Mandela: In celebration of a great life by Charlene Smith
Category: Biography/Memoir
The measure of a politician is not in his or her words; spin doctors take care of those. It is in what they do to improve the lives of their people. A successful lawyer, Nelson Mandela sacrificed career, family and freedom to pursue an extravagant ideal: a non-racist, non-sexist future for a nation appa ...Show more
Island Home by Tim Winton
Category: Biography/Memoir
I grew up on the world's largest island.' This apparently simple fact is the starting point for Tim Winton's beautiful, evocative and sometimes provocative memoir of how this unique landscape has shaped him and his writing. For over thirty years, Winton has written novels in which the natural world is a ...Show more
From the Blitz to the Burmese Jungle & Beyond by Brian Hennessy; Karen McMillan
Category: Biography/Memoir | Reading Level: very good
One man's memoir of World War II which took him from the Blitz to the jungles of Burma, to the devastation of Hiroshima.'I consider myself lucky to have survived the global carnage still myself - a reluctant soldier who had to go to war, who only ever wanted peace for everyone.' Brian HennessyBrian immi ...Show more
Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva by Rosemary Sullivan
Category: Biography/Memoir | Reading Level: near fine
Winner of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-FictionA New York Times Notable Book of 2015 A painstakingly researched, revelatory biography of Svetlana Stalin, a woman fated to live her life in the shadow of one of history's most monstrous dictators - her father, Josef Stalin. Born in the ear ...Show more
Patrick Leigh Fermor - An Adventure by Artemis Cooper
Category: Biography/Memoir | Reading Level: very good
Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) was a war hero whose exploits in Crete are legendary, and above all he is widely acclaimed as the greatest travel writer of our times, notably for his books about his walk across pre-war Europe, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water; he was a self-educated ...Show more
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan
Category: Biography/Memoir
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY 2016 WINNER OF THE 2016 WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE Surfing only looks like a sport. To devotees, it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a mental and physical study, a passionate way of life. William Finnegan first started surfing ...Show more
Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future by Ashlee Vance
Category: Biography/Memoir | Reading Level: very good
South African born Elon Musk is the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Musk wants to save our planet; he wants to send citizens into space, to form a colony on Mars; he wants to make money while doing these things; and he wants us all to know about it. He is ...Show more
Red Notice: A True Story of Corruption, Murder and how I became Putin's no. 1 enemy by Bill Browder
Category: Biography/Memoir | Reading Level: very good
I have to assume that there is a very real chance that Putin or members of his regime will have me killed some day. If I'm killed, you will know who did it. When my enemies read this book, they will know that you know. In November 2009, the young lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death by eight poli ...Show more
The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition of the World's Most Famous Diary by Anne Frank
Category: Biography/Memoir | Reading Level: very good
Anne Franks The Diary of a Young Girl is not just a true story but also a piece of history. Written by Anne Frank for herself, at the age of 13, the diary contains candid and intimate details of Annes thoughts and feelings during the two years of the Second World War she and her family and friends staye ...Show more
Unreliable Memoirs: Unrealiable Memoirs Book 1 by Clive James
Category: Biography/Memoir | Series: Picador Classic | Reading Level: very good
With an introduction by P. J. O'Rourke 'Do not read this book in public. You will risk severe internal injuries from trying to suppress your laughter.' Sunday Times I was born in 1939. The other big event of that year was the outbreak of the Second World War, but for the moment that did not affect me. I ...Show more
That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor by Anne Sebba
Category: Biography/Memoir
Acclaimed biographer Sebba offers the first full scale biography of Wallis Simpson, exploring the mind of one of the most glamorous and reviled figures of the 20th century--and one of the most talked about women of her generation.
Tuesdays with Morrie: The international bestseller by Mitch Albom
Category: Biography/Memoir | Reading Level: very good
Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher or a colleague? Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it? For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ...Show more