The Best General Biographies & Memoirs 2024

1. Thread that Runs so True (Paperback)

First published in 1949, Jesse Stuart's now classic personal account of his twenty years of teaching in the mountain region of Kentucky has enchanted and inspired generations of students and teachers. With eloquence and wit, Stuart traces his twenty-year career in education, which began, when he was only seventeen years old, with teaching grades one through eight in a one-room schoolhouse. Before long Stuart was on a path that made him principal and finally superintendent of city and county schools. The road was not smooth, however, and Stuart faced many challenges, from students who were considerably older--and bigger--than he to well-meaning but distrustful parents, uncooperative administrators and, most daunting, his own fear of failure. Through it all, Stuart never lost his abiding faith in the power of education. A graceful ode to what he considered the greatest profession there is, Jesse Stuart's The Thread That Runs So True is timeless proof that "good teaching is forever and the teacher is immortal."

First published in 1949, Jesse Stuart’s now classic personal account of his twenty years of teaching in the mountain region of Kentucky has enchanted and inspired generations of students and teachers. With eloquence and wit, Stuart traces his twenty-year career in education, which began, when he was only seventeen years old, with teaching grades one through eight in a one-room schoolhouse. Before long Stuart was on a path that made him principal and finally superintendent of city and county schools. The road was not smooth, however, and Stuart faced many challenges, from students who were considerably older—and bigger—than he to well-meaning but distrustful parents, uncooperative administrators and, most daunting, his own fear of failure. Through it all, Stuart never lost his abiding faith in the power of education. A graceful ode to what he considered the greatest profession there is, Jesse Stuart’s The Thread That Runs So True is timeless proof that “good teaching is forever and the teacher is immortal.”

2. Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 (Paperback)

Originally published: San Francisco, Calif.: Straight Arrow Books, 1973.

With the same drug-addled alacrity and jaundiced wit that made Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas a hilarious hit, Hunter S. Thompson turns his savage eye and gonzo heart to the repellent and seductive race for President.He deconstructs the 1972 campaigns of idealist George McGovern and political hack Richard Nixon, ending up with a political vision that is eerily prophetic.A classic!

3. The Passion of Ayn Rand, (Paperback)

This bestselling biography of one of the 20th century's most remarkable and controversial writers is now available in paperback.Author Barbara Branden, who knew Rand for nineteen years, provides a matchless portrait of this fiercely private and complex woman."

The Passion of Ayn Rand, (Paperback) Author: Anchor Books ISBN: 9780385243889 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 1987-08-18 Page Count: 480

4. Ghost Girl

9780380716814

Ghost Girl

5. Walks in Hemingway's Paris: A Guide to Paris for the Literary Traveler (Paperback)

Walks in Hemingway's Paris is the perfect travel companion to the most romantic and fascinating of cities for those who want to experience Paris beyond the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. Covering all the area of Paris that Hemingway and his fellow expatriates once roamed from Left Bank to Right, Noel Riley Fitch provides an intimate visit to major Parisian landmarks as well as to out-of-the-way cafes, hotels and residences immortalized by Papa and his friends.

Walks in Hemingway's Paris is the perfect travel companion to the most romantic and fascinating of cities for those who want to experience Paris beyond the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. Covering all the area of Paris that Hemingway and his fellow expatriates once roamed from Left Bank to Right, Noel Riley Fitch provides an intimate visit to major Parisian landmarks as well as to out-of-the-way cafes, hotels and residences immortalized by "Papa" and his friends.

6. The Dangerous Summer (Paperback)

Experience Hemingway's firsthand chronicle of a brutal season of bullfights in Spain. In the 1950s, Hemingway and his wife return to Spain, where Hemingway had visited before as a war correspondent to cover the Spanish Civil War, in order to see friends and follow bullfighting events. Hemingway's time in Spain is most often remembered as his experiences with bullfighting, his passion often conveyed through his writing. He and his wife follow summer-long series events and witness the complexities and danger within the bullfighting community. In this vivid account, Hemingway captures the exhausting pace and pressure of the season, the camaraderie and pride of the matadors, and the mortal drama as in fight after fight the rival matadors try to outdo each other with ever more daring performances. At the same time, Hemingway offers an often complex and deeply personal self-portrait that reveals much about one of the twentieth century's preeminent writers.

Experience Hemingway’s firsthand chronicle of a brutal season of bullfights in Spain. In the 1950s, Hemingway and his wife return to Spain, where Hemingway had visited before as a war correspondent to cover the Spanish Civil War, in order to see friends and follow bullfighting events. Hemingway’s time in Spain is most often remembered as his experiences with bullfighting, his passion often conveyed through his writing. He and his wife follow summer-long series events and witness the complexities and danger within the bullfighting community. In this vivid account, Hemingway captures the exhausting pace and pressure of the season, the camaraderie and pride of the matadors, and the mortal drama as in fight after fight the rival matadors try to outdo each other with ever more daring performances. At the same time, Hemingway offers an often complex and deeply personal self-portrait that reveals much about one of the twentieth century's preeminent writers.

7. The Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers, (Paperback)

This is a compelling and inspiring look at spiritual beliefs that influenced some of the world's greatest composers, now revised and expanded with eight additional composers.

The Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers, (Paperback) Author: Zondervan ISBN: 9780310208068 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 1996-03-19 Page Count: 256

8. Still by Your Side: A True Story of Love & Grief, Faith & Miracles (Hardcover) by Marjorie Holmes

9780824516314. New condition. Hard cover. Language: English. Pages: 132. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 132 p. When she lost the love of her life, Marjorie Holmes found herself alone for the first time. How she came to learn that love is stronger than death makes for a reading experience you will not forget. Holmes is the bestselling author of such classic books of inspiration as I've Got to Talk to Somebody, God, Two from Galilee and The Messiah.

ISBN: 9780824516314 Condition: New Hard cover Language: English Pages: 132 Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 132 p. When she lost the love of her life, Marjorie Holmes found herself alone for the first time. How she came to learn that love is stronger than death makes for a reading experience you will not forget. Holmes is the bestselling author of such classic books of inspiration as I've Got to Talk to Somebody, God, Two from Galilee and The Messiah.

9. Desert Exile (Paperback) by Yoshiko Uchida

9780295961903. Trade paperback. Language: English. Pages: 160. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 160 p. Contains: Illustrations, black & white. Classics of Asian American Literature. In the spring of 1942, shortly after the United States entered into war with Japan, the federal government initiated a policy whereby 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry were rounded up and herded into camps. They were incarcerated without indictment, trial, or counsel - not because they had committed a crime, but simply because they resembled the enemy. There was never any evidence of disloyalty or sabotage among them, and the majority were American citizens. The government's explanation for this massive injustice was military necessity. Desert Exile tells the story of one family who lived through these sad years. It is a moving personal account by a woman who grew up in Berkeley and was attending the University of California when the war began. To better unerstand how such a gross violation of human rights could have occurred in America, and how the Japanese reacted to it, the author takes a backward look at her parents' early years in this country and her own experiences as a Nisei growing up in California. She evokes the strong anti-Asian climate of the years preceding the war, and provides an intimate glimpse of life in one Japanese American household. With the attack on Pearl Harbor, everything changed in Yoshiko Uchida's life. She tells of her father's abrupt seizure by the FBI; one of the family's frantic efforts to vacate their home on ten days notice; of being forced to live in a horsestall, deprived of every human privacy; and of being sent on to a bleak camp in the Utah desert, ringed by barbed wire and armed guards and plagued by terrifying dust storms. But this is not simply an account of the day-to-day life in the Tanforan and Topaz concentration camps where the author lived; it is also the story of the courage and strength displayed by the incarcerated Japense. In particular, it is about the Issei (first generation immigrants) who, having already endured so much in a hostile society, still retained a remarkable resiliency of spirit as they established a sense of community, saw to the education of their children, and tried to live productive lives even behind barbed wire. This is a beautifully crafted book, written with clarity, conviction, and insight. It should be read by all Americans so they will know and never forget what once happened in this country, and through that knowledge will never allow such a travesty of justice to happen again.

9780295961903. Trade paperback. Language: English. Pages: 160. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 160 p. Contains: Illustrations, black & white. Classics of Asian American Literature. In the spring of 1942, shortly after the United States entered into war with Japan, the federal government initiated a policy whereby 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry were rounded up and herded into camps. They were incarcerated without indictment, trial, or counsel - not because they had committed a crime, but simply because they resembled the enemy. There was never any evidence of disloyalty or sabotage among them, and the majority were American citizens. The government's explanation for this massive injustice was military necessity. Desert Exile tells the story of one family who lived through these sad years. It is a moving personal account by a woman who grew up in Berkeley and was attending the University of California when the war began. To better unerstand how such a gross violation of human rights could have occurred in America, and how the Japanese reacted to it, the author takes a backward look at her parents' early years in this country and her own experiences as a Nisei growing up in California. She evokes the strong anti-Asian climate of the years preceding the war, and provides an intimate glimpse of life in one Japanese American household. With the attack on Pearl Harbor, everything changed in Yoshiko Uchida's life. She tells of her father's abrupt seizure by the FBI; one of the family's frantic efforts to vacate their home on ten days notice; of being forced to live in a horsestall, deprived of every human privacy; and of being sent on to a bleak camp in the Utah desert, ringed by barbed wire and armed guards and plagued by terrifying dust storms. But this is not simply an account of the day-to-day life in the Tanforan and Topaz concentration camps where the author lived; it is also the story of the courage and strength displayed by the incarcerated Japense. In particular, it is about the Issei (first generation immigrants) who, having already endured so much in a hostile society, still retained a remarkable resiliency of spirit as they established a sense of community, saw to the education of their children, and tried to live productive lives even behind barbed wire. This is a beautifully crafted book, written with clarity, conviction, and insight. It should be read by all Americans so they will know and never forget what once happened in this country, and through that knowledge will never allow such a travesty of justice to happen again.

10. Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Paperback)

More than eighty years after his death, Nietzsche's writings and his career remain disquieting, disturbing, obscure. His most famous views--the will to power, the eternal recurrence, the Übermensch, the master morality--often seem incomprehensible or, worse, repugnant. Yet he remains a thinker of singular importance, a great opponent of Hegel and Kant, and the source of much that is powerful in figures as diverse as Wittgenstein, Derrida, Heidegger, and many recent American philosophers. Alexander Nehamas provides the best possible guide for the perplexed. He reveals the single thread running through Nietzsche's views: his thinking of the world on the model of a literary text, of people as if they were literary characters, and of knowledge and science as if they were literary interpretation. Beyond this, he advances the clarity of the concept of textuality, making explicit some of the forces that hold texts together and so hold us together. Nehamas finally allows us to see that Nietzsche is creating a literary character out of himself, that he is, in effect, playing the role of Plato to his own Socrates. Nehamas discusses a number of opposing views, both American and European, of Nietzsche's texts and general project, and reaches a climactic solving of the main problems of Nietzsche interpretation in a step-by-step argument. In the process he takes up a set of very interesting questions in contemporary philosophy, such as moral relativism and scientific realism. This is a book of considerable breadth and elegance that will appeal to all curious readers of philosophy and literature.

Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Paperback)