Notable celebrity memoirs
Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re sad. One thing is certain: The lives of celebrities are rarely dull. This month a famous actress revealed family pain in her new memoir. Read on to learn about compelling autobiographies that’ll have you laughing, crying and yearning to read more.
The film star wrote her recently released memoir, “All That Is Bitter And Sweet,” to talk about the humanitarian causes she supports around the world. But revelations about her dysfunctional childhood rose more than a few eyebrows. Find out what she revealed.
Her long struggle with a serious disorder threw the “Ally McBeal” and “Arrested Development” actress into a dark hole. In “Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain,” she writes glowingly about the long climb out and the important person who helped pull her up.
“Dreams From My Father” was published in 1995, the year President Obama began his political career. It was hailed as an evocative, lyrical memoir of his life up until the time he entered a prestigious Eastern university.
The former president explains the processes he went through to make major “Decision Points” that established national policy. Bush recalls the aftermath of his administration’s reaction to a natural disaster that tarnished his tenure.
Funny, candid and self-deprecating, the memoir penned by a former movie princess and current novelist is chock-a-block with juicy gossip and lacerating send-ups of Hollywood culture. She writes of her bouts of drug and alcohol addiction and much more in “Wishful Drinking.”
In two separate memoirs, “Gut Feelings” and “I’m Still Hungry,” the singer/songwriter describes her battle with morbid obesity and her decision to undergo surgery to help control it.
Another in a long line of Hollywood actresses who grew up with abuse, Anne Heche details the violations she withstood as a child and young adult and the strength she invoked to rise above them, in her 2001 biography, “Call Me Crazy.”
In “The Real Frank Zappa Book,” the rock guitarist lays it all out on the line: his hilarious, dagger-wielding take on the music industry, raising kids, capitalism and art. He dispels a few myths about himself, and he flings more than a few Zappaesque zingers on deserving prey.
The former Secretary of State writes tenderly of her parents in her 2010 book, “Extraordinary Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family.” She recounts how they raised her to rise above the racism and sexism she encountered in her hometown.
The film director’s 1984 book, “Roman by Polanski,” catalogues the self-destructive behavior he indulged in, especially after the untimely demise of his beautiful wife
