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Books like Personal history
An extraordinarily frank and intimate portrait of a woman navigating profound personal tragedy to forge a formidable legacy. These 12 books are the closest matches in mood, pace and themes, with what each one shares with Personal history.
- intimate
- melancholic
- formidable
- triumphant
- 01
Living history
Hillary Rodham Clinton
A measured, front-row seat to the bruising and transformative arena of modern American politics, told by a woman who weathered its fiercest storms.
- 02
Becoming
Michelle Obama
An intimate conversation with a mentor who has lived through history and wants to help you find your own voice.
- 03
My Life
Bill Clinton · 2004
A sprawling, folksy, and deeply detailed journey through the mind of a relentlessly ambitious and complex American leader.
- 04
Fun Home
Alison Bechdel · 2006
A darkly funny, deeply literary graphic memoir that dissects the complicated legacy of a closeted parent and a daughter's own queer awakening.
- 05
Wild Swans
Jung Chang
A sweeping, deeply personal epic that captures the crushing weight of history and the unbreakable endurance of the women who survive it.
- 06
Angela's Ashes
Frank McCourt · 1996
A rain-soaked, tragicomic masterpiece of survival that finds poetry and dark humor in the depths of unimaginable deprivation.
- 07
No Ordinary Time
Doris Kearns Goodwin · 1995
An intimate, fly-on-the-wall experience of a marriage that shaped the modern world during its darkest hours.
- 08
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant · 1885
A masterclass in unadorned clarity, offering a stoic, front-row seat to the heavy burdens of leadership and the brutal realities of war.
- 09
An unquiet mind
Kay Redfield Jamison · 1995
A fiercely articulate descent into the terrifying highs and crushing lows of a brilliant, fractured mind.
- 10
West with the night
McDougal Littell · 1942
A breathtakingly lyrical soaring over the vast, sun-drenched landscapes of early twentieth-century East Africa.
- 11
The art of memoir
Mary Karr
An illuminating and cathartic exploration of how we shape our memories and how our memories shape us.
- 12
The journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950-1962
Sylvia Plath · 2000
A raw, feverish descent into the brilliant, turbulent mind of a poet hungry for life yet haunted by her own shadows.
