Tag Archives: autobiographies

Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity by Joseph Lee

12 Friday Dec 2025

Posted by in Biography, History, memoir, nature, Non-fiction, United States

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256 pages, lively , crisp new knowledge and perspective about our favorite Massachusetts summer island’s history and oldest residents.

“With lucid intimacy, Lee traces the story of the Aquinnah Wampanoag across centuries and shorelines, anchoring sweeping histories in the particular texture of lived experience. The past is not background here—it presses forward, unresolved. At its core, this is a book about how to stay in relationship with a land, a people, and a culture that colonialism has scattered and strained. What begins as personal memoir opens into a broader reckoning with Indigenous identity in motion. Lee writes not to restore some lost purity, but to chart a map forward—one that embraces contradiction, survival, and the quiet force of continuity. Few books manage to feel this intimate and this expansive, this tender and this unflinching. It’s not just beautifully told—it’s deeply earned.”—Morgan Talty, national bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez and Fire Exit

“Nothing More of This Land is written with scrupulous attention to nuance and ambiguity. It is an exploration of a complex heritage that is self-searching, deeply intelligent and honest. But it is also a book about America, the public realm, what an Indigenous identity means in this country, and how this has molded the life of Joseph Lee, who is a brilliant and sensitive chronicler of his own destiny and that of his community.” —Colm Tóibín, bestselling author of Brooklyn and Long Island

“A wise meditation on belonging, Lee offers the reader a global perspective on what it means to be Indigenous. Lee’s desire for reciprocity and community will move readers to think about our planetary future. A journalistic feat, heartfelt, well-researched, and vital.”—Deborah Jackson Taffa, author of National Book Award finalist Whiskey Tender

“A potent exploration of what it means to be Indigenous. . . . A deft combination of affective memoir and keen journalism, this profound examination on identity and place impresses.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy

27 Monday Oct 2025

Posted by in Biography, memoir

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The author of the God of Small Things (2008) reveals her complicated relationship with her mother and surviving a destitute childhood. written as beautifully as her masterpiece with remarkable wit and humor.

“Booker Prize–winning Indian novelist Arundhati Roy recounts a life of poverty and upheaval, defiance and triumph in an emotionally raw memoir, centered on her complicated relationship with her mother…Her candid memoir revives both an extraordinary woman and the tangled complexities of filial love. An intimate, stirring chronicle.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Roy turns inward to reflect on a complicated relationship with her late mother, herself an activist, whose barbed love of Roy and her brother could by turns sustain and devastate.”—NPR.org

“This book pulses with compassion and moral outrage…Ms. Roy acknowledges that her difficult mother shaped the free-spirited, headstrong, risk-taking writer she became…It’s clear from this memoir that while Ms. Roy has lost her chief adversary, she hasn’t lost her fire.”—The Wall Street Journal

“The prizewinning novelist’s unsparing memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, captures the eventful life and times of her mother, a driven educator and imperfect inspiration.”—The New York Times Book Review

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Brothers by Alex Van Halen

23 Monday Jun 2025

Posted by in Biography, memoir, Non-fiction, United States

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I enjoyed the stories of family, friendship, and brotherhood. Throughout the book Alex Van Halen commented on quotes written about the band. This writing style made the memoir feel  conversational. 

“Most importantly, Brothers is a love letter to the music they created and Eddie, who has been called for decades one of the greatest guitarists of all time.” — NPR‘s Fresh Air

“A poignant love letter from Alex to his brother and bandmate Eddie.” — People

“The tome is undeniably emotional, with some passages written directly to his late brother.” — Billboard

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From Here to the Great Unknown: a Memoir by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough

07 Monday Apr 2025

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Before she died, Lisa Marie Presley asked her daughter Riley Keough to help write her autobiography. After Lisa Marie passed, Riley used hours of her mother’s recordings to complete the book. Without knowing much about the Presley family before reading this, I was moved by Lisa’s story and her family bonds. I recommend the audiobook.

“Instead of tap dancing around the hard parts, we’re drilling into the bedrock. We hear less from Presley and more from Keough, who comes across as level headed, valiant and kind. . . . Keough approaches the episode with respectful levity, the best tool available to members of a dysfunctional family. . . . Presley still gets a word in here and there, and these passages show how determined she was to stand up to her demons.”—The New York Times

“When her actor daughter, Riley Keough, writes that she wants Lisa Marie to emerge from the pages of the memoir as a ‘three-dimensional character’, she’s not kidding . . . it’s clear that Presley was nothing if not radically honest. It’s also striking how Keough seems to almost plead with the reader to understand and love her mother as much as she does. Ultimately, this is a book built on grief: Lisa Marie Presley’s for her father and son, but also a daughter’s for her mother.”—The Guardian

“The book is of two minds: It’s an unadorned, conversational memoir that’s more matter of fact than gossipy, little interested in preserving what her father’s biographer Peter Guralnick once called ‘the dreary bondage of myth.’ And it’s a frank, almost unbearably heavy meditation on grief. . . . Stunningly candid . . . Both women write gracefully about the unbearable, immovable heaviness of grief. Keough’s portrait of her mother in her final months is especially indelible. ‘I had mistakenly thought she was so strong-minded that nothing could ever truly hobble her,’ she writes. ‘But of course it could. Enough pain can hobble anyone.’”—The Washington Post

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The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin

09 Monday Sep 2024

Posted by in Biography, memoir, United States

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This was one of the best memoirs I’ve read in a while. While raising their kids in a California suburb, the author and her husband are arrested for a series of crimes stemming from their drug addiction. In jail and in recovery, Lara finds the power of her voice in this compelling story.

“Grips you as suddenly as any psychological thriller… Readers will experience the lows and highs of addiction, incarceration and rehabilitation as Love Hardin assembles the pieces of her shattered life into something beautiful again in this inspiring chronicle.” —BookPage

“A hilarious and heartbreaking confession that will not let you go until it is done—and then it will haunt you. It will give you hope in what is possible for each of us if we allow others—and ourselves—to move beyond our shame, find redemption, and write a new, more inspiring story of our lives.” —Lori Gottlieb, author of the New York Times bestseller, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

“A compelling and timely rebuttal to the perverse and unjust notion that people who are convicted of crimes can only be criminals. This critically important idea is essential for a nation that has been so derailed by destructive “law and order” narratives that have left us both less just and less safe.” —Bryan Stevenson, author of the New York Times bestseller Just Mercy

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An Unfinished Love Story : a Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin

08 Wednesday May 2024

Posted by in Biography, History, memoir, Non-fiction, United States

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In their last years together, Doris and Dick Goodwin tackle the 300 plus boxes of historical documents, pictures, and memorabilia collected over the years only to discover they had an  “unparalleled personal time capsule of the 1960s, illuminating public and private moments of a decade when individuals were powered by the conviction they could make a difference”.  If you lived during the sixties, you will find this to be a riveting, enlightening and tender read.

“A touching invitation to eavesdrop on a long marriage between two people who had an unusual level of access to presidential policy and personality.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Just as An Unfinished Love Story is a testament to the Kearns Goodwin marriage, so is it a love story of the United States and its democratic government. The many speeches written by Goodwin, the writings of Kearns Goodwin and both their reflections demonstrate that words do indeed matter.”—The Columbus Dispatch

“An intimate political history….about the love of historical research, in this case demonstrated by a joint examination of 300 boxes of documents, drafts, and the personal flotsam accumulated over the course of a marriage played out in the arena of American politics. And about the love of America, its past and future, its struggles and promise”—The Boston Globe

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The Girl Who Taught Herself to Fly: a Memoir by Kwan Kew Lai

13 Saturday May 2023

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The author will talk IN-PERSON at the Weston Public Library May 25, 2023 7 pm.

“Kwan Kew and I trained together in infectious disease in Boston, and although I knew she was an extraordinary physician I had no idea how far she had come from her impoverished and incredibly difficulty childhood in Malaysia. This poignant memoir, beautifully written and filled with humor and pathos, portrays a world few of us can imagine. That such an incredible doctor and writer could emerge from such challenging beginnings is a testament to the human spirit, or perhaps to her unique spirit. I could not put this memoir down.” Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone

“A graphic testimony to Malaysian colonial/postcolonial communal differences, resistance to Chinese gender inequities, and U.S. immigrant opportunities-Kwan Kew Lai offers us a triumphalist survivor’s memoir.” Shirley Geok-lin Lim, author of Among the White Moon Faces, recipient of the American Book Award

“An evocative story of Kwan Kew Lai’s childhood in post-World War II Penang. She so beautifully shows how her background gave her the drive to soar to new heights and gain entry into one of the most prestigious colleges in the US. A must-read!” Susan Blumberg-Kason, author of Good Chinese Wife, co-editor of Hong Kong Noir

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