Autobiography

Dreams from My Father

Autobiographical memory is a uniquely human form of memory that integrates individual experiences of self with
cultural frames for understanding identities and lives. In this review, we present a theoretical and empirical overview of
the sociocultural development of autobiographical memory, detailing the emergence of autobiographical memory
during the preschool years and the formation of a life narrative during adolescence. More specifically, we present
evidence that individual differences in parental reminiscing style are related to children's developing autobiographical
narratives. Parents who structure more elaborated coherent personal narratives with their young children have
children who, by the end of the preschool years, provide more detailed and coherent personal narratives, and show a
more differentiated and coherent sense of self. Narrative structuring of autobiographical remembering follows a
protracted developmental course through adolescence, as individuals develop social cognitive skills for temporal
understanding and causal reasoning that allows autobiographical memories to be integrated into an overarching life
narrative that defines emerging identity. In addition, adolescents begin to use culturally available canonical
biographical forms, life scripts, and master narratives to construct a life story and inform their own autobiographical
narrative identity. This process continues to be socially constructed in local interactions; we present exploratory
evidence that parents help adolescents structure life narratives during co constructed reminiscing and that
adolescents use parents and families as a source for their own autobiographical content and structure. Ultimately, we
argue that autobiography is a critical developmental skill; narrating our personal past connects us to our selves, our
families, our communities, and our cultures.

The memoir, Dreams from My Father (1995), is the story of Obama's search for his biracial identity by tracing the lives
of his now-deceased father and his extended family in Kenya. Obama lectured on constitutional law at the University
of Chicago and worked as an attorney on civil rights issues

Memoir
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby
A memoir is a narrative, written from the perspective of the author, about an important part of their life. It's often
conflated with autobiography, but there are a few important differences. An autobiography is also written from the
author's perspective, but the narrative spans their entire life.

Fever Pitch (1992), an autobiographical book by British author Nick Hornby, explores Hornby's life through his love for
football (soccer in America) and with the Arsenal Football Club in particular. He discusses seminal football matches
he's attended and their relationship to his life as a whole.

biography
James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
The biography that ushered in the modern era of true-life writing, The Life of Samuel Johnson covered the entirety of
its subject’s life, from his birth to his status as England’s preeminent writer to his death. Boswell was a personal
acquaintance of Johnson, so he was able to draw on voluminous amounts of personal conversations the two
shared.What also sets this biography apart is, because Boswell was a contemporary of Johnson, readers see
Johnson in the context of his own time. He wasn’t some fabled figure that a biographer was writing about centuries
later; he was someone to whom the author had access, and Boswell could see the real-world influence his subject
had on life in the here and now.

A biography is simply the story of a real person's life. It could be about a person who is still alive, someone who lived
centuries ago, someone who is globally famous, an unsung hero forgotten by history, or even a unique group of
people.