Chicago Literature Index — Memoirs and Autobiographies

  Title Author/Editor Published Categories

© {copyright_year} Chicago Literary Hall of Fame

 1.  Culture’s Garland
Eugene Field
Eugene Field link
1887 NFMA
 2.  Twenty Years at Hull House
Jane Addams
Jane Addams link
1909 NFMA
 3.  My Chicago
Anna Morgan
Anna Morgan link
1918 NFMA
 4.  My Thirty Years’ War
Margaret Anderson
Margaret Anderson link
1930 MA
 5.  The Second Twenty Years at Hull House
Jane Addams
Jane Addams link
1930 NFMA
 6.  Homecoming: An Autobiography
Floyd Dell
Floyd Dell link
1933 NFMA
 7.  A Poet’s Life: Seventy Years in a Changing World
Harriet Monroe
Harriet Monroe link
1938 NFMA
 8.  Black Boy
Richard Wright
Richard Wright link
1945 NFMA
 9.  Reporter: A Memoir
Seymour Hersh
Seymour Hersh link
1951 NFMA
 10.  Always the Young Stranger
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg link
1953 NFMA
 11.  Fabulous Chicago
Emmett Dedmon
Emmett Dedmon link
1953 NFCSMA
 12.  A Child of the Century: The Autobiography of Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht link
1954 NFMA
 13.  Chicago, With Love: A Polite and Personal History
Arthur Meeker, Jr.
Arthur Meeker link
1955 NFMA
 14.  A Touch of Innocence
Katherine Dunham
Katherine Dunham link
1959 NFMA
 15.  Many Lives, One Love
Fanny Butcher
Fanny Butcher link
1972 NFMA
 16.  Report from Part One
Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks link
1972 NFMA
 17.  American Hunger
Richard Wright
Richard Wright link
1977 NFMA
 18.  The Secrets of Grown-Ups
Vera Caspary
Vera Caspary link
1979 NFMA
 19.  On Assignment
Bill Kurtis
Bill Kurtis link
1983 NFMA
 20.  Confessions of a Parish Priest: An Autobiography
Andrew Greeley
Father Andrew Greeley link
1986 NFMA
 21.  Kup: A Man, an Era, a City
Irv Kupcinet
Irv Kupcinet link
1988 NFMA
 22.  I Came A Stranger: The Story of a Hull-House Girl
Hilda Satt Polachek
Hilda Satt Polachek link
1989 NFMA
 23.  It’s Always Something
Gilda Radner
Gilda Radner link
1989 NFMA
 24.  Dreams From My Father
Barrack Obama
Barrack Obama link
1995 NFMA
 25.  Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King
B.B. King and David Ritz
B.B. King link
1996 NFMA
 26.  Report from Part Two
Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks link
1996 NFMA
 27.  Girl in the Mirror: Three Generations of Black Women in Motion
Natasha Tarpley
Natasha Tarpley link
1998 NFMA
 28.  Furthermore: Memories of a Parish Priest
Andrew Greeley
Father Andrew Greeley link
1999 NFMA
 29.  Light My Fire: My Life With The Doors
Ray Manzarek
Ray Manzarek link
1999 NFMA
 30.  Orphan Girl: The Memoir of a Chicago Bag Lady
Marie James and Jane Hertenstein
Jane Hertenstein link
1999 NFMA
 31.  The Soup Has Many Eyes: From Shtetl to Chicago: a Memoir of One Family’s Journey Through History
Joann Rose Leonard
Joann Rose Leonard link
2000 NFMA
 32.  Days and Nights at The Second City
Bernard Sahlins
Bernard Sahlins link
2001 NFMA
 33.  Lake Effect
Rich Cohen
Rich Cohen link
2002 NFMA
 34.  Chaka! Through the Fire
Chaka Khan and Tonya Bolden
Chaka Khan link
2003 NFMA
 35.  Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion’s World Series of Poker
James McManus
James McManus link
2003 NFMA
 36.  Physical: An American Checkup,
James McManus
James McManus link
2005 NFMA
 37.  A Theater of Our Own: A History and a Memoir of 1,001 Nights in Chicago
Richard Christiansen
Richard Christiansen link
2006 NFMA
 38.  I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This: And Other Things That Strike Me as Funny
Bob Newhart
Bob Newhart link
2006 NFMA
 39.  Sox and the City: A Fan’s Love Affair with the White Sox from the Heartbreak of ’67 to the Wizards of Oz
Richard Roeper
Richard Roeper link
2006 NFLSMA
 40.  Drunkard: A Hard Drinking Life
Neil Steinberg
Neil Steinberg link
2008 NFMA
 41.  The Cooked Seed
Anchee Min 2013 NFMA
 42.  Song of My Life
Harry Mark Petrakis
Harry Mark Petrakis link
2014 NFMA
 43.  Romantic Violence: Memoirs of an American Skinhead
Christian Picciolini
Christian Piccolini link
2015 NFMA
 44.  My Cubs: A Love Story
Scott Simon
Scott Simon link
2017 NFLSMA
 45.  The Boy Who Really, Really Wanted to Have Sex: The Memoir of a Fat Kid
John McNally
John McNally link
2017 NFMA
 46.  Once I Was You
Maria Hinojosa
Maria Hinojosa link
2020 NFMA
 47.  Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason
Gina Frangello
Gina Frangello link
2021 NovMA
 48.  Three Girls From Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood
Dawn Turner
Dawn Turner link
2021 MA
 49.  The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER
Thomas Fisher
Thomas Fisher link
2022 NFMA