Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

This book chronicles the unforgettable account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games--games that left him nearly dead. He had to learn how to play his mother's games in order to survive because she no longer considered him... (more)

Night Trilogy: Book 1

Night

by Elie Wiesel

Night is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Weisel, Elie's wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author's original intent. And in the substantive new preface, Elie Wiesel reflects on the enduring ... (more)

The Motorcycle Diaries (Movie Tie-in Edition) : Notes on a Latin American Journey

The Motorcycle Diaries (Movie Tie-in Edition) : Notes on a Latin American Journey

by Ann Wright, Ernesto Che Guevara

These travel diaries capture the essence and exuberance of the young legend, Che Guevara. In January 1952, Che set out from Buenos Aires to explore South America on an ancient Norton motorcycle. He encounters an extraordinary range of people -- from native Indians to copper miners, lepers and tourists -- experiencing hardships and adventures that informed much of his later life. This expanded, new edition from... (more)

Not Without My Daughter

by Betty Mahmoody

'You are here for the rest of your life. Do you understand? You are not leaving Iran. You are here until you die.' Betty Mahmoody and her husband, Dr Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody ('Moody'), came to Iran from the USA to meet Moody's family. With them was their four-year-old daughter, Mahtob. Appalled by the squalor of their living conditions, horrified by what she saw of a country where women are merely chattels and... (more)

A Painted House

by John Grisham

The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with two weeks to go, and the season looked hopeless. The cotton, however, was waist high to my father, almost over my head, and he and my grandfather could be heard before supper whispering words that were seldom heard. It could be a "good crop." Thus begins the... (more)

Wild Swans

Three Daughters of China

by Rowena Cooper, Jung Chang

A new edition of one of the best-selling and best-loved books of recent years. The publication of Wild Swans in 1991 was a worldwide phenomenon. Not only did it become the best-selling non-fiction book in British publishing history, with sales of well over two million, it was received with unanimous critical acclaim, and was named the winner of the 1992 NCR Book Award and the 1993 British Book of the Year Award.... (more)

Girl, Interrupted (Vintage)

by Susanna Kaysen, Anna Hamilton Phelan, James Mangold, Lisa Loomer

In the late 1960s, the author spent nearly two years on the ward for teenage girls at McLean Hospital, a renowned psychiatric facility. Her memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perceptions, while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. "Searing . . . captures an exquisite range of self-awareness between madness and insight."--Boston Globe.

Circle of Quiet

by Madeleine L'Engle

This journal shares fruitful reflections on life and career prompted by the author's visit to her personal place of retreat near her country home.

A Moveable Feast

by Ernest Hemingway

Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. It is his classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, filled with irreverent portraits of other expatriate luminaries such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein; tender memories of his first wife, Hadley; and insightful recollections of his own early experiments with his craft. It is a literary feast, brilliantly... (more)

All Creatures Great and Small

The Warm and Joyful Memoirs of an Animal Doctor

by James Herriot

Take an unforgettable journey through the English countryside and into the homes of its inhabitants-- four-legged and otherwise-- with the world's best-loved animal doctor. For over 25 years-- since All Creatures Great and Small was first published-- readers have delighted to the storytelling genius of James Herriot, the Yorkshire veterinarian whose fascinating vignettes brim with the wonder of life, animal and... (more)

Walk Across America, A

by Peter Jenkins

Twenty-five years ago, a disillusioned young man set out on a walk across America. This is the book he wrote about that journey -- a classic account of the reawakening of his faith in himself and his country. "I started out searching for myself and my country," Peter Jenkins writes, "and found both." In this timeless classic, Jenkins describes how disillusionment with society in the 1970s drove him out onto the... (more)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

by Maya Angelou

A phenomenal #1 bestseller that has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly three years, this memoir traces Maya Angelou's childhood in a small, rural community during the 1930s. Filled with images and recollections that point to the dignity and courage of black men and women, Angelou paints a sometimes disquieting, but always affecting picture of the people--and the times--that touched her... (more)

The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family

The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family

by Dave J. Pelzer

"The Lost Boy" is the harrowing but ultimately uplifting true story of a boy's journey through the foster-care system in search of a family to love. This is Dave Pelzer's long-awaited sequel to "A Child Called "It". The Lost Boy" is Pelzer's story--a moving sequel and inspirational read for all.

The Diary of a Young Girl

by Anne Frank

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl is among the most enduring documents of the twentieth century. Since its publication in 1947, it has been read by tens of millions of people all over the world. It remains a beloved and deeply admired testament to the indestructible nature of the human spirit. Restored in this Definitive Edition are diary entries that were omitted from the original edition. These passages,... (more)

My Brilliant Career

by Miles Franklin

This classic Australian novel was written by Miles Franklin, and details her life being born of the bush in Australia. A fantastic, well-written book with lively descriptions of a girls life that can't be passed up by anybody who is drawn by good stories with captivating details. This novel should be required reading by anyone interested in Australia or important female writers and novelists in history.

Soul Mountain

by Xingjian Gao

In 1983, Chinese playwright, critic, fiction writer, and painter Gao Xingjian was diagnosed with lung cancer and faced imminent death.But six weeks later, a second examination revealed there was no cancer -- he had won "a second reprieve from death." Faced with a repressive cultural environment and the threat of a spell in a prison farm, Gao fled Beijing and began a journey of 15,000 kilometers into the remote... (more)

The Summer of the Great-Grandmother (Crosswicks Journal, Book 2)

The Summer of the Great-Grandmother (Crosswicks Journal, Book 2)

by Madeleine L'Engle

This journal offers a loving and poignant portrait of L'Engle's mother in old age that is more about living than dying.

Rogue Warrior

by Richard Marcinko, John Weisman

A brilliant virtuoso of violence, Richard Marcinko rose through Navy ranks to create and command one of this country's most elite and classified counterterrorist units, SEAL TEAM SIX . Now this thirty-year veteran recounts the secret missions and Special Warfare madness of his worldwide military career -- and the riveting truth about the top-secret Navy SEALs. Marcinko was almost inhumanly tough, and proved it... (more)

Cajas De Carton (Nuestra Vision)

by Francisco Jime?nez

"'La frontera'...I heard it for the first time back in the late 1940s when Papa and Mama told me and Roberto, my older brother, that someday we would take a long trip north, cross la frontera, enter California, and leave our poverty behind." So begins this honest and powerful account of a family's journey to the fields of California -- to a life of constant moving, from strawberry fields to cotton fields, from... (more)

Portrait of a Turkish Family

by Irfan Orga

Describes in chilling, yet affectionate, detail the disintegration of a wealthy Ottoman family, both financially and emotionally. It is rich with the scent of fin de siecle Istanbul in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. His mother was a beauty, married at thirteen, as befitted a Turkish woman of her class. His grandmother was an eccentric autocrat, determined at all costs to maintain her traditional habits. But... (more)

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Browse Subjects: autobiographical

Top Books

One Child's Courage to Survive

by David J. Pelzer

by Elie Wiesel

by Ann Wright, Ernesto Che Guevara

by Betty Mahmoody

by John Grisham

Three Daughters of China

by Rowena Cooper, Jung Chang

by Susanna Kaysen, Anna Hamilton Phelan, James Mangold, Lisa Loomer

by Madeleine L'Engle

by Ernest Hemingway

The Warm and Joyful Memoirs of an Animal Doctor

by James Herriot

by Peter Jenkins

by Maya Angelou

by Dave J. Pelzer

by Anne Frank

by Miles Franklin

by Xingjian Gao

by Madeleine L'Engle

by Richard Marcinko, John Weisman

by Francisco Jime?nez

by Irfan Orga