Blog Posts by Subject: Memoirs and Diaries

Today’s letter features correspondence between Arturo Alfonso Schomburg and Langston Hughes. In the excerpt below, Schomburg speaks with Hughes regarding acquisitions for The Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints—the forerunner to today’s Schomburg Center.

Are you looking for a good nonfiction read to download? Every month the Mid-Manhattan Library presents a series of Author @ the Library lectures featuring recent nonfiction books on a wide range of subjects, and many of these titles are available to borrow as e-books.

Mary-Louise Parker is an actress best known for her role on the television show Weeds, for which she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress is 2006. With her new memoir Dear Mr. You, she adds author to her list of accomplishments.

The real life story of one of the stars of Sesame Street.

Sloane Crosley comes to Books at Noon this week to discuss her latest book, The Clasp.

Patti Smith, musical icon and National Book Award winner, hero to aesthetes and rebels, is an NYPL favorite. This week, in celebration of her new book M Train, the New York Public Library is proud to present Patti Smith discussing the authors she loves.

A wide variety of titles, including memoirs, essays, classic and contemporary fiction, history, and poetry connected to New York.

Discussion questions for A Walk in the Woods.

Michelle Knight was abducted in 2002 and lived hidden in her captor's house for a decade. The journals she kept chronicle her love for her son and the abuses she suffered.

Perhaps as much has been written about Hemingway as was written by him.

Welcome back to the Reader’s Den! This August we’re making a virtual escape from the hot and steamy New York summer with Bill Bryson’s classic travelogue, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, originally published in 1996.

Vivian Gornick is one of the most prolific writers in American letters, with eleven books published since 1973. Most recently she's published a memoir The Odd Woman in the City detailing her life as a woman of intelligent discontent. In this week's episode of the New York Public Library Podcast, we're proud to present Vivian Gornick discussing voice, adherence to fact, and lucid sentences.

Hutch Harris is the lead guitarist and vocalist of Portland, Oregon–based band The Thermals. His songs paint vivid pictures and pose challenging questions, not unlike our favorite books and prose. See what books he recommends!

We asked our expert NYPL staff, “What’s your favorite book that features a protagonist with a disability, and why do you like it?”

Over the last four decades of her remarkable career, the singer has released eleven studio albums and published the National Book Award-winning memoir Just Kids. This week on the New York Public Library Podcast, we're proud to present Patti Smith discussing her love of learning.

Primarily working in black and white portraiture, Mann imbues her work with luminosity and a sensual macabre. Her memoir Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs is newly published, and this week on the New York Public Library Podcast, we're proud to present Sally Mann discussing ethical photography and stories.

What has made Anne Frank's diary a classroom classic is also Anne's voice, her treatment of the diary as a dear companion.

When we asked people to share books related to the theme of nature at our recent Open Book Night, we heard about titles related to both the natural world and to human nature, with an emphasis on humankind’s relationship to nature.

He's Eli Gold on The Good Wife. He's been Nightcrawler in X-2: Men United and Hamlet and Mr. Elton in the film adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma. Alan Cumming has also written a memoir, Not My Father's Son. He recently spoke to us at Books at Noon.