

940.5318 /Frank/1995

Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank’s remarkable diary has become a world classic—a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit. In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, the Franks and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annexe” of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and surprisingly humorous, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.

All Creatures Great and Small.

Herriot, James

636.089 /Herriot

The first book in the All Creatures Great and Small is the first book in the All Creatures Great and Small series of memoirs by English Veterinarian James Alfred Wight, written under the pen name James Herriot. The series is based on the personal journals that Alf Wight kept as a vetrinary surgeon, and are set in the Yorkshire Dales, in the fictional town of Darrowby, based on a combination of Thirsk, Richmond, Leyburn and Middleham. In the books, Herriot works with fellow veterinary surgeons Siegfried and Tristan Farnon, based on real-life counterparts, Donald Sinclair and his brother Brian Sinclair respectively. In book one, All Creatures Great and Small, based on the UK titles "If Only They Could talk (1970)

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Originally published in the UK as a series of 9 shorter books, when realeased in the US the books in the series became: All Creatures Great & Small; All Things Bright & Beautiful; All Things Wise & Wonderful; The Lord God Made Them All; Every Living Thing; and James Herriot's Dog Stories.
- Beth

Memorial Drive : a daughter's memoir

Trethewey, Natasha D., 1966- author.

BIOGRAPHY Trethewey, Natasha D.

At nineteen Trethewey's world turned upside down when her former stepfather shot and killed her mother. Grieving and still new to adulthood, she confronted the twin pulls of life and death in the aftermath of unimaginable trauma. Here she explores the way this experience lastingly shaped the artist she became. Moving through her mother's history in the deeply segregated South and through her own girlhood as a 'child of miscegenation' in Mississippi, Trethewey plumbs her sense of dislocation and displacement in the lead-up to the harrowing crime that took place on Memorial Drive in Atlanta in 1985. -- adapted from jacket

The man in the red coat

Barnes, Julian, author.

BIOGRAPHY Pozzi, Samuel

"From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending-a rich, witty, revelatory tour of Belle Époque Paris, via the remarkable life story of the pioneering surgeon, Samuel Pozzi. In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days' intellectual shopping: a prince, a count, and a commoner with an Italian name. In time, each of these men would achieve a certain level of renown, but who were they then and what was the significance of their sojourn to England? Answering these questions, Julian Barnes unfurls the stories of their lives which play out against the backdrop of the Belle Époque in Paris. Our guide through this world is Samuel Pozzi, the society doctor, free-thinker and man of science with a famously complicated private life who was the subject of one of John Singer Sargent's greatest portraits. In this vivid tapestry of people (Henry James, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Proust, James Whistler, among many others), place, and time, we see not merely an epoch of glamour and pleasure, but, surprisingly, one of violence, prejudice, and nativism-with more parallels to our own age than we might imagine. The Man in the Red Coat is, at once, a fresh portrait of the Belle Époque; an illuminating look at the longstanding exchange of ideas between Britain and France; and a life of a man who lived passionately in the moment but whose ideas and achievements were far ahead of his time"--

Hidden Valley Road : inside the mind of an American family

Kolker, Robert, author.

616.890092 /Kolker

"Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after the other, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family? What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institutes of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother, to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amidst profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations. With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love and hope"--

Uncanny valley : a memoir

Wiener, Anna, 1987- author.

338.761004 /Wiener

"In her mid-twenties, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener -- stuck, broke, and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial -- left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She moved from New York to San Francisco, where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: a world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory, and, of course, progress. Anna arrived amidst a massive cultural shift, as the tech industry rapidly transformed into a locus of wealth and power rivaling Wall Street. But amid the company ski vacations and in-office speakeasies, boyish camaraderie and ride-or-die corporate fealty, a new Silicon Valley began to emerge: one in far over its head, one that enriched itself at the expense of the idyllic future it claimed to be building. Part coming-age-story, part portrait of an already-bygone era, Anna Wiener's memoir is a rare first-person glimpse into high-flying, reckless startup culture at a time of unchecked ambition, unregulated surveillance, wild fortune, and accelerating political power. With wit, candor, and heart, Anna deftly charts the tech industry's shift from self-appointed world savior to democracy-endangering liability, alongside a personal narrative of aspiration, ambivalence, and disillusionment. Unsparing and incisive, Uncanny Valley is a cautionary tale, and a revelatory interrogation of a world reckoning with consequences its unwitting designers are only beginning to understand."--

Fierce poise : Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York

Nemerov, Alexander, author.

759.13 /Frankenthaler

At the dawn of the 1950s, a promising and dedicated young painter named Helen Frankenthaler, fresh out of college, moved back home to New York City to make her name. By the decade’s end, she had succeeded in establishing herself as an important American artist of the postwar period. In the years in between, she made some of the most daring, head-turning paintings of her day and also came into her own as a woman: traveling the world, falling in and out of love, and engaging in an ongoing artistic education. She also experienced anew―and left her mark on―the city in which she had been raised in privilege as the daughter of a judge, even as she left the security of that world to pursue her artistic ambitions.

A life of my own

Tomalin, Claire, author.

BIOGRAPHY Tomalin, Claire

The biographer reflects upon her own life, from discovering books as a form of escapism during her parents' divorce to mingling in the London literary scene of the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies.

The indifferent stars above : the harrowing saga of a Donner Party bride

Brown, Daniel James, 1951-

978.02 /Brown

In April of 1846, twenty-one-year-old Sarah Graves, intent on a better future, set out west from Illinois with her new husband, her parents, and eight siblings. Seven months later, after joining a party of pioneers led by George Donner, they reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains as the first heavy snows of the season closed the pass ahead of them. In early December, starving and desperate, Sarah and fourteen others set out for California on snowshoes, and, over the next thirty-two days, endured almost unfathomable hardships and horrors.

Broken places & outer spaces : finding creativity in the unexpected

Okorafor, Nnedi, author.

BIOGRAPHY Okorafor, Nnedi

"Nnedi Okorafor was never supposed to be paralyzed. A college track star and budding entomologist, Nnedi's lifelong battle with scoliosis was just a bump in her plan--something a simple operation would easily correct. But when Nnedi wakes from the surgery to find she can't move her legs, her entire sense of self begins to waver. Confined to a hospital bed for months, unusual things begin to happen. Psychedelic bugs crawl her hospital walls; strange dreams visit her nightly. Nnedi begins to put these experiences into writing, conjuring up strange, fantastical stories. What Nnedi discovers during her confinement would prove to be the key to her life as a successful science fiction author: In science fiction, when something breaks, something greater often emerges from the cracks. In Broken Places & Outer Spaces, Nnedi takes the reader on a journey from her hospital bed deep into her memories, from her painful first experiences with racism as a child in Chicago to her powerful visits to her parents' hometown in Nigeria. From Frida Kahlo to Mary Shelly, she examines great artists and writers who have pushed through their limitations, using hardship to fuel their work. Through these compelling stories and her own, Nnedi reveals a universal truth: What we perceive as limitations have the potential to become our greatest strengths--far greater than when we were unbroken. A guidebook for anyone eager to understand how their limitations might actually be used as a creative springboard, Broken Places & Outer Spaces is an inspiring look at how to open up new windows in your mind."--Provided by publisher.

Becoming Duchess Goldblatt

BIOGRAPHY Anonymous

Becoming Duchess Goldblatt is two stories: that of the reclusive real-life writer who created a fictional character out of loneliness and thin air, and that of the magical Duchess Goldblatt herself, a bright light in the darkness of social media. Fans around the world are drawn to Her Grace’s voice, her wit, her life-affirming love for all humanity, and the fun and friendship of the community that’s sprung up around her.

I live a life like yours : a memoir

Grue, Jan, 1981- author.

BIOGRAPHY Grue, Jan

Grue was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy at the age of three. Shifting between specific periods of his life-- his youth with his parents and sister in Norway; his years of study in Berkeley, St. Petersburg, and Amsterdam; and his current life as a professor, husband, and father. He intersperses these histories with elegant, astonishingly wise reflections on the world, social structures, disability, loss, relationships, and the body: in short, on what it means to be human. -- adapted from back cover

Truman

McCullough, David G.

BIOGRAPHY Truman, Harry S.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry S. Truman, whose presidency included momentous events from the atomic bombing of Japan to the outbreak of the Cold War and the Korean War, told by America’s beloved and distinguished historian.

Eisenhower : in war and peace

Smith, Jean Edward.

BIOGRAPHY Eisenhower, Dwight D.

A peerless biographer returns with a new life of Dwight D. Eisenhower that is as full, rich, and revealing as anything ever written about America's thirty-fourth president.

Bourdain : the definitive oral biography

Woolever, Laurie, author.

BIOGRAPHY Bourdain, Anthony

When Anthony Bourdain died in June 2018, fans around the globe came together to celebrate the life of an inimitable man who had dedicated his life to traveling nearly everywhere (and eating nearly everything), shedding light on the lives and stories of others. His impact was outsized and his legacy has only grown since his death. Now, for the first time, people have been granted a look into Bourdain's life through the stories and recollections of his closest friends and colleagues. Laurie Woolever, Bourdain's longtime assistant and confidante, interviewed nearly a hundred of the people who shared Tony's orbit, from members of his kitchen crews to his writing, publishing, and television partners, to his daughter and his closest friends, to piece together a remarkably full, vivid, and nuanced vision of Tony's life and work.

Greenlights

McConaughey, Matthew, 1969- author.

BIOGRAPHY McConaughey, Matthew

"I've been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five." McConaughey sat down with those diaries. He found lessons he learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. This book is an album, a record, a story of his life and the graces, truths, and beauties he has seen while trying to dance between the raindrops. It's also his guide to catching more greenlights-- and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too. -- adapted from front flap

Born with teeth : a memoir

Mulgrew, Kate, 1955- author.

BIOGRAPHY Mulgrew, Kate

Raised by unconventional Irish Catholics who knew "how to drink, how to dance, how to talk, and how to stir up the devil," Kate Mulgrew grew up with poetry and drama in her bones. But in her mother, a would-be artist burdened by the endless arrival of new babies, young Kate saw the consequences of a dream deferred. A star known for her strong female roles in Star Trek: Voyager and Orange Is the New Black offers a deeply moving account of the price and rewards of a passionate life

Prairie fires : the American dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

Fraser, Caroline, author.

BIOGRAPHY Wilder, Laura Ingalls

Millions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls—the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true saga of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser—the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series—masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography. Revealing the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life, she also chronicles Wilder's tumultuous relationship with her journalist daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, setting the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books.

A woman of no importance : the untold story of the American spy who helped win World War II

Purnell, Sonia, author.

940.5486 /Purnell

"The never-before-told story of one woman's heroism that changed the course of the Second World War In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." This spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman--rejected from the foreign service because of her gender and her prosthetic leg--who talked her way into the spy organization dubbed Churchill's "ministry of ungentlemanly warfare," and, before the United States had even entered the war, became the first woman to deploy to occupied France. Virginia Hall was one of the greatest spies in American history, yet her story remains untold. Just as she did in Clementine, Sonia Purnell uncovers the captivating story of a powerful, influential, yet shockingly overlooked heroine of the Second World War. At a time when sending female secret agents into enemy territory was still strictly forbidden, Virginia Hall came to be known as the "Madonna of the Resistance," coordinating a network of spies to blow up bridges, report on German troop movements, arrange equipment drops for Resistance agents, and recruit and train guerilla fighters. Even as her face covered WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped with her life in a grueling hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown, and her associates all imprisoned or executed. But, adamant that she had "more lives to save," she dove back in as soon as she could, organizing forces to sabotage enemy lines and back up Allied forces landing on Normandy beaches. Told with Purnell's signature insight and novelistic panache, A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war"--

Bringing down the Colonel : a sex scandal of the Gilded Age, and the "powerless" woman who took on Washington

Miller, Patricia, 1964- author.

973.8 /Miller

"The story of the 1890s scandal in which a young woman named Madeline Pollard sued congressman William Campbell Preston Breckenridge for breach of promise. Pollard won the suit, and the mystery of who helped her pay the extravagant legal expenses in order to bring Breckinridge down illuminates a shift in the sexual politics of the Victorian era"--