Share in the childhood tales of A Girl Named Zippy. Hear Kenneth Branagh read Samuel Pepys' exuberant 17th-century diary. Be transformed by the extraordinary women of Half the Sky. You'll find these and other remarkable life stories under biography and memoir.
This powerful and moving work is Didion's “attempt to make sense of the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity about life itself.” With vulnerability and passion, Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience of love and loss. Learn More
Upton Sinclair Award Winner for Outstanding Book in Education
When teachers Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin first created KIPP (the Knowledge Is Power Program) in Houston, little did they know it would grow to sixty-six schools in nineteen states and the District of Columbia, and that it would change thousands of kids’ lives—and possibly the U.S. approach to education. Award-winning education reporter Jay Mathews tells their story. Learn More
Masterfully crafted with lyrical and haunting language, Doig’s memoir remains an enduring classic, a story to be savored by anyone who has ever loved a parent or been shaped by the land around them. Learn More
Heralded instantly upon publication by the critics, This Boy’s Life has come to be universally recognized as a true modern classic of autobiography. Learn More
Picking up where A Girl Named Zippy left off, Haven Kimmel crafts a tender portrait of her mother, a modestly heroic woman who took the odds that life gave her and somehow managed to win. Learn More
Bill Russell with David Falkner; read by Rif Hutton
More than any other sports figure of the modern era, Bill Russell combined sheer athletic dominance with a depth of character that truly set him apart, both on and off the basketball court. Learn More
Janet Groth’s seductive and entertaining look back at her 21 years (1957 to 1978—the William Shawn years) of lateral trajectory at America’s most literary of institutions. Learn More
William Styron’s youngest child explores the life of a fascinating and difficult man whose own memoir, Darkness Visible, searingly chronicled his battle with major depression. Learn More
Acclaimed travel writer Jonathan Raban invites us aboard his boat, a floating cottage cluttered with books, curling manuscripts, and dead ballpoint pens. Learn More
Weaving the magical with the mundane, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik offers a wholly delightful, often hilarious look at what it was to be an American family man in Paris at the end of the twentieth century. Learn More
