Biography & Memoir

The beloved Bay Area local Michelle Tea has come back with a memoir surrounding her experiences trying to get pregnant later in life. Grab your turkey basters and settle in for a funny, witty, and ever-authentic account on the journey to parenthood. I am currently pregnant so this book hit home for me, but everyone can find something to relate to in this book; be they a parent, pregnant, or child-free. —MJ

In this followup to his previous bestseller, The Cooking Gene, Twitty continues on his quest to attain more widespread recognition for Black, Jewish food culture. While he makes a point of mentioning that his latest book is “purposely not a cookbook”, it is still very much an examination of and reflection on food, identity, and the intersection between the two. Twitty eloquently explores his experience inhabiting multiple identities—Black, queer, Jewish—that many might see as contradictory. —Jade

Michael Sayman was twelve when he made his first app. Pretty soon, he was making ten thousand dollars a month off it. By seventeen he was an engineer at Facebook. A Bolivian-Peruvian American kid growing up in Miami, he had nothing but the internet and other kids to show him the way. My favorite thing about App Kid is that he’s actually able to say how he makes great apps. And he’s excited to tell you how to do it. —Dave

In his debut, Javier Zamora lets a poetic voice shine throughout as he weaves a timeless memoir for the new American immigrant diaspora. Solito recounts Zamora's journey as a child traveling from his native El Salvador, crossing three borders by land and sea in order to be reunited with his parents in the U.S. Zamora effortlessly illustrates the fear and wonder of his perilous journey, and humanizes an experience most of us could not fathom. —Josué.

Don’t miss our event with Javier Zamora on September 14th.

If, like many people, you’ve spent the last two years mostly stuck inside, anxious about the next COVID variant, you need to read this book right now. Dick Conant was a charismatic but troubled adventurer, a throwback to an older time. Though his story is ultimately tragic, he barreled his way through life unafraid, making friends, dodging death, and completing insane feats of endurance. Reading about him will make you want to go outside and do something fun and maybe even a little crazy and let Mother Nature wash your anxieties away.  —Rico

To cross a border is to both affirm the border’s existence and expose its futility. Gutiérrez’s stunning collection of essays about a queer existence in the Southwest is a meditation in this kind of border-crossing, jumping from the ’90s DIY-punk scene in Los Angeles to the guttingly tragic question of citizenship in the modern–day xenophobic landscape. Whether writing from the microscopic (an essay on the creation of adobe architecture) or the macroscopic (a shift in urban life and aesthetics based on immigration policies), Gutiérrez possesses the unique ability to call into question both our comforts and our fears. This book deliciously captures the modern and nostalgic experience of Southern California living.  —Caroline

Deaf Utopia by Nyle DiMarco is a memoir I didn’t know I needed in my life. You can feel DiMarco’s passion for his heritage—coming from a multigenerational Deaf family—his love of ASL, and his determination to change cultural stereotypes about Deaf people. DiMarco explores Deaf history and culture and also discusses the trials and tribulations people in the Deaf community face. This memoir truly is “a love letter to a way of life.”   —Kristina

In the years between 2010 and 2020, the Brooklyn drag scene shot to the forefront of queer entertainment, capturing attention with its slew of charismatic, unique, and talented performers who pushed boundaries and redefined the art of drag. This review of that decade will appeal to the queer popculture curious and the superfans of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Boulet Brothers’ Dragula for its combination of historical context with personal insight into the lives of various legendary artists. —Eli 

Ashley C. Ford has written a powerful memoir of growing up in the shadow of her father’s long imprisonment and the ways it affected her family, her complicated relationship with her mother, and her own self-identity. It is also the assured record of a Black girl rising. Her story is not bound by the trauma endured; it is truthful and hopeful. It shines with intelligence, resilience, and love, and the intimacy and awareness she shares with us is awe-inspiring. —Melinda

Walter Issacson, bestselling biographer of geniuses like Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Steve Jobs, turns his attention to one of the smartest humans currently living, Jennifer Doudna. Enthralled by the mysteries of DNA from a young age, Doudna grew up to become a pioneer of the gene-editing technology known as CRISPR. Chronicling her work during the COVID-19 pandemic, The Code Breaker is the only biography I know of that sometimes seems like science fiction. —Aric