Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists: Biography/Memoir

In a memoir where heroism meets humor, NBC News anchor and correspondent Vicky Nguyen tells the story of her family's daring escape from communist Vietnam and her unlikely journey from refugee to reporter with laughter and fierce love.
(Description from NoveList)

In this book, Melinda reflects, for the first time in print, on some of the most significant transitions in her own life, including becoming a parent, the death of a dear friend, and her departure from the Gates Foundation. The stories she tells illuminate universal lessons about loosening the bonds of perfectionism, helping friends navigate times of crisis, embracing uncertainty, and more.
(Description from NoveList)

Pope Francis originally intended this book to appear only after his death, but the needs of our times and the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope have moved him to make this legacy available now.
(Description from NoveList)

From the New York Times bestselling author who inspired the hit Netflix series about a struggling mother barely making ends meet as a housecleaner—a gripping memoir about college, motherhood, poverty, and life after Maid.
(Description from Amazon)

A retired FBI Special Agent who spent twenty-eight years in law enforcement recounts how he was able infiltrate the most dangerous neo-Nazi group in the United States and expose their members and rituals of hate.
(Description from NoveList)

The software giant explores his personal journey, recounting his early influences, friendships, family and first steps in computing that paved the way for his revolutionary career and later philanthropic focus, offering an intimate look at the experiences that shaped him.
(Description from NoveList)

When Lee Metoyer is hired to be the new housekeeper, she has no idea that she’s about to become the anchor to a family in an abusive patriarch's home, setting a mystery in motion that will take decades to uncover. At the age of seventy-two, Lee falls ill and on her deathbed asks Sandy to write her story. The only problem is, Sandy doesn’t know the story.
(Description from Amazon)

In this part memoir, part natural history, part literary inquiry, the author recounts her experiences in Northern California during the worst fire season on record, which causes her to question her own assumptions about nature and the complicated connections between people and the land on which we live.
(Description from NoveList)

A biography of the pioneering public health activist and industrial medicine expert shows how she challenged the booming auto industry in the 1920s, exposing the dangers of leaded gasoline and advocating for worker safety and saving countless lives.
(Description from NoveList)

A professor and activist shares what birds can teach us about life, social change and protecting the environment.
(Description from NoveList)

Told with unflinching honesty and a touch of gallows humor, Clay and Bones is the personal memoir of the first female forensic sculptor in the FBI.
(Description from NoveList)

In a world quick to label, judge, and box in people, one father and son stood firm and refused to be defined by an autism diagnosis.
(Description from NoveList)

Documents the adoption of three unruly rescue dogs that transform the Zusak family's life, revealing the chaos, love, and unexpected lessons while exploring the deeper connections between humans and animals.
(Description from NoveList)

Lorne Michaels has become a revered presence over his 50 years at the helm of Saturday Night Live, and this volume provides unprecedented access to Michaels and SNL for the definitive story of how he created and maintained a comedy institution.
(Description from NoveList)

On July 1, 1975, Kelsey Grammer's younger sister, 18-year-old Karen Grammer, was raped and murdered---now, for the first time, Kelsey discusses how it has affected him and the hope and healing he has found in the decades since.
(Description from NoveList)

America’s most beloved wiseass finally tells his life story with all the humor you’d expect from a man who made a career out of making fun of pretty much everything.
(Description from NoveList)

Having no time to grieve when her husband suddenly died, the author after three years flew to a remote Australian island and stayed in a shack on a pristine coast, going days without seeing another person, and pondered the ways cultures grieve and what rituals might help her rebuild her life.
(Description from NoveList)

Erling Kagge and his friend Borge Ousland became the first people to ever reach the North Pole without dogs, without depots and without motorized aids, skiing for 58 days from a drop off point on the ice edge of Canada’s northernmost island. Erling describes his record-making journey, probing the physical challenges and psychological motivations for embarking on such an epic expedition, the history of the territory’s exploration, its place in legend and art, and the thrilling adventures he experienced during the trek.
(Description from NoveList)

Blending memoir with social history, Clair Wills movingly explores the gaping holes in the fabric of modern Ireland, and in her own family story.
(Description from catalog)

Drawing on the experiences of a group of French Resistance women imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, this account details their acts of defiance, survival strategies, and postwar efforts to seek justice and ensure their experiences were not forgotten.
(Description from NoveList)

In the tradition of When Time Stopped and The Hare with Amber Eyes, this subversive family memoir investigates the dark legacy of the author’s great-grandfather, a talented German-Jewish chemist who wound up developing chemical weapons and gas mask filters for the Nazis.
(Description from NoveList)

A revelatory and powerful memoir by the Nobel Peace Prize finalist Amanda Nguyen, detailing her tumultuous childhood and groundbreaking activism in the aftermath of her rape at Harvard.
(Description from NoveList)

"Thien's first memory isn't a sight or a sound. It's the sweetness of watermelon and the saltiness of fish. It's the taste of the foods he ate while adrift at sea as his family fled Vietnam. After the Pham family arrives at a refugee camp in Thailand, they struggle to survive. Things don't get much easier once they resettle in California. And through each chapter of their lives, food takes on a new meaning. Strawberries come to signify struggle as Thien's mom and dad look for work. Potato chips are an indulgence that bring Thien so much joy that they become a necessity. Behind every cut of steak and inside every croissant lies a story. And for Thien Pham, that story is about a search-- for belonging, for happiness, for the American dream."--Back cover.

"Scene: Apple Valley, California, in the late eighties, a thirsty, miserable desert. Teenage James Spooner hates that he and his mom are back in town after years away. The few Black kids here seem to be gangbanging, and the other kids fall on a spectrum of microaggressors to future neo-Nazis. Mixed-race and acutely aware of his Blackness, James doesn't know where he fits until he meets Ty, a young Black punk who introduces him to the school outsiders -- skaters, unhappy young rebels, caught up in the punk groundswell sweeping the country. A haircut, a few Sex Pistols, Misfits and Black Flag records later, and suddenly, James has friends, romantic prospects, and knows the difference between a bass and a guitar. But this desolate landscape hides brutal, building undercurrents: a classmate overdoses and a friend must prove himself to his white-supremacist brother and the local Aryan brotherhood through a show of violence. And everything and everyone are set to collide at one of the year's biggest shows in town... Weaving in the Black roots of punk rock and a vivid interlude in New York's thriving DIY scene, this is the memoir of a budding punk, artist, and activist." -- Jacket flap.

Eschewing female stereotypes throughout her early years and failing to gain acceptance on the boys' baseball team, Liz learns to embrace her own views on gender as she comes of age, in an anecdotal graphic novel memoir. (description from catalog)

Newsom traces the forces that have defined his ambitions as a politician and have pushed him to outpace the nation on myriad cutting-edge social issues that have since entered the mainstream. Filled with intimate family history and written with candor and remarkable personal insight, here is a deeply resilient California story of identity, belonging, and the defining moments that inspired a life in politics.
(Description from NoveList)