WOMEN’S HISTORY PROJECT
Women’s Personal Narratives:
Autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, letters
Choose one autobiography from the list below and write a 3-5 page analysis of the book.
Incorporate concepts from our class into your analysis. Post a one-paragraph summary of the
book on WebCT.
You can find out more information on the books by checking out www.amazon.com or
www.bn.com websites, browsing local bookstores, or going to the library. You can buy the book
through any of the local bookstores, Charis Books in Atlanta (www.charis.booksense.com) or
check it out of the library. Please do not choose a book you have read before: pick something
new. If you find a book not on the list that you would like to read, please come and discuss it
with me. I want to avoid books by popular figures whose “autobiographies” were not really
written by them, but were written by ghost writers.
Each person will be reading a different book, so make sure to claim your book with me before
you purchase it.
Due: No later than Wednesday, March 11
You must declare your book choice no later than Friday, March 1
The Adventures of the Woman Homesteader: The Life and Letters of Elinore Pruitt Stewart
Africa in My Blood: An Autobiography in Letters by Jane Goodall
The Alphabet in My Hands: A Writing Life by Marjorie Agosin
American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood by Marie Arana
Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of Homelands by Shirley Geok-Lin
Lim
Angela Davis: An Autobiography by Angela Yvonne Davis
Apples and Oranges: My Journey to Sexual Identity by Jan Clausen
Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self by Rebecca Walker
Book of Margery Kempe by Margery B. Kempe
A Border Passage : From Cairo to America-A Woman's Journey by Leila Ahmed
Business as Unusual: The Triumph of Anita Roddick by Anita Roddick
Change Me into Zeus's Daughter : A Memoir by Barbara Robinette Moss
Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody
Composing a Life by Mary Catherine Bateson
Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady by Florence King
Cravings: A Sensual Memoir by Jyl Lynn Felman
Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells by Ida B. Wells, et al.
A Daughter of Isis: The Autobiography of Nawal El Saadawi by Nawal El Saadawi
Daughter of Persia: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem Through the Islamic
Revolution by Sattareh Farman Farmaian
Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement by Constance Curry
The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne Frank
Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston
Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year by Esme Raji Codell
Equal Justice Under the Law: An Autobiography by Constance Baker Motley
Falling Leaves: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah
Fatal Flowers: On Sin, Sex, and Suicide in the Deep South by Rosemary Daniell
Fields of Play: Constructing and Academic Life by Laurel Richardson
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung
Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times by Helen Thomas
Getting over Getting Older : An Intimate Memoir by Letty Cottin Pogrebin
Having Our Say: The Delaney Sisters’ First 100 Years by Elizabeth Delany
The Heart's Progress: A Memoir by Claudia Bepko
Henry and June : From a Journal of Love : The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin 1931-1932 by
Anais Nin
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
I'm the One That I Want by Margaret Cho
In My Place by Charlayne Hunter-Gault
In Our Time : Memoir of a Revolution by Susan Brownmiller
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet A. Jacobs
The Indelible Alison Bechdel : Confessions, Comix, and Miscellaneous Dykes to Watch Out for
by Alison Bechdel
It Must Have Been Moonglow: Reflections on the First Years of Widowhood by Phyllis Greene
La frontera / Borderlands by Gloria E. Anzaldua
Life in the Treetops: Adventures of a Woman in Field Biology by Margaret D. Lowman
Lifesaving : A Memoir by Judith Barrington
Memoirs of Glueckel of Hameln by Glueckel of Hameln
A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 by Laurel
Thatcher Ulrich
Mother Millett by Kate Millett
My Life Story : The Autobiography of a Berber Woman by Fadhma A.M. Amrouche
Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone by Mary Morris
On the Rails by Linda Niemann
One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty
Pentimento: A Book of Portraits by Lillian Hellman
Playing for Time by Fania Fenelon
The Prime of Life: The Autobiography of Simone de Beauvoir by Simone de Beauvoir
Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America: A Memoir by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem by Gloria Steinem
Rita Will: Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser by Rita Mae Brown
The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway
The Room Lit by Roses: A Journal of Pregnancy and Birth by Carole Maso
Shutterbabe : Adventures in Love and War by Deborah Copaken Kogan
Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Sleeping with Cats: A Memoir by Marge Piercy
Speaking Truth to Power by Anita Hill
The Story of My Life: Helen Keller by Helen Keller
Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America by Lily Burana
Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Liberation by Karla Jay
Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman Artist by Judy Chicago
Thunder's Grace : Walking the Road of Visions With My Lakota Grandmother by Mary
Elizabeth Thunder
Twenty Years at Hull-House: With Autobiographical Notes by Jane Addams
Wasted : A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher
What It’s Like to Live Now by Meredith Maran
When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston
A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman by Joan Anderson
You're Not from Around Here, Are You : A Lesbian in Small-Town America by Louise A. Blum
Zami by Audre Lorde