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.  The Autobiography of an Idea
 Louis Sullivan 1924 MA
 5.  My 30 Years War: The Autobiography
 Margaret Anderson
Margaret Anderson link 		1930 MA
 6.  My Thirty Years’ War
 Margaret Anderson
Margaret Anderson link 		1930 MA
 7.  The Second Twenty Years at Hull House
 Jane Addams
Jane Addams link 		1930 NFMA
 8.  Homecoming: An Autobiography
 Floyd Dell
Floyd Dell link 		1933 NFMA
 9.  Across Spoon River
 Edgar Lee Masters
Edgar Lee Masters link 		1936 MA
 10.  A Poet’s Life: Seventy Years in a Changing World
 Harriet Monroe
Harriet Monroe link 		1938 NFMA
 11.  Black Boy
 Richard Wright
Richard Wright link 		1945 NFMA
 12.  Reporter: A Memoir
 Seymour Hersh
Seymour Hersh link 		1951 NFMA
 13.  Always the Young Stranger
 Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg link 		1953 NFMA
 14.  Fabulous Chicago
 Emmett Dedmon
Emmett Dedmon link 		1953 NFCSMA
 15.  A Child of the Century: The Autobiography of Ben Hecht
 Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht link 		1954 NFMA
 16.  Chicago, With Love: A Polite and Personal History
 Arthur Meeker, Jr.
Arthur Meeker link 		1955 NFMA
 17.  A Touch of Innocence
 Katherine Dunham
Katherine Dunham link 		1959 NFMA
 18.  The Strange Necessity: The Autobiography
 Margaret Anderson
Margaret Anderson link 		1962 MA
 19.  The Unknowable Gurdjieff

A memoir dedicated to her partner, Jane Heap.

 Margaret Anderson
Margaret Anderson link 		1962 MA
 20.  Many Lives, One Love
 Fanny Butcher
Fanny Butcher link 		1972 NFMA
 21.  Report from Part One
 Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks link 		1972 NFMA
 22.  American Hunger
 Richard Wright
Richard Wright link 		1977 NFMA
 23.  The Diaries of Willard Motley
 Jerome Klinkowitz (editor) 1978 MA
 24.  The Secrets of Grown-Ups
 Vera Caspary
Vera Caspary link 		1979 NFMA
 25.  On Assignment
 Bill Kurtis
Bill Kurtis link 		1983 NFMA
 26.  Confessions of a Parish Priest: An Autobiography
 Andrew Greeley
Father Andrew Greeley link 		1986 NFMA
 27.  Kup: A Man, an Era, a City
 Irv Kupcinet
Irv Kupcinet link 		1988 NFMA
 28.  I Came A Stranger: The Story of a Hull-House Girl
 Hilda Satt Polachek
Hilda Satt Polachek link 		1989 NFMA
 29.  It’s Always Something
 Gilda Radner
Gilda Radner link 		1989 NFMA
 30.  Making Trouble: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and the University
 John D'Emilio
John D’Emilio link 		1992 NFSSMA
 31.  Dreams From My Father
 Barrack Obama
Barrack Obama link 		1995 NFMA
 32.  Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King
 B.B. King and David Ritz
B.B. King link 		1996 NFMA
 33.  Report from Part Two
 Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks link 		1996 NFMA
 34.  Girl in the Mirror: Three Generations of Black Women in Motion
 Natasha Tarpley
Natasha Tarpley link 		1998 NFMA
 35.  Furthermore: Memories of a Parish Priest
 Andrew Greeley
Father Andrew Greeley link 		1999 NFMA
 36.  Light My Fire: My Life With The Doors
 Ray Manzarek
Ray Manzarek link 		1999 NFMA
 37.  Orphan Girl: The Memoir of a Chicago Bag Lady
 Marie James and Jane Hertenstein
Jane Hertenstein link 		1999 NFMA
 38.  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
 39.  Days and Nights at The Second City
 Bernard Sahlins
Bernard Sahlins link 		2001 NFMA
 40.  Lake Effect
 Rich Cohen
Rich Cohen link 		2002 NFMA
 41.  Chaka! Through the Fire
 Chaka Khan and Tonya Bolden
Chaka Khan link 		2003 NFMA
 42.  Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion’s World Series of Poker
 James McManus
James McManus link 		2003 NFMA
 43.  Physical: An American Checkup,
 James McManus
James McManus link 		2005 NFMA
 44.  A Theater of Our Own: A History and a Memoir of 1,001 Nights in Chicago
 Richard Christiansen
Richard Christiansen link 		2006 NFMA
 45.  I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This: And Other Things That Strike Me as Funny
 Bob Newhart
Bob Newhart link 		2006 NFMA
 46.  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
 47.  Touch and Go: A Memoir
 Studs Terkel
Studs Terkel link 		2007 MA
 48.  Drunkard: A Hard Drinking Life
 Neil Steinberg
Neil Steinberg link 		2008 NFMA
 49.  P.S. Further Thoughts From a Lifetime of Listening
 Studs Terkel
Studs Terkel link 		2008 MA
 50.  Talk Thai
 Ira Sukrungruang
Ira Sukrungruang link 		2010 NFMA
 51.  The Cooked Seed
 Anchee Min 2013 NFMA
 52.  Song of My Life
 Harry Mark Petrakis
Harry Mark Petrakis link 		2014 NFMA
 53.  Romantic Violence: Memoirs of an American Skinhead
 Christian Picciolini
Christian Piccolini link 		2015 NFMA
 54.  My Cubs: A Love Story
 Scott Simon
Scott Simon link 		2017 NFLSMA
 55.  The Boy Who Really, Really Wanted to Have Sex: The Memoir of a Fat Kid
 John McNally
John McNally link 		2017 NFMA
 56.  Once I Was You
 Maria Hinojosa
Maria Hinojosa link 		2020 NFMA
 57.  Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason
 Gina Frangello
Gina Frangello link 		2021 NovMA
 58.  Three Girls From Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood
Dawn Turner
Dawn Turner link 		2021 MA
 59.  Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood: Coming of Age in the Sixties
 John D'Emilio
John D’Emilio link 		2022 MA
 60.  The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER
 Thomas Fisher
Thomas Fisher link 		2022 NFMA
 61.  Lilacs of Douglas Park
 Sheryl L. Fuller 2024 MA
 62.  Swimming to the Horizon: Crack, Psychosis, and Street-Corner Social Work
 Zak Mucha
Zak Mucha link 		2024 NFMA
 63.  And You Will Call It Fate
 Timothy J. Hillegonds
Timothy J. Hillegonds link 		2026 NFMA