Author: Mitch Kruse (With Derek Williams)
ISBN:-13:  978-1-935391-31-9

Well written without being too “preachy,” the authors have done a fine job offering words of guidance to a world that’s teetering on the edge of faith

Author: Jim Moret
Publisher: Phoenix Books
ISBN-13: 978-1-60747-701-3: ISBN-10: 1-60747-701-7

Author: Ali Eteraz
ISBN: 978-0-06-156708-7

 Should be read by anyone attempting to understand Islam and Muslims in general. Students of religion or spirituality will be enlightened and entertained by this book.

Title: All Things at Once
Author: Mika Brzezinski
ISBN: 1602861110
Publisher: Weinstein Books

A Memoir For Everyone

Author: Dr. William B. Stanford
ISBN: 978-0-595-43311-7
Publisher: iUniverse

Lizzi and Fredl is the memoir of Frederick and Alice Steiner, Austrian Catholics who fled Austria in August, 1938, months after the Anschluss (the annexation of Austria to Nazi German).

Author:  Bonnie McGee
ISBN:  9780615250595
Publisher:  Skylark Publications

This book is recommended for readers who enjoy travel books as well as for those interested in hearing about reaching out and grabbing the dream of another life.  Those who indulge will come away inspired and refreshed.  This is a gorgeous book and one that is highly recommended

Author: Candace Fleming
Illustrator: Ray Fenwick
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade Books (An Imprint of Random House Children's Books)
ISBN: 978-0-375-84197-2

Even though we may be familiar with the name P.T. Barnum, one of the greatest showmen and founder of the Barnum & Bailey Circus, how many of us can truthfully say we know the real Barnum?

Author: Joseph Burke
ISBN-10: 1934938505
ISBN-13: 978-1934938508
Publisher: Langdon Street Press

Author: Judith March Davis
ISBN: 9781934938904
Publisher: Langdon Street Press

Dorothy Rowe left the world a great legacy in her books, poetry, articles and her articles. But, the best tribute to a parent and legacy is one that Judith March Davis has written and the special toast she made to her mother when she went and fulfilled her dream of going to China

Author:  Ann Seymour
ISBN: 978-0-915090-82-2

Most books like this one are heavily based on and written as history books, giving the background more than the emotion.  I am honored, proud, and grateful to the author for giving the reader, me, so much more than what I could read in textbooks

Author: Frank Romano
Publisher: World Audience Inc
ISBN: 978-1-934209-43-1

From the very first pages of Frank Romano's Storm Over Morocco, this autobiographical memoir and travelogue of one man's spiritual search rivets you with drama, and rarely lets up over the next 341 pages

Author: Kyra E. Hicks
ISBN: 978-0-9824796-5-0

How often do we have the opportunity to participate in a journey researching one of the best-known African-American quilters, Harriet Powers, who was born near Athens Georgia into slavery in 1837 and died in 1910? When Kyra E. Hicks, a quilter herself, began compiling a simple annotated bibliography of references to Harriet Powers, she hadn't a clue as to what “goodies” she would discover and that her findings would eventually culminate in a fascinating tome, This I Accomplish: Harriet Powers' Bible Quilt and Other Pieces

ISBN:  978-1-60832-005-9

The Novice:  Why I Became a Buddhist Monk, Why I Quit & What I Learned by Stephen Schettini is a well-written memoir that almost seems like a version of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, but overseas, and with a more religious theme

Author: Joyce Fetzer Schutten
ISBN: 978-1-60743-418-4
Publisher: Judson Books

In reading these essays we are fortunate to be beneficiaries of skillfully woven narratives that are deeply readable and thoughtful

Author: Lynn Christopher Roby
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN: 978-1-4327-3689-7

Overall a good effort by Lynn but I fear her memoir may be overshadowed by the many others of this type relating to the topic of alcohol dependency, drug addiction and personal illness

Author:  Marv Gold
Publisher:  Red Hen Press
ISBN:  978-1-59708-51-0

Author: Ronald Probstein
Publisher: iUnvierse, Inc
ISBN: 978-1-4401-4187-4

Honest Sid: Memoir of a Gambling Man is a moving memoir where each page is filled with small details that resonate with meaning. It is a fascinating peek at an nontraditional way of life that leaves you wanting more

Author: James L. Franklin , M.D.
Publisher: The University of Chicago Section of Gastroenterology
ISBN: 13: 978-0-615-22605-7 (cloth):  ISBN: 10: 0-615-22605-1 (cloth)

I want to send my special thanks to this author.  You have taught me a great deal and I am truly an admirer – not only of your wonderfully descriptive prose, but also your pride, determination, and strength in a world that’d literally fallen down around your ears.

Author: Elaine Margolis
ISBN: 9781934938102
Publisher: Bascom Hill Publishing

 

Author: Judy L. Mandel
Publisher: Schlesinger Books
ISBN: 978-0-9825146-0-3

 
Mandel’s memoir is as riveting and gut wrenching as any piece of thriller fiction I’ve read. Once I started, I couldn’t put this book down until I reached what I knew would be the inevitable unavoidable disaster that had been the reason for the author’s existence.

Author: E. E. Smith 
ISBN: 978-0-9798599-1-5 
Publisher: Hanover House 

Boardinghouse Stew by E. E. Smith is an interesting snapshot about life in a boardinghouse during World War II. The author tells her own story of working as a maid and cook for a summer in Mrs. Mumson's home on the West Coast in 1943.

Publisher: Amacom Books

Die Trying: One Man's Quest to Conquer the Seven Summits is an inspiring memoir by a man, who at the age of 26, began a four-year journey to summit all of the highest climbs on the seven continents

Author: Andy Andrews
Publisher: Hay House Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-0-981-9709-1-2

This book was really refreshing, entertaining and had a lot of humor and great stories. Everyone needs to read this to remember that there are places in the world that do not need modern technology and the frills to survive

Author: Mike Stefan Strozier
Publisher: World Audience Publishers
ISBN: 978-0978808662

Reading the book’s subtitle – schizophrenia, homelessness, war, alcoholism, and divorce – did at first induce some apprehension: was it going to be another gloom-and-doom story?

Author: Michael Greenberg
Publisher: Other Press
ISBN: 978-1-59051-341-5

The diversity of the stories is the greatest asset of this book. Greenberg is like the prolific raconteur whom you could sit down with at a bar and easily spend hours just enjoying yourself as he entertains you with his sketches of his social milieu as well as his thoughts concerning a wide variety of topics including his Jewish identity, family, conflict, literature, and a host of other stimulating topics

Author: Jan Elvin
Publisher: Amacom Books
ISBN: 9780814410493

The Box from Braunau: In Search of My Father’s War is a touching tribute. Not only does it celebrate the life and legacy of author Jan Elvin’s father Bill, it also gives honor to the men who fought in WWII and celebrates the prisoners of the concentration camps they liberated

Author: Ray Parker
ISBN: 978-0964092433
Publisher: Mill City Publishing

Parker has given us a small piece of his war time experiences, but this morsel is quite gripping, although at times tragic, when we read about the thousands of Allied soldiers who lost their lives fighting the Nazis

Author: Sonya N. Jason
ISBN: 978-0-7864-3832-7

In a way, Maria Gulovich was an accidental heroine of WWII but in a profound way, she was a very deliberate one. No one forced her to hide Jews in the Slovakian grade school where she was a teacher, but when a leader of the Slovakian underground discovered what she had done, he gave her a choice: either face Nazi arrest for hiding Jews or work as a courier for the Slovakian underground. She chose to become a courier

Author:  Rick D. Niece
ISBN:  987-0-9815462-0-9

Childhood memories and circumstances stay with a person forever, and this book reminds us that a rich, caring community can make all the difference in people’s lives

Author: Mark Oliver Everett
Publisher: Abacus (Little Brown imprint)
ISBN: 978-0-349-12084-3

Mark Oliver Everett, author of Things the Grandchildren Should Know contemplated death for quite a while, even after he turned eighteen, an age which he felt sure he’d never live to

Author: Norman Ollestad
Publisher: Ecco
ISBN: 978-0061766725

I would more than recommend this that I read in one sitting and could not put down

Author: Greg Dawson
Publisher: Pegasus Books
ISBN: 978-1-60598-045-4

Rarely am I able to read a book in one sitting, however Greg Dawson’s Hiding in the Spotlight was the exception. 
In Hiding in the Spotlight Dawson narrates the story of his mother, Zhanna Arshanskaya, who was a Holocaust survivor and an extraordinary pianist.

Author: Nancy Mehagian
Publisher: Cielo Press
ISBN: 978-0-9799305-0-8

Nancy Mehagian has lived a life that is the stuff of legends.  Wild and free, traveling and tripping on drugs, she lived more before thirty than most of us live in a lifetime.  And, we’re so jealous.

Authors: John and Bessie Gonleh with Bruce Beakley
Published by Winepress Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-57921-930-7

‘Refuge’ will leave you in awe of the Creator who gave us the amazing ability to adapt and persevere in the worst of circumstances. It is also a reminder to appreciate what we have and count our blessings while we can for we never know what tomorrow may bring or what God has in store for us.

Author: Alice Resch Synnestvedt

ISBN: 0-96-48042-6-3

Publisher: Intentional Productions

During World War Two, Alice Resch Synnestvedt, working in southern France with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, helped rescue dozens of Jewish children from certain death in Nazi concentration camps.

Author: Jan Elvin
Publisher: American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, NY, 10019
ISBN: 978-0-8144-1049-3

  A peek into a father's war life and how it affected him when he returned

Author: Jan Elvin
Publisher: AMACOM
ISBN: 978-0-8144-1049-3

“Soldiers aren’t the only casualties of war”, says author Jan Elvin in the afterword of this engrossing and well written memoir. ” Their families suffer as well although their battles are fought later, on the home front.” 

Author: Carl David

Publisher: Nightengale Press

ISBN: 978-1-933449-66-1

This memoir begins with a phone call and the words “it’s all over.” Carl’s world came crashing down early that morning and he feared for his mother - could she ever get over what had happened?

Author: Patrick Miles
ISBN:10: 1843919001:   13:9781843919001
Publisher: Hesperus Press

There is a current trend in America where former celebrities who have been forgotten (usually for just cause) are being resurrected from the celebrity dead. This is, of course, thanks to those unimaginative bastards, the stewards of our popular culture, the directors of television programming. Such figures as Hulk Hogan, Bret Michaels and the ‘Two Coreys’ are just a few examples of the cultural living dead. With so many instances of former celebrities again becoming popular it is quite legitimate to ask the question, “Does this person have any relevancy to current society?”

Author: Fernande K. Davis
Publisher: Beach Lloyd Publishers
ISBN:978-0-9792778-7-0

Memoirs written against a particular historical backdrop can make that history come alive in clarifying and startling ways. Girl in the Belgian Resistance is a marvelous example.

Author: Steve Luxenberg
Publisher: Hyperion
ISBN: 978-1-6013-2267-2

When Steve Luxenberg, author of Annie’s Ghosts began his journey seeking to unravel a family secret, little did he know at the time that he would be really opening up a huge can of worms that would lead to some jolting findings about his family. 

Author: Chris Bowen
ISBN: 978-1-4327-2453-5
Publisher: Outskirts Press.com

Winner of the prestigious Teacher of the Year for Los Angeles County- a county that employs over 80,000 teachers, Chris Bowen has penned an impressive memoir with his Our Kids: Building Relationships in the Classroom. According to Bowen, “To work with children is to see, to catch, these small untraceable moments. It is to watch a child pause, cocoon, and re-emerge as a whole new entity.”   

Author: Martha A. Taylor
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN: 978-1-4327-3471-8

An enjoyable and unforgettable tale of love, partnerships and society.

Author: Maureen McCormick
ISBN: 978-0-06-149014-9
Publisher: William Morrow

Admitting she had a cocaine problem, actress Maureen McCormick—famous for playing the role of Marcia Brady in the classic sitcom, The Brady Bunch—told a friend, “I’m afraid of what I’m going to feel if I don’t get high anymore.” For the first time in public, she gets personal in her revealing memoir, Here’s The Story.

Author: L. John McCulloch
Published by Outskirts Press, Inc.
ISBN: 978-1-4327-3785-6

In sharing his own story, McCulloch’s prayer is that others will be able to find comfort and healing through the presence of the Lord. His testimony is powerful, passionate and inspirational.

Edited by: Persis R. Grangera
Publisher: iUniverse Star
ISBN: 9780595297269

This book is a collection of personal stories shared by daughters of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

Author:  Charles Tillinghast
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN 978-1-4327-2924-051095

This deceptively slim book (under a 100 pages) provides an interesting behind the scenes look at the Beatles’ relationship with their American recording company, Capitol Records and, more significantly, with each other. It briefly chronicles the fortunes of both the Beatles and Capitol Records from their alliance in 1962, through to the band’s break up less than a decade later. As one of the lawyers handling the Beatles’ contracts at Capitol Records, the author had the opportunity to interact with the Beatles, and observe their business relationship with Capitol at close quarters.

Author: Alice Pung
Publisher: Plume
ISBN: 978-0-452-29000-6

There’s something about the tale of a new immigrant that allows us to see our own world in a new way. In this debut nonfiction memoir by Alice Pung, the stories contained within “Unpolished Gem” reflect the conflicts (both internal and external) of a person straddling two worlds, the ultimate outsider, never comfortable in either.

Author:June Cross

ISBN:978-0143112112

Publisher:Penguin

Secret Daughter is a memoir that will fill your heart with a mixture of emotions. Sadness for a young mother who is forced by a harsh and unforgiving culture to deny the daughter that she so clearly loves with all her heart. Empathy for the little girl that doesn’t understand the hierarchy of differences that kept her from her mother’s side. And finally, the sorrow of so many lost years of closeness that might have been.

Author: Rick D. Niece
Publisher: Synergy Books
ISBN: 978-0-9815462-0-9

As I finished reading this novel, in under a day, no less, I had a tear in my eye. This is truly a wonderful book describing what childhood was like as a boy back in carefree times with sunny afternoons and penny sweets and a friendship that in the end, were never broken. 

Author:  James J. Laski
ISBN:   978-1-4343-6279-7
ISBN:   978-1-4343-6280-3
Publisher:  Author House

 
In My Fall From Grace, City Hall to Prison Walls, James Laski blows the lid off in what he refers to as “nasty Chicago politics” in this comprehensive account of his rise from the second highest elected position as city clerk to his incarceration in the infamous “Hired Truck” program scandal.

Author: Svetlana Kim
ISBN: 978-1-4196-5574-6

From the very first paragraph of Svetlana Kim’s White Pearl and I: A Memoir of a Political Refuge, readers experience quite a riveting ride with amazing drama and fascinating history as the author recounts her journey from her Russian homeland to the United States where after ten years becomes a citizen.

The 282 page memoir rarely lets up as Svetlana imparts her readers with scores of character sketches and various happenings of her ancestors that provide real insights into their spellbinding and difficult lives, particularly that of her grandmother Bya-ok (“White Pearl”) who had a profound influence on Kim’s own life and subsequent survival in the United States.

Author:Arthur Desmarais

ISBN:978-1-4389-3804-2

Publisher:AuthorHouse

Me, My God, My Country is a wonderfully well-written and insightful work from this new author, Arthur Desmarais. Easy to read and enjoy, Arthur deftly delves into his own inner passions and subconscious ideals of a life and country that keeps us all in a constant quest for change. Arthur, in his writing, shows himself to be a great talent of intellectual fortitude.

Authors: Tasha Tudor and Richard Brown

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

ISBN: 978 -0 -316 -11292-5

The late Tasha Tudor, was a writer and illustrator of children’s’ books. Her farm in southern Vermont is a physical manifestation of all that was dear to her.This book explores her home, gardens, hobbies, writings and illustrations; all of which reflect the romantic nature of this multifaceted individual.

Author: Tamara Pray Frazier
Publisher: Julian' s Legacy Publishers
ISBN: 978-0-615-22488-6

A remarkable recovery!  After a weekend at home a miracle occurred. You will have to read the book to discover what it was and how it happened and when.

Author: Michael Karpin

ISBN: 978-0-470-17373-2

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc

It is difficult to conceive just how Tightrope: Six Centuries of a Jewish Dynasty was written. It is just over four hundred pages in size including very extensive footnotes, yet it is huge in its accomplishment. And this is exactly what Israeli television and news reporter Michael Karpin was able to pull off when he wrote about an Ashkenazi family, the Backenroths, dating back to 1350.

Author: Nancy Henderson-James

ISBN: 978-0-911051-67-4

Publisher: Plain View Press

 

With At Home Abroad: An American Girl in Africa, Nancy Henderson-James has proven herself to be a masterful talent in crafting a captivating memoir infused with a great deal of vivacity, introspection and even some humor and poetry. It is not a memoir to rapidly gulp down, but one to mull over as the author unfolds her childhood through impressionist morsels.

Title: Bringing Back The Magic

Author: Margaret T. Wright

ISBN: 978-0-9821198-0-8

Publisher: Tewillager Publishing (A Division of Equatorial Group, Ltd)

Margaret (Maggie) Wright, author of Bringing Back the Magic: A Transformational Memoir can be described as a rare bird who is particularly well-informed on the African Grey parrot, however, as she points out, she prefers to be called eccentric because her heart opens so much to animals in general.

Author:  Ray Hickey

ISBN-10: 0615194834

ISBN-13: 978-0615194837

I was very impressed with the candor and honesty with which Ray Hickey told the story of his life in this book.  I have seen men like him on almost every job that I have held in my life:   Good men who are honest and have a strong work ethic.  But you don’t see so many who have gone to the heights that this man has.

 

Author: Wendy Kinney-Kendall
ISBN13: 9781869790431
Publisher: Random House NZ.


Barbara Kendell is an extraordinary woman. She has not only won windsurfing medals at three Olympics, she is a mother, an IOC representative, public speaker and mentor. This biography, written by her sister, tells the inspiring story of an extraordinary woman who overcame her personal challenges and remains at the top of her sport after twenty years of competition.

Author:  Carol Leonard

ISBN:  978-0-615-19550-6

Publisher:  Bad Beaver Farm

Carol Leonard, cofounder of the Midwives Alliance of North America, and midwife of thirty years, helped to make midwives legal and certified in her state of New Hampshire.  Believing that women should have an empowering experience of giving birth, and have the option of a home birth, she felt drawn to helping women after the birth of her son, and started assisting doctors and learning all she could.  This remarkable memoir is the journey of one woman finding her calling as a midwife and finding love on the way.

Author: Sam Wyly

ISBN-10: 1557048037

ISBN-13: 978-1557048035

Sam Wyly was a pioneer in many ways.  From humble beginnings in Paradise Island, Louisiana, which Sam described as the poorest town in America, he and his brother learned many of life’s lessons together.  Sam tells of how he learned much of what was important in getting on in life from the experience of his family losing it all and having to move from a painted house in town to their unpainted, tin roofed country house where he spent the rest of his youth.

Author: Susanna Barlow

Publisher: iUniverse

ISBN: 978-0-595-40777-4

Susanna Barlow was born into a family who believed in the religious sect “Work”. There were two other sects called “Gentile” and “Apostate”.

Author: Howard M. Layton

ISBN 13: 978-0-9676008-5-7

Publishers: Three Spires Publishers

Love and Sand is the exciting memoir of a former flyer for the RAF.  Howard M. Layton  intermingles the stories of his love affairs with his hair raising exploits  as an officer of the RAF in south-Africa and  El Alamein where the Eighth army defeated Rommel.