Inspiring Biographies

American Sniper is the autobiography of Chris Kyle, the single deadliest sniper in the history of the United States military. The narrative, co-written by Chris Kyle, Jim deFelice, Scott McEwen, and Chris’s wife Taya, opens with events that took place in 2003 in Iraq. At the time, Chris was providing protective fire for a group of Marines; a female insurgent attempted to attack the Marines with a grenade, but Chris shot her, registering his first... Read American Sniper Summary

... Read A Mighty Long Way Summary

... Read A Most Beautiful Thing Summary

A Moveable Feast was written by Ernest Hemingway and published posthumously in 1964, three years after his death. The title, A Moveable Feast, is a play on the term used for holy days that do not consistently fall on the same date every year. The memoir’s structure mirrors this concept, featuring 20 separate yet related stories that make up Hemingway’s own collection of inconsistent holy days. The memoir blends fact with fiction as Hemingway recalls... Read A Moveable Feast Summary

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard wrote the autobiographical memoir An American Childhood (1987). In this memoir, Dillard (born in 1945) describes her intellectual development, from her first true intellectual awakening, at 5 years old, through her busy and happy pre-teen years and her turbulent adolescence, to her acceptance at a prestigious private college at age 18. An exploration of her childhood during the 1950s, this memoir operates as a coming-of-age story in which the author... Read An American Childhood Summary

Harold Livesay’s 1975 biography, Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business, follows the life of entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie as he builds one of the biggest manufacturing companies in 19th-century America. As Livesay narrates Carnegie’s life, he also describes the many societal shifts occurring throughout the 19th century, during which life in America and around the globe transitioned to a modern, industrial society.In the opening chapters, Livesay focuses on Carnegie’s humble beginnings. Carnegie is born... Read Andrew Carnegie And The Rise Of Big Business Summary

And Still We Rise: The Trials and Triumphs of Twelve Gifted Inner-City High School Students is a 2000 nonfiction work by Miles Corwin, the Los Angeles Times reporter best known for The Killing Season. In this book, Corwin chronicles a school year spent with 12 senior students in the gifted program in a South-Central Los Angeles high school. The students face many difficulties and must display perseverance to remain in this magnet program. Corwin was... Read And Still We Rise Summary

... Read And There Was Light Summary

Angela’s Ashes is a 1996 memoir written by Frank McCourt. It recounts his challenging upbringing in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. At the heart of the memoir is McCourt’s account of the people and events of his childhood, and how he tried to make sense of the world around him. McCourt narrates in the present tense and follows a generally chronological order, with his time in America as a young child and then later as... Read Angela's Ashes Summary

... Read A Night to Remember Summary

Author Laura Schroff’s 2012 New York Times bestseller An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny recounts a fateful meeting between two vastly different individuals: Maurice, a young boy living in poverty and a broken home, and Schroff, a successful ad executive enjoying a fast-paced career. In the memoir, the author posits that an invisible thread joins their lives. It is beyond her... Read An Invisible Thread Summary

An Ordinary Man is 2006 the autobiography of Paul Rusesabagina, the manager of a Belgian-owned Rwandan hotel. Rusesabagina’s story, written with the aid of journalist Tom Zoellner, centers on the struggles Rusesabagina and his family overcame to survive the inhumane, racially motivated genocide that occurred in Rwanda in 1994—a story later turned into the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda. The narrative uses a conversation tone, unembellished language, and an unostentatious style. After describing Paul's past and... Read An Ordinary Man Summary

... Read An Unfinished Love Story Summary

An Unquiet Mind, written by Kay Redfield Jamison and first published in 1995, is a memoir about a clinical psychologist’s experience living with manic-depressive illness. The book details her life, from her early experiences as a child, through the beginning of her mood swings, her diagnosis of manic-depressive illness, her struggles with the disease, and her eventual management of and control over it, following years of therapy and medication. Aside from having experienced it, Jamison... Read An Unquiet Mind Summary

... Read A Piece Of Cake Summary

Jimmy Santiago Baca, born in 1952, is an American poet and author of A Place to Stand. Poems by Baca include “Immigrants in Our Own Land” (1979) and “Who Understands Me but Me” (1979). This memoir begins with Baca’s early years at home with his drunken, abusive father and his unhappy mother. Baca loves his father, who is continually in and out of jail, but Baca’s mother abandons her three children to marry a man... Read A Place to Stand Summary

... Read Apple Summary

... Read A Promised Land Summary

Kevin Boyle's Arc of Justice depicts the racial turmoil in Detroit in 1925 through the story of Dr. Ossian Sweet, an African-American physician who faces murder charges after trying to defend his home in an all-white neighborhood from mob violence. The grandson of a slave, Ossian moves northward during the Great Migration to get his education at Wilberforce and Howard Universities. After graduating Howard's medical school, Ossian sets up practice and residence in Black Bottom... Read Arc of Justice Summary

Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama is a graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel and the winner of the 2013 Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction. It is the follow-up to Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which focuses on Bechdel’s sexual awakening and her relationship with her closeted bisexual father. Are You My Mother? interweaves memoir, dream interpretation, psychoanalysis, and literature to examine Bechdel’s complicated relationship with her mother.Plot SummaryThe non-linear narrative of Are You... Read Are You My Mother? Summary