Childhood Memoir

When Norbert Elliot graduated from his New Orleans Catholic grammar school in 1966, he was determined to claw himself free from his family and the place they called home. Interlacing the history of one of America’s iconic cities with his childhood memories, Elliot explores two hundred and fifty years of intentional cruelty and promised charity. With a focus on disposable lives, his memoir calls into question traditional views of family and home and asks us to imagine the freedom of lives lived on the delicate line between what can, and cannot, be.

Six-year-old Lovetta had no idea what was to come. The subtle hints lay in the whispers and silent tears of grownups, and the dark uneasiness in the air. Then, in the middle of the night, a stranger crept into her dark room. From that night on, the darkness enveloped her and started to smother the life and light out of her. Trapped in a god forsaken nightmare with nowhere to turn, she longed for freedom. Come along on this dark journey as Lovetta fights to find the light.

Fans of Augusten Burroughs and Jo Ann Beard will enjoy this kaleidoscopic, universal memoir in which Elissa Altman explores the tradition, religion, family expectations, and the forbidden that were the fixed points in her Queens, New York, childhood. Spanning from 1940s wartime Brooklyn to 1970s Queens to present-day rural New England, Treyf captures the collision of youthful cravings and grown-up identities. It is a vivid tale of what it means to come to yourself both in spite and in honor to your past.

In this emotional and laugh-out-loud coming-of-age memoir, the co-creator of Hulu's brilliant Pen15 grapples with the reappearance of her estranged father —and whether it's possible to reconnect before it’s too late. For Anna Konkle’s childhood, her father was her hero—a...

A small and effeminate boy bullied for years while growing up in an alcoholic family in suburban Cleveland Gil finds refuge in the equestrian world. A coach instills in him the dream of going to the Olympics and becomes his mentor, his guide and his predator. Gil survives rape, betrayals, setbacks, and the loss of family and friends all while on a quest to fulfill his dream. This book is not only about surviving; it's about the resilience of the human spirit and the pursuit of dreams against all odds.

The "utterly compelling, uncommonly beautiful" collection of personal essays (Newsweek) that established Jo Ann Beard as one of the leading writers of her generation. Cousins, mothers, sisters, dolls, dogs, best friends: these are the fixed points in Jo Ann Beard's universe, the constants that...

In this memoir of his childhood, Harvey recreated the daily struggles of life in postwar rural Ireland and bomb-shattreed London. Ireland, just 30 years removed from 700 years of British domination, had scarcely emerged from the 19th century. London, shrouded in fog and greasy coal soot, was the epicenter of an exhausted debtor nation, still clinging to an image of British exceptionalism as a young Queen Elizabeth took the throne and the empire circled the drain.

Experience music history with this memoir by one of the last of the genuine old school Blues and R&B legends, the Grammy-winning dynamic showman Bobby Rush. This memoir charts the extraordinary rise to fame of living blues legend, Bobby Rush. Born Emmett Ellis, Jr. in Homer, Louisiana, he...

Kit de Waal grew up in a household of opposites and extremes. Her haphazard mother rarely cooked, forbade Christmas and birthdays, worked as a cleaner, nurse and childminder sometimes all at once and believed the world would end in 1975. Meanwhile, her father stuffed barrels full of goodies for his relatives in the Caribbean, cooked elaborate meals on a whim and splurged money they didn't have on cars, suits and shoes fit for a prince. Both of her parents were waiting for paradise. It never came.

In this memoir of a lost America, Hal Borland tells the story of his family's migration to eastern Colorado as homesteaders at the turn of the twentieth century. On an unsettled and unwelcoming prairie landscape, the Borlands build a house, plant crops, and eke out a meager existence. While life is difficult—and self-reliance is necessary with no neighbors for miles—the experience brings the family close and binds them closer to the terrible and beautiful natural patterns that govern their lives.

First published in 1967, Stop-Time was immediately recognized as a masterpiece of modern American autobiography, a brilliant portrayal of one boy’s passage from childhood to adolescence and beyond. Here is Frank Conroy’s wry, sad, beautiful tale of life on the road; of odd jobs and lost friendships, brutal schools and first loves; of a father’s early death and a son’s exhilarating escape into manhood.

Nestled within the deep Alabama forest lies a community built on ancient Indian burial ground and almost completely hidden away from the world if not for the winding main road which leads to it from the highway. Within this community rests scenic streets, quaint suburban homes, happy families...and ghostly legends that will chill your bones. Here lies a collection of some of the scariest Southern ghost stories.

W. Nikola-Lisa explores new terrain - his childhood experiences growing up in south Texas during the early 1960s. Unlike his previous books, this is not a book for young children as the author explores the darker elements growing up in a harsh environment. Although the work feels like a memoir, it sounds like a novel with the author's spare, unrelenting narrative a perfect accompaniment to the time, place, and underlying familial issues.

Babita Sharma was raised in a corner shop in Reading and over the counter watched a changing world, from the clientele to the products to the politics of the day. Along with the skills to mop a floor perfectly and stack a shelf, she gained a unique insight into a changing world - and an institution that, despite the creep of supermarkets, online shopping and delivery, has found a way to evolve and survive. The Corner Shop is the remarkable human story of these little institutions that have changed the course of our history.

An old man, realizing cherished memories of the past are quickly fading, decides to run away in search of his youth. This creative memoir is about “going home again”, reliving early-life experiences, and re-establishing childhood friendships. He and old friends, the “boys in the band”, recall early tales of youth from their world during the late ’40s and early 1950s.

‘Raw, intense and absorbing.’ Matt Haig ‘As tender and funny as it is painful.’ TLS ‘I didn’t give my hands much thought before they turned against me. … They have been chipping away at my life, slowly, slowly, in a way I could never have predicted.’ Lauren Brown is anxious. And...

Davy Rothbart is looking for love in all the wrong places. Constantly. He falls helplessly in love with pretty much every girl he meets—and rarely is the feeling reciprocated. Time after time, he hops in a car and tears across half of America with his heart on his sleeve. He's continually...

The year was 1957, the month September, and I had just turned eight years old. Dwight Eisenhower was President, but in my life it was the diminutive, intense Sister Mary Lurana who ruled, at least in the third-grade class where I was held captive. For reasons you will soon understand, my parents...

This heartwarming and funny memoir from a beloved actress tells the story of a mother and daughter whose narrative reflects American cultural changes and the world's shifting expectations of women. From Golda to Ginsburg, Yentl to Mama Rose, Tallulah to the Queen of Mean, Tovah Feldshuh has...

Pat Conroy's memoirs and autobiographical novels contain a great deal about his life, but there is much he hasn't revealed to readers and listeners - until now. My Exaggerated Life is the product of a special collaboration between this great American author and oral biographer Katherine Clark, who recorded two hundred hours of conversations with Conroy before he passed away in 2016. In the spring and summer of 2014, the two spoke for an hour or more on the phone every day. No subject was off limits, including aspects of his tumultuous life he had never before revealed.