Frank McCourt, the author of ANGELA’S ASHES and ’TIS, wraps up his trilogy of memoirs with this account of the 30 years he spent teaching in New York public high schools, from his rocky beginning as a young man teaching En...

An intimate memoir of growing up in Africa during the Rhodesian civil war of 1971 to 1979 describes her life on farms in southern Rhodesia, Milawi, and Zambia, detailing her hardscrabble existence with an alcoholic mother, frequently ...

A Washington Post Notable Work of NonfictionAn NPR Best Book of 2012Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo turns to memoir in this hilarious and bittersweet account of his lifelong bond with his high-strung, spirited mother—a...

OLIVIA LAING'S WIDELY ACCLAIMED ACCOUNT OF HOW WRITERS IN THE GRIP OF ALCOHOLISM CREATED SOME OF THE GREATEST WORKS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE In The Trip to Echo Spring, Olivia Laing takes a journey across America, examining the links b...

This unforgettable memoir, by one of our most gifted writers, introduces us to the young Toby Wolff, by turns tough and vulnerable, crafty and bumbling, and ultimately winning. Separated by divorce from his father and brother, Toby an...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader's Circle for author chats and more.  Pat Conroy's great success as a writer has always been intimately linked with the exploration of his fa...

The sequel to the acclaimed Rocket Boys continues the story of Coalwood, West Virginia, as the author and his fellow Rocket Boys face their senior year at Big Creek High, while the forces of change bring Coalwood to a difficult crossr...

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the wo...

Since it was first published in France, The Sexual Life of Catherine M. has become a bestseller all around the world and has been hailed as one of the most important books on sexuality to be published in decades. Since her youth,...

This haunting story of a son's quest to understand the mystery of his father's death is "searing and unforgettable…memoir writing at its best" (San Francisco Chronicle)—a "powerfully affecting" (O, The Oprah Ma...

The acclaimed writer A. M. Homes was given up for adoption before she was born. Her biological mother was a twenty-two-year-old single woman who was having an affair with a much older married man with a family of his own. The Mistress...

Largely to amuse herself, Gertrude Stein wrote this book in 1932..using as a sounding board her companion Miss Toklas, who had been with her for twenty-five years. The book is full of the most lucid and shapely anecdotes, told in a pu...

This bestseller covers a single momentous year during Nin’s life in Paris, when she met Henry Miller and his wife, June. “Closer to what many sexually adventuresome women experience than almost anything I’ve ever rea...

Annie Dillard has written eleven books, including the memoir of her parents, An American Childhood; the Northwest pioneer epic The Living; and the nonfiction narrative Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. A gregarious recluse, she is a member of...

“The nearest thing to an autobiography Irving has written . . . worth saving and savoring."—Seattle Times Dedicated to the memory of two wrestling coaches and two writer friends, The Imaginary Girlfriend is John Ir...

New York Times bestselling author of Labor Day\n\nWith a New Preface\n\n\n\nWhen it was first published in 1998, At Home in the Worldset off a furor in the literary world and beyond. Joyce Maynard\'s memoir broke a silence concerning ...

"Still Writing offers up a cornucopia of wisdom, insights, and practical lessons gleaned from Dani Shapiro's long experience as a celebrated writer and teacher of writing. The beneficiaries are beginning writers, veteran writers ...

Small wonder that, at nine years old, Monica Holloway develops a fascination with the local funeral home. With a father who drives his Ford pickup with a Kodak movie camera sitting shotgun just in case he sees an accident, and whose h...

Maya Angelou has fascinated, moved, and inspired  countless readers with the first three volumes of  her autobiography, one of the most remarkable  personal narratives of our age. Now, in her fourth  volume, The Heart of a Wom...

No writer alive today exerts the magical appeal of Gabriel García Márquez. Now, in the long-awaited first volume of his autobiography, he tells the story of his life from his birth in 1927 to the moment in the 1950s when he proposed...

When her life falls apart--her abusive marriage ends and her children are abducted by their father--Hannah Nyala learns to track in the Mojave Desert and eventually joins a National Park Service rescue team. This memoir describes her ...

An early memoir consisting of two parts: 'Portrait of an Invisible Man', in which Auster explores his own sometimes shocking family history, particularly the death of the complex man who was his father; and 'The Book of Memory', in wh...

Penguin Classics commemorates the 50th anniversary of Steinbeck's Nobel Prize with two stunning new editions of his best-loved works/bAt age fifty-eight, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America. Th...

Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life—vowing that, for one year, they'd only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without...

With his nickname, Dirty Jersey, tattooed on the inside of his left forearm, James Salant wanted everyone to know he was a tough guy. At the age of eighteen, after one too many run-ins with the cops for drug possession, he left his up...

Through Anne Lamott's many books (including six novels, her bestselling parenting memoir, Operating Instructions, and her popular guide to writing, Bird by Bird) the subject she keeps returning to is her faith, her deeply personal--'e...

Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, is the youngest of the famously witty brood of six daughters and one son that included the writers Jessica and Nancy, who wrote, when Deborah was born, "How disgusting of the poor darling t...

A young man battles Hodgkin's disease and survives--with more than a little help from his Mom--in this wry and uplifting memoir about life, love, and beating the odds.When Dan Shapiro's decidely anti-drug mom put aside her convictions...

Laid out as diary entries of the last nine months of Burroughs's life, 'Last Words' spans the realms of cultural criticism, personal memoir, and fiction. Classic Burroughs concerns--literature, U.S. drug policy, the state of humanity,...

From one of the most gifted writers of our time, a nostalgic account of France, replete with fascinating characters and memorable meals. In this very personal reminiscence, readers glimpse beautiful Dijon against the backdrop of betwe...