Biography & Memoir

Safiya Sinclair, grew up in a Rasta family in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Her father is a reggae singer and guitarist. Her hair was twisted into dreadlocks until she was 19. She came to realize that for her, being Rasta meant living in a cage. It was through reading and writing poems that she came to better know herself and to break out of the cage and enter the larger world.

"I'm not a grown man — I'm a growing man," Alexander says. His new memoir started as a book of love poems, but ended up being a collection of essays and poems about love, divorce and raising children.

At 98, Carter is the oldest living president in U.S. history. After serving his term, he worked to promote safe housing, human rights and conflict resolution. Originally broadcast in '93, '95 and '96.

Michael Cecchi-Azzolina talks about what it's like to be a Maitre D' at the fanciest restaurants in New York City. He has worked in the business for three decades telling wealthy diners, celebrities and even the mafia whether or not they can have the table by the window. His memoir is called Your Table is Ready.

The Grammy winner got her start as a kid, singing backup for an Elvis impersonator. Her memoir, Broken Horses, is about her early life and the family she's built. Originally broadcast in April 2021.

Steven Spielberg's new film "The Fabelmans" is a semi-autobiographical film based on his childhood and teenage years, and tells the story, in a fictionalized way, of how he fell in love with movies, and became a filmmaker.

Our film critic Justin Chang has this review of "The Fabelmans," which begins its theatrical run on Friday.

Porter won an Emmy for Pose, and a Tony for the Broadway musical Kinky Boots. In addition to performing, he's also a star on the red carpet. His memoir is Unprotected. Originally broadcast in 2021.

The former co-anchor of ESPN's SportsCenter faced criticism in 2017 for calling the president a white supremacist. In her memoir, Uphill, she talks about her career and her life growing up in Detroit.

The son of Taiwanese immigrants, Hua Hsu defined himself as a teen by the music he loved. The murder of a close friend when he was in college changed the course of his life. His memoir is Stay True.

In 2010, while working in Iraq, army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning provided hundreds of thousands of military and diplomatic records about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks in what's regarded as the largest leak of classified records in U.S. history. MANNING was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but was released after seven years, when President Obama commuted her sentence. Manning announced her gender identity as a women after her conviction in 2013 and began to transition. Her new memoir is titled Read Me Dot T-X-T, A Memoir.

A talk with Nina Totenberg, NPR’s longtime legal affairs correspondent, covering the Supreme Court. Her new book Dinners with Ruth, is about her long friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which began before Ginsburg became a Supreme Court justice.

Schiff reflects on the significance of the top-secret documents seized from Trump's residence. He led the first impeachment and serves on the House's committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Veteran cold case investigator Paul Holes talks about pursuing killers and the emotional toll of obsessing over crime scenes and talking to victims of horrific crimes. He has a new memoir called Unmasked.

Chrysta Bilton's mother is a lesbian and her father was a sperm donor. She writes about her unusual upbringing in Normal Family.

Rafael Agustin arrived at the age of 7 in the U.S. with his parents from Ecuador. It wasn't until years later that he realized that his family immigrated to the country illegally.

In her new memoir, Rough Draft, Tur looks back on her childhood, and reflects on her difficult relationship with her father — Zoey Tur, who came out as a trans woman in 2013 — a person she describes in her memoir as talented and charismatic, but also volatile and, at times, abusive.

The Sound of Music star will soon be honored with the AFI's Life Achievement Award. In 2008 and 2019, she spoke to Fresh Air about growing up during WWII and performing in her parents' vaudeville.

Neda Toloui-Semnani shares the story of her parents, two Iranian students who met at Berkeley in 1969 and later, in Iran, worked to build a more democratic nation. Her father was executed in 1983.

David Sedaris writes in his new collection of essays, Happy-Go-Lucky, about his father Lou and their complicated relationship.