Best autobiographies for men

A former ad executive turned screenwriter, Herman Raucher took inspiration from his own life for his first movie screenplay, Summer of '42. The coming of age story, starring Jennifer O'Neill of Scanners fame, was based on his own adolescent experiences, particularly a summer he spent on Nantucket Island where he fell in love for the first time with a woman named Dorothy. 

The now-adult Raucher looks back on his youth and the events that inspired him, his friends Oscy and Benjie, and the lonely abandoned housewife Dorothy, to bond. Summer of '42 was a huge hit at the box office, becoming one of the highest-grossing movies of 1971. There was so much demand for more of Raucher's story that he wrote a novel to satiate audiences' hunger. He penned a sequel, Class of '44, which followed the characters as they entered college, and there was even an off-Broadway musical adaptation.