Finding My Way

Finding My Way: A Memoir

by Malala Yousafzai

Atria Books, 2025. 305 pages. Memoir

Thrust onto the public stage at fifteen years old after the Taliban’s brutal attack on her life, Malala Yousafzai quickly became an international icon known for bravery and resilience. But away from the cameras and crowds, she spent years struggling to find her place in an unfamiliar world. Now, for the first time ever, Malala takes us beyond the headlines in Finding My Way—a vulnerable, surprising memoir that buzzes with authenticity, sharp humor, and tenderness.

As iconic as Malala's first memoir is, I think I love this one even more. As a reader, you need not be a Nobel Prize recipient to find this story deeply resonant. Malala chronicles her early adult years including her time attending Oxford, falling in love, visiting her home country of Pakistan, and more, as she deals with the repercussions of her unwanted fame and the continued effects of being shot by the Taliban. Her account of her personal hardships is just as moving as her continued activism— both of which intensify when she learns of the Taliban regaining control of Afghanistan. I enjoy themes of reckoning with tradition and expectation and Malala treads these waters with grace even when others deny her the same respect. The warmth with which she recalls the support of her female friends and her husband is especially poignant. Finding My Way is perfect for those hoping for a read filled with vulnerability, wit, humility, and strength.

If you like Finding My Way, you might also like:

Sonita: My Fight Against Tyranny and My Escape to Freedom

by Sonita Alizadeh

Harper One, 2025. 269 pages. Memoir

Sonita Alizada was almost sold twice. Her price tag was $9,000. The money her family received would pay for her brother’s wife. She was expected to form a family, sleep with a man she never met, and then repeat the terrible cycle with her own children. But Sonita wanted more. The Afghan rap artist and activist shares the story of how she fled Afghanistan to pursue her dreams and evolved into a woman who is changing the world. She shares incredible highs, like winning the song writing contest that gave her the opportunity of a lifetime, and unimaginable lows, like when the cruel Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, and how some of her family escaped, and how some were left behind.

Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones: A Memoir

by Priyanka Mattoo

Alfred A. Knopf, 2024. 292 pages. Memoir

Priyanka Mattoo was born into a wooden house in the Himalayas, as were most of her ancestors. In 1989, however, mounting violence in the region forced Mattoo’s community to flee. Mattoo never moved back to her beloved Kashmir—because it no longer existed. She and her family just kept packing and unpacking and moving on. In forty years, Mattoo accumulated thirty-two different addresses, and she chronicles her nomadic existence with wit, wisdom, and an inimitable eye for light within the darkest moments. And we are with her as she settles into her unlikely new home­land, Los Angeles, where she sets off on what is perhaps her most meaningful journey: that of becoming a writer.

Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope

by Amanda Nguyen

AUWA Books, 2025. 288 pages. Memoir

A revelatory and powerful memoir by the Nobel Peace Prize finalist Amanda Nguyen, detailing her tumultuous childhood and groundbreaking activism in the aftermath of her rape at Harvard.

RP

Fearless and Free

Fearless and Free
By: Josephine Baker 
Tiny Reparations Book, 2025. 282 pages. Memoir

Josephine Baker took Paris by storm in the 1920s, dazzling audiences with her humor, beauty and effervescence on stage. Later, as one of the most recognizable women in the world, she became a spy for the French resistance, her celebrity working as her cover. After the war she became increasingly interested in civil rights. In 1963 she spoke at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King. All this from a girl born in Missouri to a poor single black woman and a white father she did not know. Flirtatious, funny, candid and this memoir gives us the wildly famous but elusive Josephine Baker telling her own story.

This was a really fun and unique read! Going into it I knew little about Josephine Baker and by the end I felt that she was my friend. The book was written by using hours and hours of conversation between a French journalist, Marcel Sauvage, and Josephine Baker. Because of this, the book reads as if you are sitting in her home as she tells her life story. She bounces around topics and times and is very personable and witty. She lived such an extraordinary life, and as the title suggests she was fearless! I wish I had her bravery and confidence and I feel by reading this book I got a sprinkle! I was thoroughly inspired and entertained by her many stories of performance, espionage and activism. I highly recommend listening to the audiobook. 

If you like Fearless and Free you might also like: 

Errand into the maze: The Life and Works of Martha Graham

By: Deborah Jowitt

Straus and Giroux, 2024. 465 pages. Biography 

From the legendary dance critic Deborah Jowitt, Errand into the Maze is the definitive biography of the visionary dancer and choreographer Martha Graham She changed how dancers were perceived onstage, devised new ways of moving, and pioneered a revolutionary dance technique. Along the way, Graham engaged with the debates, ideas, and events of the twentieth century―creating dances of social comment and human experiences. Hers was the iconic face of what came to be called modern dance.

Agent Josephine : American beauty, French hero, British spy

By: Damien Lewis

PublicAffairs, 2022.

In Agent Josephine, bestselling author Damien Lewis uncovers the extraordinary story of Josephine Baker's transformation from Paris performer to dauntless spy. Throughout World War II, using her stardom as a cloak for her secret work, Baker undertook daring clandestine missions to fight the Nazis, stamping an indelible mark on history. 

Drawing on a plethora of new material and rigorous research, including previously undisclosed letters and journals, Lewis upends the conventional story of the renowned performer, revealing why she fully deserves her unique place in the French Panthéon.

MT

The Last Time We Spoke

The Last Time We Spoke

By Jesse Mechanic

Street Noise Books, 2025. 146 pages. Graphic Novels

When he was a teenager, Jesse Mechanic's mother passed away after a long struggle with cancer. In this memoir, he looks back on that time, and on the ways that experience followed him throughout his life. Struggling with school while dealing with attentional problems and the overwhelming tsunami of grief, this book tells the story of Mechanics slow work to figure out a life for himself. It's about obsessive-compulsive disorder, intrusive thoughts, and depression. It's about what loss can teach us, and how trauma can be both debilitating and beautiful. It's about standing in dark rooms for long enough for your eyes to adjust. 

This is an emotionally vulnerable look into a life colored by loss. With beautiful illustrations and tender ruminations, this is recommended to all those who have experienced the death of a loved one, young or old.  

If you liked The Last Time We Spoke, you might also like:

Something, Not Nothing

By Sarah Leavitt

Arsenal Pulp Press, 2024. 141 pages. Graphic Novels

In April 2020, cartoonist Sarah Leavitt's partner of twenty-two years, Donimo, died with medical assistance after years of severe chronic pain and a rapid decline at the end of her life. About a month after Donimo's death, Sarah began making comics again as a way to deal with her profound sense of grief and loss.

Dancing at the Pity Party

By Tyler Feder

Dial Books, 2020. 201 pages. YA Comics 

Tyler Feder shares her story of her mother's first oncology appointment to facing reality as a motherless daughter in this frank and refreshingly funny graphic memoir.

RBL

Poet’s Square : A Memoir in Thirty Cats

Poet’s Square : A Memoir in Thirty Cats

by Courtney Gustafson

Crown, 2025. 241 pages. Memoir

When Courtney Gustafson moved into a rental house, she didn’t know that the property came with 30 feral cats. In a new relationship, during a pandemic, with poor mental health and a job that didn’t pay enough, she was reluctant to spend her own time or money caring for the animals. But the cats didn’t give her a choice. She had no idea they would help pierce a personal darkness she’d wrestled with for much of her life. She also didn’t expect that the social media accounts she created to share the quirky lives of the cats would end up saving her home. Taking care of the cats reshaped her understanding of empathy, resilience, and the healing power of showing up for something outside yourself.

A memoir about cats? Sign me up! Along with the cat antics and lovely writing, one of the most enjoyable elements of this memoir is the author’s earnest self-reflection. She asks herself some tough questions: How can she invest so much in something else when she is struggling herself? How much obligation does she have to the suffering animals (and humans) she encounters? What are her motivations? Though much of the book is emotional and introspective, Poet’s Square is also a delight to read. I love how the author describes the cats and their idiosyncrasies. Gustafson is a keen observer, and that attention shines through in her writing. A tender story of resilience and the importance of care, this is a book perfect for animal lovers and memoir enjoyers alike.

If you like Poet’s Square, you might also like:

On Cats

by Charles Bukowski

Ecco, 2017. 118 pages. Nonfiction

Felines touched a vulnerable spot in the unfathomable soul of Charles Bukowski, the Dirty Old Man of American letters. On Cats brings together the acclaimed writer's reflections on the animals he so admired. Bukowski's cats are fierce and demanding -- he captures them stalking their prey, crawling across his typewritten pages; waking him up with claws across the face. But they are also affectionate and giving, sources of inspiration and gentle, insistent care. Poignant yet free of treacle, On Cats is an illuminating portrait of this one-of-a-kind artist and his unique view of the world, witnessed through his relationship with the animals he considered among his most profound teachers.

Raising Hare : A Memoir

by Chloe Dalton

Pantheon Books, 2025. 285 pages. Memoir

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, and that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, this became her unexpected reality. Raising Hare chronicles their journey together, while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore.

What It Takes to Save a Life : A Veterinarian's Quest for Healing and Hope

by Kwane Stewart

HarperOne, 2023. 304 pages. Memoir

Full of warm and inspiring stories of human-animal relationships, this unforgettable and powerful memoir follows a struggling veterinarian's nine-year journey caring for pets and their humans who are living on the streets, showing animals provide more than companionship, they offer love, hope and a sense of security.

RP

Ephemera: A Memoir

Ephemera: A Memoir
By Briana Loewinsohn
Fantagraphics Books, 2023. 189 pages. Biography/Memoir

Ephemera is a poetic and dreamlike take on a graphic memoir that follows a grown woman's recollection of her early childhood memories and the gossamer existence of her mother. Set in a garden, forest, and greenhouse, it illustrates the story of a daughter trying to relate to a parent who struggles with mental illness. With careful dips forward and back in time, we are guided through the weeds alongside the narrator, adressing quiet themes of isolation, growth, confusion, acceptance, and the fog of childhood. It is an aching, medetative twist on the autobiography, infusing a typically tell-all and straightforward genre with an account laced instead with an ethereal fusion of memory and imagination. 

At times, this memoir felt much less like an autobiography and more like poetry and meditation woven into illustration. Details are sparse in some aspects, but incredibly deep and rich in others, making for a fascinating contrast of focus. For example, while we see the author's brother from time to time in her memories, we are never able to learn his name. Yet no less than a half dozen plants are identified by scientific classification, the author explaining that she learned all of these details and how to care for each plant from her mother. Their relationship is explored in this extended metaphor, describing how poor soil and infrequent water made it difficult for a true mother-daughter bond to flourish between them. And yet a longing remains, the author feeling that if she can just take care of the plants that her mother loved, she could come to know the woman she saw so infrequently in her youth. It is a heartbreaking tale well aware of it's own tragedy that nonetheless clings to a defiant fragment of hope. A beautiful understanding that while some things can be nursed and watered and encouraged into growth, others are simply made to wither, existing for a short time before they fade away. Or in other words, exist as something ephemeral.

If you like Ephemera: A Memoir, you might also like:

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things that Happened By Allie Brosh Simon & Shuster, 2013. 369 pages. Biography/ Memoir

Autobiographical, illustrated essays and cartoons from the author's popular blog that humorously and candidly deals with her own idiosyncrasies and battles with depression.

It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth : an Auto-bio-graphic-novel

By Zoe Thorogood

Image Comics, 2023. 192 pages. Biography/ Memoir

Zoe Thorogood records six months of her own life as it falls apart in a desperate attempt to put it back together again in the only way she knows how. An intimate and meta-narrative look into the life of a selfish artist who must create for her own survival through the ups and downs of anxiety, depression, and imposter syndrome as she forges a promising career in sequential art and finds herself along the way.

Impossible People : a Completely Average Recovery Story

By Julia Wertz

Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2023. 320 pages. Biography/ Memoir

Celebrated cartoonist Julia Wertz chronicles her haphazard attempts at sobriety and the relentlessly challenging, surprisingly funny, and occasionally absurd cycle of addiction and recovery.

Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old

Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old 

by Brooke Shields 

Flatiron Books, 2025. 240 pages. Memoir 

Brooke Shields has spent a lifetime in the public eye. Growing up as a child actor and model, her every feature was scrutinized, her every decision judged. Today Brooke faces a different kind of scrutiny: that of being a “woman of a certain age.” And yet, for Brooke, the passage of time has brought freedom. At fifty-nine, she feels more comfortable in her skin, more empowered and confident than she did decades ago in those famous Calvin Kleins. Now, in Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old, she’s changing the narrative about women and aging. 

Combining personal anecdotes with scientific research, Shields covers topics like menopause, aging, parenting adult children, and owning your voice in middle age. She’s self-aware, frequently acknowledging her many privileges just when, as a reader, you might be tempted to write off her advice as out-of-touch. Her writing is especially insightful as she explores the dichotomy between how middle age is depicted in pop culture (forgotten, unhappy) and how she’s actually experiencing it (empowered, enriching). This is an approachable memoir, and Shield’s thoughts are likely to especially resonate with women in or nearing midlife. 

If you liked Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old, you might also like: 

Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About Menopause 

by Naomi Watts 

Crown, 2025. 232 pages. Nonfiction. 

Beloved actress Naomi Watts opens up about the challenges she faced upon reaching early menopause in this empowering, fun, and practical guide to menopause and aging, all based on the latest advice from hormone experts, doctors, and nutritionists 

I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman

By Nora Ephron 

Knopf, 2006. 137 pages. Nonfiction 

With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice, and dry sense of humor, Nora Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, passionate city dweller, and hapless parent. But mostly she speaks frankly and uproariously about life as an older woman. Utterly courageous, uproariously funny, and unexpectedly moving in its truth telling, I Feel Bad About My Neck is a scrumptious, irresistible treat of a book, full of truths, laugh out loud moments that will appeal to readers of all ages.

SGR

It Rhymes With Takei

It Rhymes With Takei

By George Takei

Top Shelf Productions, 2025. 332 pages. Graphic Novels Biography/Memoir

In a moving, emotional graphic memoir, the Star Trek actor, activist and social media star shares his personal journey from a closeted youth in the 1950s to coming out at 68, revealing how love, fear and activism shaped his identity.

A candid story told beautifully through words and art.  Recommended for those interested in this famous actor and activist, or simply in reading more books by members of the LGBTQIA+ community about their lived experiences.  

If you liked It Rhymes With Takei, you might also like: 

The Color of Always
By Brent Fisher
A Wave Blue World, 2023. 138 pages. Graphic Novels Nonfiction

The flutter of first dates, the thrill of a text-back, the heart-stopping seconds before coming out, and the rush when finally discovering who you truly are--all of these life-changing moments across the full spectrum of LGBTQIA+ experience are ready to explore in this bright and inspiring comics anthology! The Color of Always is a collection of personal stories, testimonies, heirlooms, evocations, and evangelisms for queer creators and readers that celebrates feeling good about who you are, and coming into your own at last.

Gaythiest:Coming out of my Orthodox Childhood

By Lonnie Mann

Street Noise Books, 2024. 256 pages. Graphic Novels Biography/Memoir

A coming-of-age graphic novel memoir about a young man who, growing up in an Orthodox Jewish community, realizes he's gay and struggles to reconcile his faith with who he is.

RBL

Marsha

Marsha
By Tourmaline
Tiny Reparations Books, 2025. 306 pages. Nonfiction

Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson is an inspiring record of her life, love, and lessons written after nearly two decades of research by her leading archivist. Marsha P. Johnson, the legendary Black transgender LGBTQIA+ activist, is known for throwing the first brick in the 1969 Stonewall Uprising and then, rumor has it, picking up a shard of glass to fix her makeup. This book takes us through Marsha's life from growing up in racially-segregated Elizabeth, New Jersey, to her youth spent hustling in Times Square, to the LGBTQIA+ uprising that galvanized her activism. "The book masters the complex balance of joy alternating with profound sadness- inherent in Marsha's life, which despite the defiant resilience of her own statements, was rife with struggles with housing, medical care, disability, loss, and violence." This beautifully written piece of nonfiction honors the fullness of Marsha's life, and promises to inspire readers to live as their most liberated, unruly, vibrant, and whole selves. I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who wants to feel the true compassion and rage that is all wrapped up in the incredible life of Marsha P. Johnson.

If you liked Marsha, you might also like: 

The Stonewall Riots
By Gayle E. Pitman
Abrams Books, 2019. 196 pages. Nonfiction

A thorough examination of the events before, during, and in the aftermath of the Stonewall Riots that gives young readers an overview of the LGBTQIA+ activism of the 1950s and 1960s. The book traces meeting places, social clubs, and the rise of organizations and activist groups, as well as the many police raids of gay establishments, focusing on the June 28, 1969, raid on the Stonewall Inn. The story of the riots is retold in quite a few segments, but each narration provides a slightly different perspective. A timeline, notes, and a thorough bibliography round out this inviting, engaging, and well-researched book.

Tomorrow Will Be Different
By Sarah McBride
Crown Archetype, 2018. 273 pages. Nonfiction

In 2016 at the age of 25, Sarah McBride became the first openly transgender person to speak at a national political convention. As a young person active in politics who had wrestled for years with a growing awareness of her gender identity, McBride knew that coming out would change the course of her life. This memoir highlights Sarah's work as an activist and the key issues at the forefront of the fight for trans equality, providing a call-to-action and empowering look at the road ahead. The fight for equality and freedom has only just begun. "We must never be a country that says there's only one way to love, only one way to look, and only one way to live," she states.

With Honor and Integrity
By Máel Embser-Herbert
New York University Press, 2021. 211 pages. Nonfiction

This is an impactful book on transgender troops in the US. In the preface, they state, “We know that not every reader comes to this volume with an understanding of or support for transgender people and we know that not every reader comes to their reading with an understanding of or support for military service.” This framing brings scholars of gender and sexuality and scholars of the military to the book on a more equal footing. This provide an inspiring look at the past, present, and future of transgender military service. At a time when LGBTQIA+ rights are under siege, and the opportunity to serve continues to be challenged, this book is a timely and necessary read.

My Child Is Trans, Now What?
By Ben Greene
Rowman & Littlefield, 2024. 203 pages. Nonfiction

As anti-trans legislation sweeps through the nation, many Americans remain underinformed about trans issues and unsure of how to support the trans children in their lives. Designed for readers at all different knowledge levels, this book is an accessible, nonjudgmental primer. Drawing on his own experience of coming out as trans in high school, Greene emphasizes the importance of making space for trans joy in a world where trans kids are often met with anger, conflict, and even violence. He also takes care to stress the fact that, because every trans person is different, the best way to know the needs of a specific trans kid in your life is always just to ask. This warm and generous book will help a wide range of readers to support and celebrate children who are trans, nonbinary, and questioning.

LKA

Saving Five

Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope
By Amanda Nguyen
AUWA Books, 2025. 204 pages. Nonfiction

"A revelatory and powerful memoir by the Nobel Peace Prize finalist Amanda Nguyen, detailing her tumultuous childhood and groundbreaking activism in the aftermath of her rape at Harvard in 2013." Amanda was determined to not let her rape derail her goal of joining NASA after graduation, so she let her rape kit be filed under "Jane Doe." She was quickly horrified to learn that her choice to stay anonymous gave her only six months to take action before the state destroyed her kit, rendering any future legal action impossible. 

She knew then that she had two clear options: surrender to a law that denied her justice, or fight for a change for herself and survivors everywhere. Amanda chose to fight to change the laws for sexual assault survivors, and placed her dream of being an astronaut on hold - but wrote herself a note that read, "Never, never give up," to remind her that this was only a pause, not a stop, on her way to space. On, Monday, April 14th, 2025, Amanda Nguyen became the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space and she carried with her the note she wrote for herself! The words "never, never give up" were her zero-G indicator; the object that astronauts bring to space to indicate when microgravity conditions begin. This is truly a memoir of hope and so, much more.

If you like Saving Five, you might also like:

Know My Name
By Chanel Miller
Viking, 2019. 357 pages. Nonfiction

A Stanford student had been sentenced to just six months in a county jail after he was found sexually assaulting "Emily Doe" on the school's campus. The victim's impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral, was translated globally and read on the floor of Congress. It inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Now, Chanel Miller reclaims her identity to tell the story of her trauma, transcendence, and the power of words. She reveals her struggles with isolation and shame during the aftermath and the trial, reveals the oppression that victims face in even the best-case scenarios, and illuminates a culture biased to protect the perpetrators.

Women We Buried, Women We Burned
By Rachel Louise Snyder

A piercing account of the author's journey from teenage runaway to reporter on the global epidemic of domestic violence, this memoir embodies the transformative power of resistance. Rachel Louise Snyder was just eight years old when her mother died, and her distraught father thrust the family into an evangelical, cult-like existence halfway across the country. Furiously rebellious, she was expelled rom school and home at age sixteen. Living out of her car and relying on strangers, Rachel found herself masquerading as an adult, talking her way into college, and eventually traveling the globe. You don't want to miss this remarkable and gut-wrenching story.

I Have the Right To
By Chessy Prout
Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2018. 404 pages. Nonfiction

The numbers are staggering: nearly one in five girls ages fourteen to seventeen have been the victim of a sexual assault or an attempted sexual assault. This is the true story of one of those girls. In 2014, Chessy Prout was a freshman at St. Paul's School, a prestigious boarding school in New Hampshire, when a senior boy sexually assaulted her as part of a ritualized game of conquest. She reported her assault to the police and testified against her attacker in court. In the face of unexpected backlash from her once-trusted school community, she shed her anonymity to help other survivors find their voice.

Denial: A Memoir of Terror
By Jessica Stern
Ecco Press, 2010. 300 pages. Nonfiction

When Jessica Stern was fifteen, she and her fourteen-year-old sister were raped, and the rapist was never caught. Forty years later, the case was reopened and the perpetrator, thought to have raped as many as forty-four girls between the ages of nine and nineteen, was identified. Though he had died several years earlier, Jessica felt the need to investigate him and, through her explorations, she found more than just a sense of who he was. She discovered explanations for her ability to maintain calm in moments of extreme danger, her tendency to experience enormous anxiety in nonthreatening situations and why she may have chosen her specific career path. Her book is a strong, clear-eyed study of the profound reverberations of trauma.

LKA

Sisters in Science

Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escape Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History
by Olivia Campbell
Park Row Books, 2024. 384 pages. Nonfiction

In the 1930s, Germany was a hotbed of scientific thought. But after the Nazis took power, Jewish and female citizens were forced out of their academic positions. Hedwig Kohn, Lise Meitner, Hertha Sponer, and Hildegard Stücklen were eminent in their fields, but they had no choice but to flee due to their Jewish ancestry or anti-Nazi sentiments. Their harrowing journey out of Germany became a life-and-death situation that required herculean efforts of friends and other prominent scientists. No matter their destination, each woman revolutionized the field of physics when all odds were stacked against them, galvanizing young women to do the same.

This book was a fascinating combination of some of my favorite types of nonfiction: it's a history book, an approachable science book, and the stories of real-life people all rolled into one. The combination of subjects gave me a new perspective on European history of the 1930s and 1940s, and helped me see how the rise of Nazism affected both the lives of real-life people, and the fate of scientific study. Those who enjoy well-told histories and biographies will find a lot to appreciate in this book.

If you like Sisters in Science you might also like:

The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science
by Dava Sobel
Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024. 318 pages. Nonfiction

A luminous chronicle of the most famous woman in the history of science, and the untold story of the many remarkable young women trained in her laboratory who were launched into stellar scientific careers of their own.

The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts
by Loren Grush
Scribner, 2023. 422 pages. Nonfiction

When NASA sent astronauts to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s the agency excluded women from the corps, arguing that only military test pilots--a group then made up exclusively of men--had the right stuff. Eventually, though, NASA recognized its blunder and opened the application process to a wider array of hopefuls, regardless of race or gender. From a candidate pool of 8,000 six elite women were selected in 1978--Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and Rhea Seddon.

MB

Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir

Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir 

By Ina Garten 

Crown, 2024. 306 pages. Memoir 

 Ina Garten, the author of thirteen best-selling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and the cultural icon whose face has launched a thousand memes, shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table. 

I’ll admit that while I vaguely knew who Ina Garten, I’d never seen her show or perused any of her cookbooks. But after reading Be Ready When the Luck Happens, I’m now completely charmed by her. She’s a born storyteller and throughout her memoir, she comes across as warm, candid, self-aware, and completely likable. She’s famous not only for her approachable take on classic recipes and her passion for entertaining, but also for her devotion to her husband of many years, Jeffrey. Both loves come through in her memoir, and I appreciated her honesty about both her career and marital struggles over the years. This was a memoir that left me craving comfort food, eager to host a dinner party, and pondering if I need to open a specialty foods store in the Hamptons. 

If you like Be Ready When the Luck Happens, you might also like: 

Taste: My Life Through Food 

by Stanley Tucci 

Gallery Books, 2021. 291 pages. Memoir 

Stanley Tucci grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the kitchen table. He shared the magic of those meals with us in The Tucci Cookbook and The Tucci Table, and now he takes us beyond the savory recipes and into the compelling stories behind them. Taste is a reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about his growing up in Westchester, New York; preparing for and shooting the foodie films Big Night and Julie & Julia; falling in love over dinner; and teaming up with his wife to create meals for a multitude of children. Each morsel of this gastronomic journey through good times and bad, five-star meals and burned dishes, is as heartfelt and delicious as the last. 

My Life in France 

by Julia Child 

Knopf, 2006. 368 pages. Memoir 

Although she would later singlehandedly create a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, Julia Child was not always a master chef. Indeed, when she first arrived in France in 1948 with her husband, Paul, who was to work for the USIS, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the country itself. But as she dove into French culture, buying food at local markets and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu, her life changed forever with her newfound passion for cooking and teaching. Julia’s unforgettable story—struggles with the head of the Cordon Bleu, rejections from publishers to whom she sent her now-famous cookbook, a wonderful, nearly fifty-year long marriage that took the Childs across the globe—unfolds with the spirit so key to Julia’s success as a chef and a writer, brilliantly capturing one of America’s most endearing personalities.

SGR

Raising Hare: A Memoir

Raising Hare: A Memoir 

by Chloe Dalton 

Pantheon, 2025. 304 pages. Memoir 

In February 2021, political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, spending COVID lockdown in the English countryside, stumbles upon a newborn hare—a leveret—that had been chased by a dog. Fearing for its life, she eventually brings it home, only to discover how impossible it is to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation. Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness. Raising Hare chronicles their journey together, while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore. We witness first-hand the joy at this extraordinary relationship between human and animal, which serves as a reminder that the best things, and the most beautiful experiences, arise when we least expect them. 

Raising Hare was a beautiful, hopeful, and thought-provoking read for me. Perhaps thanks to her background in high-stakes international relations, Dalton strikes a perfect balance of capturing both the personality of the hare and her own emotions throughout the experience without ever veering into sentimentality. I especially appreciated how hard she worked to care for the hare as a wild animal rather than a pet, even as she came to love the small creature. I’d recommend this book for animal lovers, nature-enthusiasts, and memoir-readers alike. 

If you like Raising Hare: A Memoir, you might also like: 

H Is For Hawk 

by Helen Macdonald 

Grove Press, 2015. 300 pages. Nonfiction 

An award-winning best-seller from the UK recounts how the author, an experienced falconer grieving the sudden death of her father, endeavored to train for the first time a dangerous goshawk predator as part of her personal recovery. 

Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves 

by Frans de Waal 

W.W. Norton & Company, 2019. 326 pages. Nonfiction 

A whirlwind tour of new ideas and findings about animal emotions, based on De Waal's renowned studies of the social and emotional lives of chimpanzees, bonobos, and other primates. De Waal discusses facial expressions, animal sentience and consciousness, Mama's life and death, the emotional side of human politics, and the illusion of free will. He distinguishes between emotions and feelings, all the while emphasizing the continuity between our species and other species. And he makes the radical proposal that emotions are like organs: we don't have a single organ that other animals don't have, and the same is true for our emotions.

SGR

Zendaya

Zendaya: Una Biografía No Autorizada
Por Alison James
Roca Editorial, 2024. 224 páginas. Biografía

Una biografía para saberlo todo de Zendaya: un icono de su generación con más de 200 millones de seguidores y una de las 100 personas más influyentes del mundo, según la revista Time.

Descubre cómo Zendaya ha conquistado el mundo del cine, la televisión y la moda para convertirse en el rostro de toda una generación. Desde sus primeras apiciones en Disney Channel, Zendaya ha ido conquistando el corazón del público y la crítica con cada nuevo paso en su carrera.

En esta detallada biografía, la periodista Alison James, colaboradora habitual de la prensa estadounidense y autora de otras biografías de personajes públicos, como Bruce Springsteen, la reina Elizabeth II o el rey Charles III, explora todos los aspectos de la vida de la actriz y su carrera hasta la fecha.

Lleno de fotografías a todo color, el libro incluye in repaso desde sus primeras incursiones en la música hasta su sensacional ascenso en el mundo de la moda y el cine; así como algunos apuntes en su vida pública y vida personal, incluyendo desde su activismo hasta su consolidada relación con Tom Holland.

Adéntrate por completo en el fascinante mundo de una de las estrellas más populares del momento. 
El libro resalta cómo Zendaya ha conquistado el mundo del cine, la televisión y la moda, convirtiéndose en el rostro de toda una generación. Analiza su influencia no solo como artista, sino también como figura pública que utiliza su plataforma para promover cambios positivos en la industria y la sociedad.

Esta biografía no autorizada ofrece una visión completa de Zendaya, desde sus humildes comienzos hasta su estatus actual como fenómeno global, proporcionando a los lectores una comprensión más profunda de su impacto cultural y su trayectoria profesional.

Si le gusta «Zendaya» le recomendamos:

El Libro Polinesio
Por Los Polinesios
Montena, 2025. 256 páginas. Biografía

En diez años ha sucedido de todo: giras internacionales, sold out a sus eventos en minutos, premios, botones diamante en YouTube, casi 80 millones de followers en total en sus redes sociales, hasta evolucionar profesional y personalmente, encontrar su esencia y convertirse en adultos que nos han dado lo mejor de sí.

Pero el camino no ha sido fácil, los tres hermanos han tenido momentos increíbles con los polinesios en distintas ciudades, y también instantes en los que han tenido que hacer a un lado “una vida normal” con tal de ser lo que siempre quisieron.

A través de este gran viaje en forma de libro, conocerás cada uno de esos instantes emblemáticos para la gran familia polinesia y descubrirás por qué se han quedado en el corazón de millones de personas. No olvidemos las palabras de Rafa, Karen y Lesslie a la comunidad polinesia: ningún sueño es demasiado grande si pones tu corazón, entusiasmo y trabajo en alcanzarlo.

"El Libro Polinesio" parece ser una obra que combina elementos biográficos con mensajes motivacionales, dirigida principalmente a los fans de Los Polinesios y a jóvenes aspirantes a creadores de contenido. Ofrece una mirada íntima a las experiencias y el camino al éxito de estos influyentes youtubers latinoamericanos.

Taylor Swift: Un Diario Swiftie
Por Marcos Bueno y Laia López

Alfaguara IJC, 2024. 123 páginas. Biografía

Sea cual sea tu era, este es tu libro.

Todo el mundo sabe quién es Taylor Swift: su reputación la precede. Artista, compositora, actriz, directora, ganadora de miles de premios. En conclusión, una de las figuras más importantes de la industria musical hoy en día.

Pero ¿cómo se ha transformado Taylor Swift en uno de los grandes iconos musicales del siglo XXI?? ¿Qué tiene su música para conseguir atrapar a tanta gente y despertar una fidelidad casi religiosa en sus seguidores? ¿Qué hay en sus letras para que toda una generación se sienta reflejada en ellas?

Este diario trata de responder a esas preguntas. Aquí, la vida de alguien que lleva toda su vida escuchando a Taylor Swift (alguien que podrías ser tú) y la de Taylor se mezclan y se confunden. Porque seguro que esto es lo que tú has sentido alguna vez, ¿verdad? Que Taylor, al hablar de sí misma, hablaba también de ti y de todas esas cosas que recuerdas demasiado bien.

El libro busca explorar el fenómeno cultural que rodea a Taylor Swift, analizando cómo su música ha logrado crear una conexión tan fuerte con sus seguidores y por qué sus letras resuenan con tanta fuerza en su audiencia. Este enfoque permite examinar no solo la carrera de Swift, sino también su impacto en la industria musical y en la cultura popular en general. Este libro promete ser una lectura atractiva tanto para fans dedicados como para aquellos interesados en comprender el fenómeno Taylor Swift y su influencia en la música contemporánea.

MEB

Labels: Español, MEB, No Ficcion, Adulto Joven, Biografía