I have joked with my family that I am going to write my autobiography, and set up a trust fund so that all the profits will be set aside for the kids’ therapy. Our kids laugh. Nervously. Joking aside, autobiographies are one of three types of nonfiction life stories. What sets them aside is that they are written by the person that they are about - the prefix “auto-” comes from the Greek word for self. An autobiography is told from the first-person point of view, and is the author’s retelling of their own life. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) is an autobiographical look at her childhood growing up in the segregated South.
The two other types of life stories are memoirs and biographies. Like autobiographies, memoirs take a first-person point of view. Memoirs have a smaller scope, and focus on the author’s experiences or specific memories. Frank McCourt’s memoir Angela’s Ashes (1999) recounts his childhood in Ireland. Biographies, then, are life stories that are written about a person by a different person. There are many well-written and well-reviewed biographies out there. Norman Mailer, Kitty Kelley and David McCullough are bestselling biographers with several books to their credit.
Biographies (as a general term) are a very popular part of the library collection here in Clark County. Judging from the number of biographies coming out each month, this is true across the United States as well. Public figures are writing memoirs at the height of their fame, rather than waiting until retirement to sit down at the computer. Below are some lists of biographies that might pique your interest.
Celebrities
- The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football by Bill Belichick (coming May 6)
- On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer by Rick Steves (2025)
- Brooke Shields Is not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman by Brooke Shields (2025)
- Sonny Boy: A Memoir by Al Pacino (2024)
- Cher: The Memoir, Part One by Cher (2024)
- The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House by Nancy Pelosi (2024)
- Lovely One: A Memoir by Ketanji Brown Jackson (2024)
And now for something completely different...
- Dirtbag Queen: A Memoir of My Mother by Andy Corren (2025)
- An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work by Charlotte Shane (2024)
- Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home by Chris La Tray (2024)
- Woman of Interest: A Memoir by Tracy O’Neill (2024)
Graphic Memoirs (in graphic novel format)
- Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (2006)
- Rosalie Lightning by Tom Hart (2015)
- Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast (2014)
If none of these appeal to you, check our library calendar for a memoir writing group, and start writing your own life story. We also have books on writing your own life story. See you at the library!
New at the Library
Fiction
- When We Grow Up by Angelica Baker
- The Fourth Consort: A Novel by Edward Ashton
- I Leave It Up to You by Jinwoo Chong
Nonfiction
- Moving Beyond Broke: The Power of Perseverance in Personal Finance by Dasha Kennedy
- How to Design a Garden: Create and Maintain Your Dream Garden by Pollyanna Wilkinson
- The Word of Dog: What Our Canine Companions Can Teach Us about Living a Good Life by Mark Rowlands
Children
- Afloat by Kirli Saunders
- An Anthology of Butterflies and Moths by Richard Jones
- The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest by Aubrey Hartman
