Biography & Memoir

In her essay collection Places I’ve taken My Body, Molly McCully Brown brings the insight and sensitivity of a poet to discuss her experiences with cerebral palsy. I absolutely loved the broad expanse of topics she touches upon: pain and the body, the memory and the self. In prose both blunt and expressive, Brown examines how we move through space and the loneliness caused by both mobility and immobility.

Phuc Tran: Ubergeek. From discovering punk rock egalitarianism to relating The Iliad to girls’ high school sports, Tran is always ready to dive into whatever comes next. He puts it all down to a desperate need to fit in, as a Vietnamese refugee in small-town Pennsylvania, but you can tell that he’s always going to be the one in the deep end of the pool, regardless. He’s a Latin teacher, a tattooist, a TEDx grammar star, and now a touching memoirist. 

In this new autobiography, the incomparable Jennifer Boylan defines the chapters of her life by the dogs she has owned. She writes of them and herself with overwhelming tenderness, hilariously wry skepticism, and brutally frank honesty. I loved meeting all of her dogs, and through them getting to know the different versions of herself she has experienced. If you’ve never read Boylan before, this is a wonderful introduction, and who doesn’t love a good dog?

This is the touching, first-hand account of the family life of Delta blues legend Robert Johnson from the perspective of Annye Anderson, his half-sister. Johnson died when she was 12, but with the help of a steel-trap memory and documents, Anderson shows us a side we haven’t much seen of the talented musician. She may not know what he did on the road, but she helps us meet the man he was with the people who mattered the most.

Porochista Khakpour is a novelist but believes she is better known as an essayist. Specifically, as an Iranian American essayist. One who now is debuting her first published essay collection on being Iranian American. And these are powerful essays on the subjects of, as the title says, exile and identity, along with culture and politics, of being American, and being Iranian, and being American Iranian. But even more, these essays—independently written though they were—create a writer’s memoir, of becoming an artist and finding one’s voice, of becoming a New Yorker, and of being a human who is a person of color in our modern-day world. Pick up this book to read Khakpour’s insight into being an immigrant, being Iranian, and Iranian American culture, to be sure. But also pick it up for the voice and artistic story of the brilliant and powerful woman behind this book.

Can something painful be funny? Can you really only have one slice of pizza? Can something that feels horrible turn out to be wonderful? Can fish text? Birbiglia asks these questions and more in his honest, funny, and emotionally fraught exploration of parenthood and what it has meant to him and to his wife. Fans of his will appreciate the new stories, as well as poems from his wife, and if you don’t know anything about this awkward sleepwalker, I encourage you to check him out.

It is evident that Moore is a storyteller at heart. Her memoir weaves together her family’s flight during the First Liberian Civil War, her childhood immigrant experience in America, and the escape narrative that bridges the two. Beginning with her fifth birthday in Monrovia, continuing through her coming of age in Texas and her return to Liberia as an adult, Moore has written a story and a history that needs to be told. More importantly, it is one that needs to be felt, and Moore’s intimate, lyrical, and harrowing account is heart grabbing from the first page and lodges bone deep to the very end.

Patti Smith’s latest memoir begins in Santa Cruz at the Dream Inn early on the morning of New Year’s Day, 2016. The book is hypnotic and dreamy, weaving in and out of what’s real and what’s not real but is still true, often with no warning. This is a book about the loss of dear friends, about aging, the political landscape, and drinking lots of coffee. Anything is possible on a strange and beautiful journey with Patti Smith. - Trey

Saeed Jones has written a memorable, powerful coming-of-age memoir, with his keen awareness of the intersection of multiple identities: to be black, to be gay, to know that being both of these can be deadly in this world. It is as much a testament to surviving the world as it is to surviving one’s own self, as Jones demonstrates with his compelling writing. Even more, it is an ode to single motherhood, an account of the determination it takes to change one’s life, and what one’s life can look like after being changed. - Billy

A deep look into one of the most iconic and influential female writers, Susan Sontag. This captivating narrative describes the radical and groundbreaking achievements in her personal life and her professional career. It includes archives not shared before that give a fascinating look at the lesser known details of her most significant accomplishments. Her life spanned some of the world’s biggest conflicts and her perspective directly challenges social norms and calls for change. Susan Sontag’s story is inspirational and reminds us to live as our authentic selves and stand up for what we believe in. - SC