Biographies and Memoirs

There’s something for everyone among these recent biographies and memoirs available to borrow from the Lititz Public Library.

Naked and MaroonedNaked and Marooned by Ed Stafford
Guinness World Record holder for walking the length of the Amazon River sets out to survive for sixty days on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific equipped with nothing.

Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned” by Lena Dunham
Creator and star of HBO’s Girls presents a funny and frank collection of personal essays.

Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson by S.G. Gwynne
One of our country’s greatest military figures is a tragic hero who embodied the romantic Southern notion of the virtuous lost cause.

Good Grief: Life in a Tiny Vermont Village by Ellen Stimson
Following a visit, the author and her husband decide to move to Vermont and settle into a very small rural town.

The Invisible Girls : A MemoirThe Invisible Girls by Sarah Thebarge
After eighteen months of grueling medical treatments, a twenty-eight-year-old cancer survivor befriends a family of displaced Somali refugees and shares their struggle for survival.

The Roosevelts: An Intimate History by Geoffrey C. Ward
PBS tie-in is an engaging history of three extraordinary individuals from the same family, Theodore, Eleanor and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The Railway Man: A POW’s Searing Account of War, Brutality and Forgiveness by Eric Lomax
The author was sent to Malaya in 1941, taken prisoner after the fall of Singapore and put to work on the infamous Burma-Siam railway which cost the lives of 250,000 men.

A World Elsewhere : An American Woman in Wartime GermanyA World Elsewhere: An American Woman in Wartime Germany by Sigrid MacRae
In 1927, the author’s wealthy, American mother met and married a penniless German baron who was killed on the Russian front, leaving his widow and six young children to flee the advancing Soviet army.

I’ll Be Back Right After This by Pat O’Brien
TV and radio broadcaster has met everyone from Muhammad Ali to the Beatles.

North of Normal: A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Unusual Family and How I Survived Both by Cea Sunrise Person
The author’s upbringing in the Canadian wilderness as part of a dysfunctional, countercultural family is a story of physical, emotional and psychological survival.

The Mockingbird Next Door : Life with Harper LeeThe Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee by Marja Mills
Journalist developed a personal friendship with the To Kill a Mockingbird author who lived in Monroe, Alabama with her sister for decades and said almost nothing on the record.

My Two Italies by Joseph Luzzi
The child of Calabrian peasants and scholar of Italian literature, the author shares observations of Italy where artistic genius and political corruption have gone hand and hand for hundreds of years.

Dear Leader : Poet, Spy, Escapee - A Look Inside North KoreaDear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee – A Look Inside North Korea by Jang Jin-sung
A high-ranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as a former poet laureate to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and his breathtaking escape to freedom.

All the Centurions: A New York City Cop Remembers His Years on the Street, 1961-1981 by Robert Leuci
A detective in the narcotics division of the NYPD during the 1960s and 1970s, the author tells stories of his young manhood, his daring adventures on the street and his work on films like the French Connection and Serpico.

Originally published on November 7, 2014 in the Lititz Record Express.