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One lives in the hope of becoming a memory - Antonio Porchia.

Given the burgeoning popularity of social media on the Internet, it is not surprising that biographies and memoirs are among the most popular reading choices of Kindle readers. Whether you enjoy reading of exemplary lives or living vicariously through celebrity memoirs, now you can spend less time searching and more time reading, as I watch for new biographies and memoirs in the Kindle Store so you don't have to.

The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom, by Slavomir Rawicz. Lyons Press, 2010. Print Length: 288 p. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (369 reviews). Kindle edition $8.24; Paperback $8.97. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Cavalry officer Slavomir Rawicz was captured by the Red Army in 1939 during the German-Soviet partition of Poland and was sent to the Siberian Gulag along with other captive Poles, Finns, Ukranians, Czechs, Greeks, and even a few English, French, and American unfortunates who had been caught up in the fighting. A year later, he and six comrades from various countries escaped from a labor camp in Yakutsk and made their way, on foot, thousands of miles south to British India, where Rawicz reenlisted in the Polish army and fought against the Germans. The Long Walk recounts that adventure, which is surely one of the most curious treks in history." - Amazon.com Review.
First published in 1956 and newly available in a Kindle edition, The Long Walk was the basis for the 2010 motion picture The Way Back starring Colin Farrell, Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Saoirse Ronan, Mark Strong and Gustaf Skarsgård.

Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche, by James Miller. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. Print Length: 432 p. Amazon customer rating: 432 p. Kindle edition $14.99; Hardcover $18.48. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Miller combines short biographies and compact synopses of 12 philosophers’ ideas of wisdom. In a format suiting those intrigued by the history of philosophy but not yet prepared to take on the texts, Miller introduces Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Diogenes, Seneca, Augustine, Montaigne, Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Emerson, and Nietzsche. Enlivened by Miller’s attention to how the subjects lives and actions measured up to their declamations, the presentations start with the thinkers’ adoption, in some cases from revelation, in others from reflection, of moral inquiry as a mode of the enlightened life. As well as the questions they strived to answer about truth and ideal conduct, Miller pointedly presents how their mental realms of abstraction, ever buffeted by demands of material or political realities, could agitate contemporaries or provoke posterity to bridle at inconsistencies between words and deeds... - Gilbert Taylor for Booklist.

Piano Demon: The globetrotting, gin-soaked, too-short life of Teddy Weatherford, the Chicago jazzman who conquered Asia, by Brendan I. Koerner. The Atavist, 2011. Print Length: 37 p. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (3 reviews). Kindle SINGLE edition. $1.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"At age six, Teddy Weatherford was working in the coal mines of Virginia. By his early twenties he was the toast of Chicago’s jazz scene, rivaling Louis Armstrong and wowing Jelly Roll Morton with his piano talent. But when Weatherford left segregated America for the allures of Shanghai and Bombay, he set out on a adventure he hadn't imagined. The man they called 'The Seagull' would become the globetrotting jazz king of Asia in the shadow of World War II, and provide the soundtrack for the last gasp of an empire. The Atavist, a new home for original nonfiction storytelling, presents Brendan I. Koerner's true tale of how a forgotten legend lived the American Dream by leaving it behind - and helped globalize music with a piano and a sharkskin suit." - Amazon.

The King's Speech, The Life of King George VI and Lionel Logue, The Speech and The Film, by History Books. History Books, 2010. Amazon customer rating: 3 stars (2 reviews). Kindle edition $3.59. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

The film The King’s Speech has won critical acclaim throughout the world for its depiction of the relationship between King George VI (Bertie) and his speech therapist, Lionel Logue. This brief e-book gives the reader essential background information about the film, examining the lives of both King George and Mr. Logue. It also discusses the plot of the film and considers how accurately it depicts the real life events that led up to King George’s famous speech of September 3, 1939.

The Good Daughter: A Memoir of My Mother's Hidden Life, by Jasmin Darznik. Grand Central Publishing, 2011. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (7 reviews). Kindle edition $11.99; Hardcover $16.49. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Jasmin Darznik came to America from Iran when she was only three years old, and she grew up knowing very little about her family's history. When she was in her early twenties, on a day shortly following her father's death, Jasmin was helping her mother move; a photograph fell from a stack of old letters. The girl pictured was her mother. She was wearing a wedding veil, and at her side stood a man whom Jasmin had never seen before. At first, Jasmin's mother, Lili, refused to speak about the photograph, and Jasmin returned to her own home frustrated and confused. But a few months later, she received from her mother the first of ten cassette tapes that would bring to light the wrenching hidden story of her family's true origins in Iran... In this sweeping, poignant, and beautifully written memoir, Jasmin weaves the stories of three generations of Iranian women into a unique tale of one family's struggle for freedom and understanding. The result is an enchanting and unforgettable story of secrets, betrayal, and the unbreakable mother-daughter bond." - Amazon.

Osama bin Laden, by Michael Scheuer. Oxford University Press, 2011. Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (6 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Hardcover $12.58. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Scheuer, chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999 and a consultant to that unit until 2004, delivers an unnerving profile of the al-Qaeda leader. Unnerving not just because it lays out bin Laden’s genius in luring the U.S. into a financially ruinous 'war on terrorism' but also because it shows a 'pious, brave, intelligent, charismatic' man fully capable of leading an insurgent Muslim force against the West, a profile at odds with the more fanatical, marginalized figure often portrayed by mainstream media. Scheuer tracks bin Laden’s life from his Saudi childhood as the son of a remote but revered and very wealthy contractor all the way to his place as one of the pivotal political figures of our time. More to the point, as he has in previous books (Marching Toward Hell, 2008), Scheuer argues that bin Laden’s success owes as much to America’s ineptness in the Mideast as it does to bin Laden himself, a sentiment that should warn policymakers and citizens alike. - Alan Moores for Booklist.

A Child at Confino: The True Story of a Jewish Boy and His Mother in Mussolini's Italy, by Eric Lamet. Adams Media, 2010. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (5 reviews). Kindle edition $9.99; Paperback $14.93. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"Eric Lamet was only seven years old when the Nazis invaded Vienna - and changed his life and the lives of all European Jews forever. Five days after Hitler marched in, Eric Lamet and his parents fled for their lives. Unable to remain together, the family split - he and his mother hid out in Italy, while his father returned to his native Poland and an even darker fate. In this remarkable feat of memory and imagination, Lamet recreates the Italy he knew from the perspective of the scared and lonely child he once was. We not only see the hardships and terrors faced by foreign Jews in Fascist Italy, but also the friends Eric makes and his mother's valiant efforts to make a home for him. In a style as original as his story, the author vividly recalls a terrible time yet imbues his recollections with humor, humanity, and wit." - Amazon.

American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee, by Karen Abbott. Random House, 2010. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (60 reviews). Kindle edition $13.69; Hardcover $15.60. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.
"America in the Roaring Twenties. Vaudeville was king. Talking pictures were only a distant flicker. Speakeasies beckoned beyond dimly lit doorways; money flowed fast and free. But then, almost overnight, the Great Depression leveled everything. When the dust settled, Americans were primed for a star who could distract them from grim reality and excite them in new, unexpected ways. Enter Gypsy Rose Lee, a strutting, bawdy, erudite stripper who possessed a preternatural gift for delivering exactly what America needed. With her superb narrative skills and eye for compelling detail, Karen Abbott brings to vivid life an era of ambition, glamour, struggle, and survival. Using exclusive interviews and never-before-published material, she vividly delves into Gypsy’s world, including her intensely dramatic triangle relationship with her sister, actress June Havoc, and their formidable mother, Rose, a petite but ferocious woman who seduced men and women alike and literally killed to get her daughters on the stage. With a supporting cast of such Jazz - and Depression-era heavyweights as Lucky Luciano, Harry Houdini, FDR, and Fanny Brice, Karen Abbott weaves a rich narrative of a woman who defied all odds to become a legend - and whose sensational tale of tragedy and triumph embodies the American Dream." - from the hardcover edition.