Christopher Hitchens was never quiet for a long enough time to allow anyone to ask him any questions about himself. Readers never had a chance to inquire about how his ardent and militant atheism reflected his Jewish heritage. No one was afforded the opportune moment to probe the former anti-Vietnam crusader’s personal transformation into one of the greatest intellectual supporters of the Iraq War. There was never time to ask, because the self-described “contrarian” preempted every question with a thoroughly developed answer.

The Occupy movement that has consumed the attention of America’s news media, city governments, and populace for the past few months is not the first to attempt—or succeed—to change social order and political discourse in America. To the confusion of media, politicians, and the public, the Occupy movement has declared itself leaderless and non-hierarchical. This stands in high contrast to previous social movements, many of which have featured powerful leadership.

For over thirty years, Farah Pahlavi has been forbidden from setting foot in the country she once ruled. Married in 1959 to Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, she reigned alongside him until the 1979 Islamic Revolution made pariahs of Iran’s powerful royal family, forcing them into the nightmare of exile. In her 2004 memoir An Enduring Love: My Life with the Shah, Pahlavi chronicles this nightmare and the years leading up to it with a bias only a proud leader could possess.

Few men are as reviled as Michael Moore. The director of Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko has made himself notable not only for his Oscar nominations but also for the incredible hate he has inspired in countless conservatives. Even the Democratic Party has a strained relationship with the documentarian. But Moore can take comfort that there is one man who remains loyal to him, one man who knows the truth of Moore’s life long crusade to fix the United States: Michael Moore.

Journalists and international officials have markedly ignored the modern history of Guatemala. The nation’s past includes a long list of wrongs against the indigenous peoples of the country, including exploitation by wealthy, mixed-race landowners and government complicity in discriminatory practices. However, until the 1983 publishing of Quiché leader Rigoberta Menchú’s controversial autobiography, the attention of the world was rarely drawn to the bloodshed and activism happening in Central America.

The title of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s memoirs–Known and Unknown–is appropriate of almost any position that requires making decisions based on predictions. In national security matters, especially during war-time as in Afghanistan and Iraq, there will be good intelligence and bad intelligence, and Clausewitz’s concept of ‘fog of war‘ can confuse even the most prescient of individuals. Rumsfeld’s memoir presents a well-researched defense of his decisions in the midst of that fog.

“No Apology” is Romney’s first attempt at collecting his thoughts, opinions, and views of the world in a coherent text for the public. Considering his past policies, which include legislation favorable for gay rights and pro-choice, many have wondered where the Republican candidate stands when it comes to both social and economic policies. Well, apparently Romney came back with a response: an over 300 page long answer to all those questions and doubts.

In his memoir, Our Last Best Chance, King Abdullah II of Jordan tells a story that is at once personal and political. His powerful message on the centrality of the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to future peace and stability provides an intimate look at the contested and conflict-ridden history of the modern Middle East. After generations of gridlock, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may seem to have become an unstable and wholly inadequate status quo. There may be few, if any, more chances for peace.

The fact that Gorbachev is associated with the dissolution of the Soviet Union has made him a much admired man in the West, a near hero. His role is the reunification of Germany and the ‘liberation’ from Soviet overlordship of the remainder of Eastern Europe earned him a Nobel Peace prize in 1990. However in the much diminished successor state of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, Gorbachev is seen in a very different light. Thus a chasm exists in the perception of Gorbachev as a person and as a politician between Russia and the West.

I don’t usually weigh my books, but I must say that at 3.5 pounds and 957 pages, Bill Clinton’s My Life is quite hefty. Beyond his marked candor, this former President unearths with each sentence an incredible amount of detail—so much that while reading I couldn’t help but wonder whether I would be capable of half as much.

Sherbaz Mazari’s journey to disillusionment begins as early as 1948, after the creation of Pakistan. Hopes were running high and he was eager to serve his country when he took a group of tribesmen to fight for the liberation of Kashmir. Hearing stories of the Maharajah’s unlawful treaty granting the state to India and the oppression of Kashmiri Muslims, he gathered volunteers from the Mazari tribe and rode on horseback to the border of Kashmir to join the rebels.

I straddled a historical boundary sitting between my father and my grandmother as I pulled back the first page of Iranian activist-lawyer Shirin Ebadi’s autobiography. I bridged mother and son, linking the experiences of a once-17-year old man who fled and of a woman who stayed and endured the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Ebadi, the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, makes a parallel connection with her memoir “Iran Awakening."