Mizzou Must-Reads: Autobiographies/
Biographies

This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.

Baca's memoir of his life before, during, and immediately after the years he spent in a maximum-security prison. Considered one of the best poets in America, Baca was illiterate at the age of twenty-one, facing up to ten years behind bars for selling drugs. This is the remarkable tale of how he emerged after years in the penitentiary - much of it spent in isolation - with the ability to read and a passion for writing poetry.

Black Boy is a classic of American autobiography, a subtly crafted narrative of Richard Wright's journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. An enduring story of one young man's coming of age during a particular time and place, Black Boy remains a seminal text in our history about what it means to be a man, black, and Southern in America.

Writing as a sinner, not a saint, Augustine shares his innermost thoughts and conversion experiences and wrestles with numerous spiritual questions. Starting with his childhood in Numidia, through his youth and early adulthood in Carthage, Rome, and Milan, this book invites readers to join Augustine's quest that led him to be one of the most influential Christian thinkers in the history of the church.

Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank's remarkable diary has become a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and testament to the human spirit. Cut off from the outside world due to the Nazi occupation of Holland in 1942, the 13-year-old Jewish girl and her family faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death.

Bauby was known and loved for his wit and impassioned approach to life. He became the victim of a rare stroke to the brainstem, and after 20 days in a coma, Bauby awoke into a body which had all but stopped working. He was eventually able to express himself in detail: dictating a word at a time, blinking to select each letter as the alphabet was recited to him. In the same way, he composed this extraordinary book.

By identifying the structure of DNA, the molecule of life, Francis Crick and James Watson revolutionized biochemistry and won themselves a Nobel Prize. At the time, Watson was only twenty-four, and his honest account of sprint against other world-class researchers gives a clear picture of a world of brilliant scientists with great gifts, human ambitions, and bitter rivalries.

Mohandas K. Gandhi is one of the most inspiring figures of our time. In his classic autobiography he recounts the story of his life and how he developed his concept of active nonviolent resistance, which propelled the Indian struggle for independence and countless other nonviolent struggles of the twentieth century.

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure abandonment and the prejudice of the local "powhitetrash." At eight years old and back at her mother's side, Maya is attacked by a man and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, Maya learns about love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world.

Born into a family of slaves, Frederick Douglass educated himself through sheer determination. His unconquered will to triumph over his circumstances makes his one of America’s best and most unlikely success stories. This is Douglass’ own account of his journey from slave to one of America’s great statesmen, writers, and orators.

Persepolis is a memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen - the overthrow of the Shahâ's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the effects of war with Iraq. The child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iranâ's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.

Levi set out to systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose. He was in touch with the workings of the most endearing human events and with the most contemptible. What has survived in Levi's writing isn't just his memory of the unbearable, but also, his delight in what made the world exquisite to him.

Walden; or Life in the Woods is an American book written by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self-reliance. Published in 1854, it details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, Massachusetts.

A Chinese American woman tells of the Chinese myths, family stories and events of her California childhood that have shaped her identity.

This landmark book details all the events of the biggest political scandal in the history of this nation--Watergate. Woodward and Bernstein kept the headlines coming, delivering revelation after amazing revelation to a shocked public.

Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy.

This “biography” follows cancer from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the twentieth century battle to cure, control, and conquer it. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddharth Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths.

Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934) was the first woman scientist to win worldwide acclaim and one of the great scientists of the twentieth century. This biography chronicles Curie’s legendary achievements in science, including her pioneering efforts in the study of radioactivity and her two Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry. It spotlights her remarkable life, from childhood in Poland, to her marriage to fellow scientist Pierre Curie, to her tragic death from the very radium that brought her fame.

Malcolm X was constantly rewriting his own story: he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins' bullets at age thirty-nine. He empowered hundreds of thousands of black Americans to create better lives and stronger communities while establishing the template for the self-actualized, independent African American man.

Samuel Clemens, the man known as Mark Twain, led a life that mirrored his country's. He grew from a Mississippi River boyhood in the days of the frontier, to a Wild-West journalist during the Gold Rush, to become and a global celebrity as America became an international power. Along the way, he keenly observed the characters and voices that filled the growing country, and left us our first authentically American literature.

Truman's life was filled with vivid characters -- Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Truman, George Marshall, Joe McCarthy, and Dean Acheson -- and dramatic events. Truman's story spans World War I, the Pendergast machine of Kansas City, dropping the atomic bomb, confronting Stalin at Potsdam, and sending troops to Korea. McCullough tells the story of the man who was perhaps the most courageous president in our history.

Stephen E. Ambrose presents the Lewis and Clark Expedition from Thomas Jefferson's hope of finding a waterway to the Pacific, through the heart-stopping moments of the actual trip, to Lewis' lonely demise on the Natchez Trace. Along the way, Ambrose shows us the American West as Lewis saw it -- wild, awesome, and beautiful.