Diary Biography

The men and women honored in Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation speak in this collection of letters from and about the Depression and World War II.

Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl is one of the most memorable books in the face of the holocaust that Nazi Germany and its collaborators unleashed on European Jews between 1941 and 1945 across German-occupied Europe. Anne Frank was a German-born Jew hiding in Amsterdam with her family in 1942 when Nazis occupied Holland. She started keeping a diary in hiding - a diary she’d received for her 13th birthday from her parents.

Step into the vibrant digital world with The Amazing Social Media Diary, a refreshingly candid exploration of modern life through the lens of social media. This compelling diary chronicles the ups and downs, laughs and lessons of a uniquely talented individual navigating the fast-paced realm of likes, shares, hashtags, and viral moments.

Mallory Smith was no ordinary girl, and this is no ordinary story. At age three, Mallory was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis—a disease that attacks the internal organs and would eventually kill her. Despite living on borrowed time, Mallory pursued her passions: volleyball; writing; the environment; her boyfriend, family, and friends. Most importantly, every day she chose to embody the mantra "live happy."

These extensive and revealing letters span the life of Ralph Ellison and provide a remarkable window into the great writer’s life and work, his friendships, rivalries, anxieties, and all the questions about identity, art, and the American soul that bedeviled and inspired him until his death. They include early notes to his mother, written as an impoverished college student; lively exchanges with the most distinguished American writers and thinkers of his time, from Romare Bearden to Saul Bellow; and letters to friends and family from his hometown of Oklahoma City.

Lana Turner was the last of the great screen goddesses. A legendary blonde bombshell, Turner led a fairy-tale life that turned into a nightmare following the bizarre murder of her gangster lover, Johnny Stompanato, in 1958. This detailed, honest, heartwarming account reveals the real woman behind the Hollywood facade, as well as a tender friendship that endured both heaven and hell for 25 years.

Menopause hit Darcey Steinke hard. First came hot flashes. Then insomnia. Then depression. As she struggled to understand what was happening to her, she slammed up against a culture of silence and sexism. Some books promoted hormone replacement therapy. Others encouraged accepting the coming crone. Beyond that, there was little that offered a path to understanding menopause in a complex, spiritual, and intellectually engaged way.

Seleccion de sus grandes escritos. A pesar de que el manifestaba, que soy un hombre sencillo, la estatura de Jose Marti como adalid de la libertad es unica.

On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were violently murdered, leading to the arrest and trial of former NFL player, O.J. Simpson. The “Trial of the Century” soon turned into a spectacle on both sides of the aisle—and in the jury box itself! In this personal account by a juror who was dismissed before the trial ended, Michael Knox provides a unique look—as both insider and outsider—of this volatile case that divided a country.

Who Will Tell My Story? presents an ordinary existence interrupted by unfathomably seismic and unjust events. On the ground during the first months of the assault on Gaza following the events of 7 October, the author of this diary - first published in The Guardian - maps out the physical and psychological terrain of a life under siege.

Kurt Vonnegut’s eldest daughter, Edith, was cleaning out her mother’s attic when she stumbled upon a dusty, aged box. Inside, she discovered an unexpected treasure: more than 200 love letters written by Kurt to Jane, spanning the early years of their relationship.

On croyait tout connaître de Jane Birkin, tant elle fait partie de notre histoire depuis cinquante ans, jusqu'à ce livre qui nous fait vivre une époque flamboyante, du Swinging London au Saint-Germain-des-Prés des années 70, et donne à lire le quotidien d'une grande amoureuse, désopilante et fantasque, et d'une artiste exceptionnelle. Un journal à la fois intime et universel, sublimé par la lecture unique et touchante de Jane Birkin.

On Thursday 19 July 2001, after a perjury trial lasting seven weeks, Jeffrey Archer was sentenced to four years in jail. He was to spend the first 22 days and 14 hours in HMP Belmarsh, a double A-Category high-security prison in South London, which houses some of Britain's most violent criminals. This is the author's daily record of the time he spent there.

More than 30 years ago, David Loftus' cherished identical twin, John, passed away. Ever since, a day hasn’t passed without David feeling the loss. Over the past year, David has spent an hour every day remembering John and recording his story by hand. Diary of a Lone Twin is the product of that daily ritual - a powerful and deeply personal account that covers everything from enchanting and charmingly evoked childhood vignettes to the acute loneliness and raw pain that followed John’s death.

A best seller in the UK and a memoir every bit as warm and welcoming as a visit to your very favorite bookstore. Inside a stone-faced Georgian townhouse on the Wigtown highroad, jammed with more than 100,000 books and one portly shop cat, Shaun Bythell manages the ups and downs of Scotland's largest used bookshop with a sharp eye and even sharper wit.

Sir Barnes Wallis CBE became a household name after the hit 1954 film The Dam Busters in which Michael Redgrave portrayed a shy, slightly abstracted genius at odds with bureaucracy. Yet this was a simplified picture of a complicated, mercurial man. Wallis' contribution to British aircrafts and weapons is legendary; from the R100 intercontinental airship and innovative aircrafts like the Wellesley and Wellington, to bombs that destroyed hitherto invulnerable targets, and variable-geometry aerodynes.

Every evening for eight years, at his request, President Obama was given 10 handpicked letters written by ordinary American citizens - the unfiltered voice of a nation - from his Office of Presidential Correspondence. He was the first president to interact daily with constituent mail and to archive it in its entirety. In To Obama, Jeanne Marie Laskas interviews President Obama, the letter writers themselves, and the White House staff who sifted through the powerful, moving, and incredibly intimate narrative of America during the Obama years:

I am a 40 year old high school math teacher and father of two kids who play four club sports. We have between 0 and 29 sports events per week for our two kids. I am on a sabbatical because I wasn't sure I wanted to be a teacher for the rest of my working life! I tried playing poker "full time" and working on a buddy's farm but neither of those "jobs" are what I want to spend the rest of my life doing. I have spent (most of) the last six months writing and recording my diary because my life is a compilation of the memes I doomscroll on The Gram.

First, I Believe You is an astonishing memoir of resilience and recovery from severe childhood trauma she had no memory of. Terrifying flashbacks haunted her for decades despite an affluent, advantaged childhood, resulting in severe depression, food addiction, anxiety, and nightmares.

In 1922 Agatha Christie set sail on a 10-month voyage around the British Empire with her husband as part of a trade mission to promote the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition. Leaving her two-year-old daughter behind with her sister, Agatha set sail at the end of January and did not return until December, but she kept up a detailed weekly correspondence with her mother, describing in detail the exotic places and people she encountered as the mission travelled through South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Canada.