Can you recommend a biography about overcoming adversity?

August 27, 2020 9:44 AM

I am looking for recommendations for books, ideally non-fiction, of people overcoming adversity, climbing up from rock bottom, or making a seemingly impossible turnaround. Do you have any recommendations?
posted by Erinaceus europaeus to Media & Arts (23 answers total)

The Martian
posted by pangolin party at 10:24 AM on August 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

for memoir, The Glass Castle and Educated.
posted by pangolin party at 10:25 AM on August 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

I think First Class Temperament by Geoffrey Ward might fill the bill. It covers FDR's early career and how he fought the limitations of polio to continue his career rather than retreat in privilege to his Hudson Valley estate.
posted by jgirl at 10:29 AM on August 27, 2020

The biography of George Washington Carver My Work Is That of Conservation is amazing.
posted by clew at 10:32 AM on August 27, 2020

Touching the Void.
posted by bondcliff at 10:40 AM on August 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

David Goggins' Can't Hurt Me
posted by FencingGal at 10:52 AM on August 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (biography of Louis Zamperini).
posted by bluebird at 11:03 AM on August 27, 2020

(Science) Fiction
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

Non-Fiction ?
Papillon by Henri Charrière
posted by Rash at 11:13 AM on August 27, 2020

Song in a weary throat the autobiography of Pauli Murray !!
posted by allymusiqua at 11:58 AM on August 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Hannah Hart's memoir Buffering (her mom has schizophrenia which was undiagnosed/untreated throughout Hannah's childhood.)
posted by needs more cowbell at 1:11 PM on August 27, 2020

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating.
posted by jocelmeow at 1:26 PM on August 27, 2020

Skeletons on the Zahara
posted by OHenryPacey at 1:33 PM on August 27, 2020

Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
by David W. Blight
posted by kingless at 2:03 PM on August 27, 2020

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, and the subsequent books - it's the first of a seven volume autobiographical series.
posted by penguin pie at 3:02 PM on August 27, 2020

Wild by Cheryl Strayed
posted by WalkerWestridge at 3:03 PM on August 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Infidel
posted by catquas at 4:53 PM on August 27, 2020

Educated by Tara Westover
posted by matildaben at 7:09 PM on August 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea by Steven Callahan
posted by smudgedlens at 10:20 PM on August 27, 2020

Also Pursuit of Happyness.
posted by catquas at 8:00 AM on August 28, 2020

https://www.cbc.ca/books/47-works-of-canadian-nonfiction-coming-out-in-fall-2020-1.5691235
Lots of biographies in this list. And lots of adversity overcome.
posted by Enid Lareg at 10:34 AM on August 28, 2020

Oh, also, The Trauma Cleaner which I just read in, like, two sittings cause I couldn't put it down!
posted by WalkerWestridge at 3:59 PM on August 28, 2020

Endurance : Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing, about early exploration of Antarctica.
posted by justenough at 9:55 AM on August 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

Harry Truman couldn't get into the college he'd always dreamed of so he tried business school, but he only managed one semester. He started his own business when he was 35, but it went bankrupt. It took him 13 years to pay off the debts. He tried taking night classes in law when he was 40, but he dropped out. But around the same time, he got an administrative job with the courts. That led to other jobs with the county, and then with the state. When he was 50, he was elected to the US Senate, and when he was 61, he became President.

Truman, by David McCullough, won the Pulitzer Prize.
posted by kristi at 8:14 PM on August 31, 2020