Collection: Biography & Memoir

A young teacher buys a one-way ticket to Shishmaref, Alaska. Within minutes of landing, she finds herself dealing with unexpected, rustic accommodations, and the culture shock of living in a remote Iñuit community. She relies on her courage, resilience, and wit while enduring freezing temperatures, power outages, loneliness, and first-year teacher anxieties and missteps, but eventually realizes that those challenges pale in comparison to the life lessons she learns about the heart of teaching-lessons from her students, their culture, and their community, on the vast, windy landscape at the edge of the Chukchi Sea.

When Mickey Rathbun began to investigate a rumor that her grandfather, George Gordon Moore, had been a model for Fitzgerald's iconic character Jay Gatsby, she discovered closer connections than she had ever imagined. In her remarkable, compelling, and beautifully crafted memoir, The Real Gatsby: George Gordon Moore, she examines the striking parallels between the real person and his fictional doppelganger. Beyond their hardscrabble western origins, formative sojourns in England, extravagant lifestyles fueled by suspected criminal activities, and pursuit of unattainable women, Moore and Gatsby shared a heightened appreciation for the exquisite possibilities of life, what Fitzgerald called "romantic readiness."

These similarities were hardly coincidental; Moore played polo and partied with the social set that inspired The Great Gatsby. Tommy Hitchcock, the legendary polo player on whom Fitzgerald based Gatsy's Tom Buchanan, was Moore's close friend, business partner, and housemate.

Rathbun's book is an honest exploration of her grandfather's astonishing life and legacy. With unflinching candor, she engages themes that are as relevant today as in Fitzgerald's time: our single-minded obsession with wealth and social cachet and the mirage of the American Dream.

"Often quite funny . . . The layers of identity and story in the memoir and Som's fluid approach to representing the self, feel impressively easy, unbelabored." --Hillary Chute, The New York Times Book Review

A Lambda Literary Award Finalist

The meticulous artwork of transgender artist Bishakh Som gives us the rare opportunity to see the world through another lens.

This exquisite graphic novel memoir by a transgender artist, explores the concept of identity by inviting the reader to view the author moving through life as she would have us see her, that is, as she sees herself. Framed with a candid autobiographical narrative, this book gives us the opportunity to enter into the author's daily life and explore her thoughts on themes of gender and sexuality, memory and urbanism, love and loss.

Some people give up, some keep going when it gets tough, and others don't know which way to turn. The calling in my life is one that I would never imagine. I am my ancestors' wildest dreams. Everyone has their own story. This is how mine unfolded.

Help kids ages 6 to 9 discover the life of Helen Keller―a story about hope, courage, and finding your voice

Helen Keller became a celebrated author, educator, and activist who believed in equality for people with disabilities. Before she made history as the first deaf and blind person to graduate from college, Helen was a smart kid who loved learning. She overcame many challenges to learn how to read, write, and talk. She spoke up for other people with disabilities so they could get equal rights. Explore how Helen Keller went from being a young girl in Alabama to the world-famous First Lady of Courage.

The Story of Helen Keller includes:

• Word definitions―Find a helpful glossary for some of the more advanced words and ideas in the book.
• Test your knowledge―Take a fun quiz that tests the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of Helen's life.
• Lasting change―Learn about how Helen made the world a better place for future generations.

How will the extraordinary journey of Helen Keller inspire you?

The Minnesota Humanities Center presents Minnesota Native American Lives, three stories of exceptional individuals across sports, language, and government!

Ella Cara Deloria loved to listen to her family tell stories in the Dakota language. She recorded many American Indian peoples' stories and languages and shared them with everyone. She helped protect her people's language for future generations. She also wrote stories of her own. Her story is a Minnesota Native American life.

The Minnesota Native American Lives Series includes biographies of Charles Albert Bender, Ella Cara Deloria, and Peggy Flanagan. Read all three!

Meet the youngest known child to be arrested for a civil rights protest in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963, in this moving picture book that proves you're never too little to make a difference.

Nine-year-old Audrey Faye Hendricks intended to go places and do things like anybody else.

So when she heard grown-ups talk about wiping out Birmingham's segregation laws, she spoke up. As she listened to the preacher's words, smooth as glass, she sat up tall. And when she heard the plan--picket those white stores! March to protest those unfair laws! Fill the jails!--she stepped right up and said, I'll do it! She was going to j-a-a-il!

Audrey Faye Hendricks was confident and bold and brave as can be, and hers is the remarkable and inspiring story of one child's role in the Civil Rights Movement.

Step into the colorful world of Henri Matisse and his magnificent paper cutouts in this biography by acclaimed picture book creator Jeanette Winter.

In a small weaving town in France, a young boy named Henri-Emile Matisse drew pictures everywhere, and when he grew up, he moved to Paris and became a famous artist who created paintings that were adored around the world. But late in life a serious illness confined him to a wheelchair, and amazingly, it was from there that he created among his most beloved works--enormous and breathtaking paper cutouts.

Based on the life of Henri Matisse, this moving and inspirational picture book biography includes a note from the author, dynamic quotes from Matisse himself, and an illuminating look at a little-known part of a great artist's creative process.

*A New York Times Bestseller*
A warm and hilarious memoir by a man diagnosed with Asperger syndrome who sets out to save his relationship.

Five years after David Finch married Kristen, the love of his life, they learned that he has Asperger syndrome. The diagnosis explained David's ever-growing list of quirks and compulsions, but it didn't make him any easier to live with.

Determined to change, David set out to understand Asperger syndrome and learn to be a better husband with an endearing zeal. His methods for improving his marriage involve excessive note-taking, performance reviews, and most of all, the Journal of Best Practices: a collection of hundreds of maxims and hard-won epiphanies, including "Don't change the radio station when she's singing along" and "Apologies do not count when you shout them." David transforms himself from the world's most trying husband to the husband who tries the hardest. He becomes the husband he'd always meant to be.

Filled with humor and wisdom, The Journal of Best Practices is a candid story of ruthless self-improvement, a unique window into living with an autism spectrum condition, and proof that a true heart is the key to happy marriage.

A brilliant biography that "reads like a wonderful novel but is researched like a masterwork of history" (Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs), this is the epic story of the famous South American general and statesman Simón Bolívar.SIMÓN BOLÍ VAR --El Libertador--freed six countries from Spanish rule and is still the most revered figure in South America today. He traveled from Amazon jungles to the Andes mountains, engaged in endless battles and forged fragile coalitions of competing forces and races. He lived an epic life filled with heroism, tragedy (his only wife died young), and legend (he was saved from an assassination attempt by one of his mistresses). In Bolívar, Marie Arana has written a sweeping biography that is as bold and as passionate as its subject. Drawing on a wealth of primary documents, Arana vividly captures the early nineteenth-century South America that made Bolívar the man he became: fearless general, brilliant strategist, consummate diplomat, dedicated abolitionist, gifted writer, and flawed politician. A major work of history, Bolívar not only portrays a dramatic life in all its glory, but is also a stirring declaration of what it means to be South American.

"Memoir writers, buy this book, put it on your personal altar, or carry it with you as you traverse the deep ruts of your old road." --Tom Spanbauer, author of The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon Old Friend from Far Away teaches writers how to tap into their unique memories to tell their story. Twenty years ago Natalie Goldberg's classic, Writing Down the Bones, broke new ground in its approach to writing as a practice. Now, Old Friend from Far Away--her first book since Writing Down the Bones to focus solely on writing--reaffirms Goldberg's status as a foremost teacher of writing, and completely transforms the practice of writing memoir. To write memoir, we must first know how to remember. Through timed, associative, and meditative exercises, Old Friend from Far Away guides you to the attentive state of thought in which you discover and open forgotten doors of memory. At once a beautifully written celebration of the memoir form, an innovative course full of practical teachings, and a deeply affecting meditation on consciousness, love, life, and death, Old Friend from Far Away welcomes aspiring writers of all levels and encourages them to find their unique voice to tell their stories. Like Writing Down the Bones, it will become an old friend to which readers return again and again.

Pocket Change Collective was born out of a need for space. Space to think. Space to connect. Space to be yourself. And this is your invitation to join us.

"Chella chronicles the value in creating your own mold in order to reclaim your space and to feel represented in this always ever-evolving world, and he inspires others to stretch what it means to be human--and there's no right way."--Nyle DiMarco (model, actor, and Deaf activist)

"Full of heart, grace and precision, Chella Man charts his path toward himself in a world not yet equipped for all he encompasses. An affirming, artistic and accessible primer for anyone searching for themselves or yearning to learn about others."--Janet Mock (Bestselling author of Redefining Realness and Surpassing Certainty)

"Chella is the future. A total visionary and a wonderful example of a human being in every way. A master of empathy, courage, and growth."--Jameela Jamil (actress, model, writer, and activist)

"Navigating social norms can be so damn confusing and traumatic as a kid, but Chella shows that there is always a degree of dignity behind each step as we venture closer to the self."--Christine Sun Kim (sound artist and composer)

"Chella Man's journey is as compelling as it is brave and candid. I can't even imagine all the boxes people wanted to put him into and yet, he has emerged triumphant. His story will resonate with anyone who has a desire to be their true self. I can't wait to see the next chapter of his extraordinary life." --Marlee Matlin (Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning actress, author, and activist)

In Continuum, fine artist, activist, and Titans actor Chella Man uses his own experiences as a deaf, transgender, genderqueer, Jewish person of color to talk about cultivating self-acceptance and acting as one's own representation.

Pocket Change Collective is a series of small books with big ideas from today's leading activists and artists.

"What constructs in your life must you unlearn to support inclusivity and respect for all?" This is a question that artist, actor, and activist Chella Man wrestles with in this powerful and honest essay. A story of coping and resilience, Chella journeys through his experiences as a deaf, transgender, genderqueer, Jewish person of color, and shows us that identity lies on a continuum -- a beautiful, messy, and ever-evolving road of exploration.

Named 2006 Best Book of the Year by Amazon.com

"An authoritative and exciting portrait not only of Caesar but of the complex society in which he lived."--Steven Coates, New York Times Book Review

"The best introduction to Caesar and his world that is currently available."--Karl Galinsky, Bookforum

Tracing the extraordinary trajectory of the great Roman emperor's life, Goldsworthy covers not only the great Roman emperor's accomplishments as charismatic orator, conquering general, and powerful dictator but also lesser-known chapters during which he was high priest of an exotic cult, captive of pirates, seducer not only of Cleopatra but also of the wives of his two main political rivals, and rebel condemned by his own country. Ultimately, Goldsworthy realizes the full complexity of Caesar's character and shows why his political and military leadership continues to resonate some two thousand years later. In the introduction to his biography of the great Roman emperor, Adrian Goldsworthy writes, "Caesar was at times many things, including a fugitive, prisoner, rising politician, army leader, legal advocate, rebel, dictator . . . as well as husband, father, lover and adulterer." In this landmark biography, Goldsworthy examines Caesar as military leader, all of these roles and places his subject firmly within the context of Roman society in the first century B.C.

"A riveting...saga of survival against formidable odds" (Washington Post) about one man who survived a World War II plane crash in Alaska's harsh Yukon territory
Shortly before Christmas in 1943, five Army aviators left Alaska's Ladd Field on a routine flight to test their hastily retrofitted B-24 Liberator in harsh winter conditions. The mission ended in a crash that claimed all but one-Leon Crane, a city kid from Philadelphia with no wilderness experience. With little more than a parachute for cover and an old Boy Scout knife in his pocket, Crane found himself alone in subzero temperatures. 81 Days Below Zero recounts, for the first time, the full story of Crane's remarkable twelve-week saga.

Moving the conversation beyond transgender inclusion to demonstrate the unique and vital theological insights transgender Christians can provide the church.

Father Shannon Kearns is familiar with liminal spaces. He's lived in them his whole life. And while his experience as a transgender man has often made it difficult for him to fit in--especially in the context of Christianity--it has also shaped his perspective in important ways on complicated, gender-transgressing aspects of theology and Scripture.

In the Margins weaves stories from Shannon's life into reflections on well-known biblical narratives--such as Jacob wrestling with the divine, Rahab and the Israelite spies, Ezekiel and the dry bones, and the transfiguration of Jesus. In each chapter, Shannon shows how stories have helped him make sense of his own identity, and how those same stories can unlock the transformative power of faith for those willing to listen with an open mind and stand alongside him in the in-between.

For a long time, the main role of First Ladies was to act as hostesses of the White House...until Eleanor Roosevelt. Born in 1884, Eleanor was not satisfied to just be a glorified hostess for her husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Eleanor had a voice, and she used it to speak up against poverty and racism. She had experience and knowledge of many issues, and fought for laws to help the less fortunate. She had passion, energy, and a way of speaking that made people listen, and she used these gifts to campaign for her husband and get him elected president-four times! A fascinating historical figure in her own right, Eleanor Roosevelt changed the role of First Lady forever.