Past Kindle Book Deals but Still Must Read Books!
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495 past books matching Biographies & Memoirs
Before John F. Kennedy Jr.
Come to the Edge
Biographies & Memoirs
Our take
Before John F. Kennedy Jr. became a public figure frozen in myth, he was part of Christina Haag’s childhood circle on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Years later, after Brown and an off-Broadway play brought them together again, a long-hidden crush became a five-year love affair. Come to the Edge is a New York Times bestselling memoir about first love, intimacy, loss, and the private man behind a famous name.
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About the book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The Love Story of JFK Jr. and Christina Haag
"Lyrically and precisely recaptures the frenetic energy of youthful love."
--Washington Post
When Christina Haag was growing up on Manhattan's Upper East Side, John F. Kennedy, Jr., was just one of the boys in her circle of prep school friends, a skinny kid who lived with his mother and sister on Fifth Avenue and who happened to have a Secret Service detail following him discreetly at all times. A decade later, after they had both graduated from Brown University, Christina and John were cast in an off-Broadway play together. It was then that John confessed his long-standing crush on her, and they embarked on a five-year love affair. Glamorous and often in the public eye, but also passionate and deeply intimate, their relationship was transformative for both of them.
Exquisitely written, Come to the Edge is an elegy to first love, a lost New York, and a young man with an enormous capacity for tenderness, and an adventurous spirit, who led his life with surprising and abundant grace.
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Good for readers who like espionage memoirs, Cold War history, and insider accounts of intelligence operations.
Spy Handler
Biographies & Memoirs
Our take
Called “Gripping.” by The Wall Street Journal, Spy Handler follows Victor Cherkashin’s 38-year KGB career, including his role in recruiting CIA officer Aldrich Ames and revealing new details about Robert Hanssen during the Cold War, with a 4.3-star rating from more than 500 Amazon reviewers. Good for readers who like espionage memoirs, Cold War history, and insider accounts of intelligence operations.
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In this riveting memoir, gain a remarkable insider's view of the KGB's prolonged conflict with the United States, spanning fron Stalin's death in 1953 to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
"Gripping." —The Wall Street Journal
Victor Cherkashin's story is rich in episode and drama. He took part in some of the highest-profile Cold War cases, including tracking down U.S. and British spies around the world. He was posted to stations in the U.S., Australia, India, and Lebanon and traveled the globe for operations in England, Europe, and the Middle East. But it was in 1985, known as "the Year of the Spy," that Cherkashin scored two of the biggest coups of the Cold War.
In April of that year, he recruited disgruntled CIA officer Aldrich Ames, becoming his principal handler. Refuting and clarifying other published versions, Cherkashin offers the most complete account on how and why Ames turned against his country. Cherkashin will also reveal new details about Robert Hanssen's recruitment and later exposure, as only he can. And he will address whether there is an undiscovered KGB spy—another Hanssen or Ames—still at large.
Spy Handler is a major addition to Cold War history, told by one of its key participants.
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Good for readers who want candid memoirs about divorce, faith, identity, and starting over.
Awake
Biographies & Memoirs
Our take
A New York Times bestseller called “I can’t imagine any woman reading this without feeling seen, inspired, and totally empowered” by Mel Robbins, Awake follows Jen Hatmaker through the end of her 26-year marriage, religious deconstruction, grief, parenting, and midlife self-discovery, with a 4.4-star rating from more than 2,700 Amazon reviewers. Good for readers who want candid memoirs about divorce, faith, identity, and starting over.
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About the book
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, OPRAH DAILY, GOODREADS, KIRKUS REVIEWS, AND MORE
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“I can’t imagine any woman reading this without feeling seen, inspired, and totally empowered.” —Mel Robbins, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“A MASTERPIECE, you guys. This memoir by the great Jen Hatmaker *cannot* be missed. I was riveted as if to a thriller and touched/moved/inspired in ways I can’t quite articulate yet. Just please read. You’ll thank me.” —Elin Hilderbrand
From Jen Hatmaker—beloved New York Times bestselling author and host of the For the Love podcast—a brutally honest, funny, and revealing memoir about the traumatic end of her twenty-six-year-long marriage, and the beginning of a different kind of love story.
At 2:30 a.m. on July 11, 2020, Jen Hatmaker woke up to her husband of twenty-six years whispering into his phone to another woman from their bed. It was the end of life as she knew it. In the months that followed, she went from being a shiny, funny, popular leader to a divorced wreck on antidepressants and antianxiety meds, parenting five kids alone with no clue about the functioning of her own bank accounts. Having led millions of women for over a decade—urging them to embrace authenticity, find radical agency, and create healthy relationship—she felt like a catastrophic failure.
In Awake, Jen shares for the first time what happened when she found herself completely lost at sea—and how she made it to shore. In candid, surprisingly funny vignettes spanning forty years of girlhood, marriage, and parenting, Jen lays bare the disorienting upheaval of midlife—the implosion of a marriage, the unraveling of religious and cultural systems, and the grief that accompanies change you didn’t ask for. And, drawing on all resources—from without and within—Jen dares to question the systems beneath the whole house of cards, and to reckon with the myths, half-truths, and lies that brought her to this point.
More than one woman’s story, Awake is a critical analysis of the story given to all of us: the story of gender limitations, religious subservience, body shame, self-erasure. With refreshing candor, Jen explores a midlife renaissance—grieving what’s lost, cherishing possibility, and entering the second half of life wide awake.
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For readers who like candid memoirs about anxiety, family, childhood, and New York City.
Little Panic
Biographies & Memoirs
Our take
“Frank, funny” by O, The Oprah Magazine, Amanda Stern's memoir chronicles her life with debilitating panic disorder in 1970s-80s New York, navigating between her bohemian Village life and affluent uptown world while grappling with constant fear, with a 4.4-star rating from more than 200 Amazon reviewers. For readers who like candid memoirs about anxiety, family, childhood, and New York City.
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About the book
"Stern's frank, funny memoir about living with anxiety . . . will have chronic worrywarts laugh-crying with recognition." —O, The Oprah Magazine
The world never made any sense to Amanda Stern—how could she trust time to keep flowing, the sun to rise, gravity to hold her feet to the ground, or even her own body to work the way it was supposed to? Deep down, she knows that there's something horribly wrong with her, some defect that her siblings and friends don't have to cope with.
Growing up in the 1970s and 80s in New York, Amanda experiences the magic and madness of life through the filter of unrelenting panic. Plagued with fear that her friends and family will be taken from her if she's not watching—that her mother will die, or forget she has children and just move away—Amanda treats every parting as her last. Shuttled between a barefoot bohemian life with her mother in Greenwich Village, and a sanitized, stricter world of affluence uptown with her father, Amanda has little she can depend on. And when Etan Patz disappears down the block from their MacDougal Street home, she can't help but believe that all her worst fears are about to come true.
Tenderly delivered, Amanda Stern's memoir is a document of the transformation of New York City and a deep, personal, and comedic account of the trials and errors of seeing life through a very unusual lens.
"Brave, fiercely funny . . . a brilliant read that offers hope for anyone burdened by anxiety." —People Magazine
"An affecting, emotionally vivid memoir." —Meg Wolitzer, New York Times–bestselling author of The Female Persuasion
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Good for readers who want firsthand military history about commando missions, combat leadership, and the final Allied push into Germany.
With the SAS
Biographies & Memoirs
Our take
In this World War II memoir, Colonel Ian Wellsted recounts his service with the British Army’s elite Special Air Service during Operation Archway, where SAS teams pushed deep into German territory and fought their way back through enemy lines, with a 4.3-star rating from more than 100 Amazon reviewers. Good for readers who want firsthand military history about commando missions, combat leadership, and the final Allied push into Germany.
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About the book
In this WW2 memoir, the author of SAS: With the Maquis continues his thrilling account of life as a British Army commando behind enemy lines.
Colonel Ian Wellsted, OBE, served with the British Army's elite Special Air Service during World War II. In this vivid personal account, he vividly recounts his involvement in Operation Archway, a mission supporting Field Marshal Montgomery's Allied 21st Army Group in operations Varsity and Plunder.
In this offensive, the SAS teams were thrust deep into German territory, often having to battle their way through enemy lines to get back to safety. 'I quickly learned that there was no way to control an SAS battle,' Wellsted wrote of his first major encounter in charge of a patrol. 'The din was deafening – seventy odd Vickers and half a dozen Brownings all chattering together.'
In one of these encounters, as the war was drawing to a close, Wellsted's troop found itself surrounded. In the ensuing firefight, Wellsted was wounded, bringing his active front line career to an end.
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Good for readers who want WWII history focused on aviation, rescue missions, and the Pacific theater.
Indestructible
Biographies & Memoirs
Our take
During WWII, maverick pilot Pappy Gunn revolutionizes aerial warfare while desperately searching for his family imprisoned by Japanese forces, leading to a decisive American victory at Bismarck Sea, with a 4.7-star rating from more than 1,300 Amazon reviewers. Good for readers who want WWII history focused on aviation, rescue missions, and the Pacific theater.
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About the book
In this remarkable WWII story by New York Times bestselling author John R. Bruning, a renegade American pilot fights against all odds to rescue his family -- imprisoned by the Japanese--and revolutionizes modern warfare along the way.
From the knife fights and smuggling runs of his youth to his fiery days as a pioneering naval aviator, Paul Irving "Pappy" Gunn played by his own set of rules and always survived on his wits and fists. But when he fell for a conservative Southern belle, her love transformed him from a wild and reckless airman to a cunning entrepreneur whose homespun engineering brilliance helped launch one of the first airlines in Asia.
Pappy was drafted into MacArthur's air force when war came to the Philippines; and while he carried out a top-secret mission to Australia, the Japanese seized his family. Separated from his beloved wife, Polly, and their four children, Pappy reverted to his lawless ways. He carried out rescue missions with an almost suicidal desperation. Even after he was shot down twice and forced to withdraw to Australia, he waged a one-man war against his many enemies -- including the American high command and the Japanese--and fought to return to the Philippines to find his family.
Without adequate planes, supplies, or tactics, the U.S. Army Air Force suffered crushing defeats by the Japanese in the Pacific. Over the course of his three-year quest to find his family, Pappy became the renegade who changed all that. With a brace of pistols and small band of loyal fol,lowers, he robbed supply dumps, stole aircraft, invented new weapons, and modified bombers to hit harder, fly farther, and deliver more destruction than anything yet seen in the air. When Pappy's modified planes were finally unleashed during the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, the United States scored one of the most decisive victories of World War II.
Taking readers from the blistering skies of the Pacific to the jungles of New Guinea and the Philippines to one of the the war's most notorious prison camps, Indestructible traces one man's bare-knuckle journey to free the people he loved and the aerial revolution he sparked that continues to resonate across America's modern battlefields.
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Good for readers who want candid memoirs about poverty, education, resilience, and self-belief.
Poor
Biographies & Memoirs
Our take
A number 1 bestseller and winner of Biography of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, Katriona O'Sullivan's journey from teenage homelessness and pregnancy to becoming an award-winning academic, highlighting the impact of mentors who helped transform her life through education, with a 4.5-star average from more than 21,400 Goodreads ratings. Good for readers who want candid memoirs about poverty, education, resilience, and self-belief.
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About the book
From an impoverished childhood shaped by her parents' addictions to becoming a prize-winning academic, this is the incredible memoir from an inspiring voice, told with devastating candour, humour and warmth.
THE NUMBER 1 BESTSELLER
WINNER OF BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR, IRISH BOOK AWARDS
'One of the best [books] I have read about the complexities of poverty . . . one of the most remarkable people you will ever meet' Guardian
Like young girls everywhere Katriona O’Sullivan grew up bright, enthusiastic, curious. But she was also surrounded by abject poverty and chaos.
After becoming pregnant and homeless at 15, what followed was five years of barely surviving. Yet today Katriona is an award-winning academic whose work explores barriers to education for girls like her.
What set Katriona on this unexpected path were the mentors and supporters who truly saw her. The teachers who showed her how to wash in the school toilets or turned up at her door to convince her to sit at least one GCSE. The community worker who encouraged her to apply for training schemes. The friend who introduced Katriona to Trinity College’s access program while she was a cleaner. Simple acts that would help her turn her life around.
Told with warmth, clarity and compassion – compassion for her parents, for her younger self, for others – Poor is both an astonishing personal testimony and an impassioned plea for the future of our children.
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Good for readers who like heartfelt wildlife memoirs, conservation stories, and close bonds between humans and animals.
The Elephant Whisperer
Biographies & Memoirs
Our take
A #1 bestseller in Biology of Wildlife, Lawrence Anthony chronicles his journey of saving and bonding with wild elephants at his Thula Thula reserve, learning profound lessons about life, loyalty, and freedom from these magnificent creatures, with a 4.7-star rating from more than 13,200 Amazon reviewers. Good for readers who like heartfelt wildlife memoirs, conservation stories, and close bonds between humans and animals.
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When South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony was asked to accept a herd of "rogue" wild elephants on his Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand, his common sense told him to refuse. But he was the herd's last chance of survival: they would be killed if he wouldn't take them.
In order to save their lives, Anthony took them in. In the years that followed he became a part of their family. And as he battled to create a bond with the elephants, he came to realize that they had a great deal to teach him about life, loyalty, and freedom.
The Elephant Whisperer is a heartwarming, exciting, funny, and sometimes sad account of Anthony's experiences with these huge yet sympathetic creatures. Set against the background of life on an African game reserve, with unforgettable characters and exotic wildlife, it is a delightful book that will appeal to animal lovers and adventurous souls everywhere.
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Good for readers who like humorous, heartfelt memoirs about family, grief, identity, and self-acceptance.
America’s Boy
Biographies & Memoirs · LGBTQIA+
Our take
“A revelatory story about acceptance, pride, and the many ways even a seemingly prejudiced family can surprise us” by The Washington Post, In "America's Boy," Wade Rouse shares his journey of self-discovery, from growing up gay in the Missouri Ozarks to coming to terms with his sexuality after his brother's death, with a 4.4-star rating from 90 Amazon reviewers. Good for readers who like humorous, heartfelt memoirs about family, grief, identity, and self-acceptance.
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"A revelatory story about acceptance, pride, and the many ways even a seemingly prejudiced family can surprise us" by the bestselling author of Magic Season (The Washington Post).
Indie Next List "Great Read" Selection
American Library Association's Inaugural "Rainbow List" Selection
In this memoir, writer and journalist Wade Rouse delivers a humorous and heartwarming account of his Midwestern childhood and coming of age as a gay man.
Born in Granby, a small farm town in the southwest Missouri Ozarks, Wade was a fish out of water as long as he could remember—or at least since he participated in his family's mock Miss America pageant when he was just five years old, clad in his grandmother's red "whore" heels and his mother's black-and-white polka-dot bikini.
Life didn't get easier in Wade's conservative hometown, especially after his older brother died just a month after Wade graduated junior high school. It was then that Wade buried his brother—and his sexuality, so his parents wouldn't mourn the loss of a second son. Finally, after years of a descent into obsessive-compulsive behaviors and overeating, Wade was able to come out to himself, losing weight and gaining confidence until he had nothing left to hide.
Filled with memories of happiness and heartbreak, America's Boy is both "a quirky tribute to [Rouse's] rural Ozark family, and an easily digestible, homespun tale of a bygone era in Middle America" (Time Out Chicago).
"A storyteller and a memoirist in the best sense of the words. . . . Reading Rouse's memoir is more like sitting with a good friend and a cold beer, trading stories and remembering those things that may have been painful or tragic at the time, but must now be respected for what they are." —Metro Weekly
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For readers who like WWII espionage, morally complicated spies, betrayal, and true stories built from declassified files.
Agent Zigzag
Biographies & Memoirs
Our take
A #1 Best Seller in Biographies of Espionage, Agent Zigzag tells the true story of Eddie Chapman, a British criminal turned double agent who trained with the Germans before contacting MI5 and spying from inside the German Secret Service, with a 4.4-star rating from more than 7,000 Amazon reviewers. For readers who like WWII espionage, morally complicated spies, betrayal, and true stories built from declassified files.
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About the book
“Ben Macintyre’s rollicking, spellbinding Agent Zigzag blends the spy-versus-spy machinations of John le Carré with the high farce of Evelyn Waugh.”—William Grimes, The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)
“Wildly improbable but entirely true . . . [a] compellingly cinematic spy thriller with verve.”—Entertainment Weekly
ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Entertainment Weekly
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post
Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. In 1941, after training as German spy in occupied France, Chapman was parachuted into Britain with a revolver, a wireless, and a cyanide pill, with orders from the Abwehr to blow up an airplane factory. Instead, he contacted M15, the British Secret service, and for the next four years, Chapman worked as a double agent, a lone British spy at the heart of the German Secret Service. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona ended and the other began. Based on recently declassified files, Agent Zigzag tells Chapman’s full story for the first time. It’s a gripping tale of loyalty, love, treachery, espionage, and the thin and shifting line between fidelity and betrayal.
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Good for readers who like candid memoirs about marriage, sexuality, past relationships, and messy self-discovery.
44 Chapters About 4 Men
Biographies & Memoirs
Our take
Inspiration for Netflix's SEX/LIFE, BB Easton's secret journal about past wild relationships with ex-boyfriends unexpectedly transforms her marriage when her vanilla husband starts acting out her written fantasies, with a 4.2-star rating from more than 3,000 Amazon reviewers. Good for readers who like candid memoirs about marriage, sexuality, past relationships, and messy self-discovery.
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About the book
One woman's secret journal completely changes her marriage in this hilarious and biting memoir—the inspiration for the Netflix Original Series SEX/LIFE.
School psychologists aren't supposed to write books about sex. Doing so would be considered "unethical" and "a fireable offense." Lucky for you, ethics was never my strong suit.
Sex/Life: 44 Chapters About 4 Men is a laugh-out-loud funny and brutally honest look at female sexuality, as told through the razor-sharp lens of domesticated bad girl BB Easton. No one and nothing is off limits as BB revisits the ex-boyfriends—a sadistic tattoo artist, a punk rock parolee, and a heavy metal bass player—that led her to finally find true love with a straight-laced, drop-dead-gorgeous . . . accountant.
After settling down and starting a family with her perfectly vanilla "husbot," Ken, BB finds herself longing for the reckless passion she had in her youth. She begins to write about these escapades in a secret journal, just for fun, but when Ken starts to act out the words on the pages, BB realizes that she might have stumbled upon the holy grail of behavior modification techniques.
The psychological dance that ensues is nothing short of hilarious as BB wields her journal like a blowtorch, trying to light a fire under her cold, distant partner. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but in the end, BB learns that the man she was trying so hard to change was perfect for her all along.
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Good for readers who like candid musician memoirs about creativity and hard-earned artistic perspective.
A Dream About Lightning Bugs
Biographies & Memoirs
Our take
A New York Times bestseller called “funny as hell” by Sara Bareilles, Ben Folds chronicles his artistic journey from working-class North Carolina to becoming a celebrated musician, sharing life lessons and insights about music, creativity, and sustaining a career in the digital age, with a 4.6-star rating from more than 900 Amazon reviewers. Good for readers who like candid musician memoirs about creativity and hard-earned artistic perspective.
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the genre-defying icon Ben Folds comes a memoir that is as nuanced, witty, and relatable as his cult-classic songs.
“A Dream About Lightning Bugs reads like its author: intelligent, curious, unapologetically punk, and funny as hell.”—Sara Bareilles
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND PASTE
Ben Folds is a celebrated American singer-songwriter, beloved for songs such as “Brick,” “You Don’t Know Me,” “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” and “The Luckiest,” and is the former frontman of the alternative rock band Ben Folds Five. But Folds will be the first to tell you he’s an unconventional icon, more normcore than hardcore. Now, in his first book, Folds looks back at his life so far in a charming and wise chronicle of his artistic coming of age, infused with the wry observations of a natural storyteller.
In the title chapter, “A Dream About Lightning Bugs,” Folds recalls his earliest childhood dream—and realizes how much it influenced his understanding of what it means to be an artist. In “Measure Twice, Cut Once” he learns to resist the urge to skip steps during the creative process. In “Hall Pass” he recounts his 1970s North Carolina working-class childhood, and in “Cheap Lessons” he returns to the painful life lessons he learned the hard way—but that luckily didn’t kill him.
In his inimitable voice, both relatable and thought-provoking, Folds digs deep into the life experiences that shaped him, imparting hard-earned wisdom about both art and life. Collectively, these stories embody the message Folds has been singing about for years: Smile like you’ve got nothing to prove, because it hurts to grow up, and life flies by in seconds.
Praise for A Dream About Lightning Bugs
“Besides being super talented, and an incredibly poignant and multifaceted musician, Ben Folds is a fantastic author. I couldn’t put this book down—and not just because I taped it to my hand. Ben takes us into his mind and into his process from the very beginnings of his childhood to where he is today—one of the greatest musicians and writers that has ever graced the art.”—Bob Saget
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