Showing titles in Cultural & Regional

“A testament to the resilience of the human spirit, and to the idea that people can endure great hardship without being hardened by it.” —The Progressive “What’s most moving about this extraordinary book isn’t Gary Tyler’s innocence, but his resilience and steadfast commitment to...

In Evolution of a Baby Boomer Joyce Fidler takes us on her journey as a record store owner and rock band singer who begins her adult years in the Bible belt where sex, drugs and rock & roll dominate her life. As she relocates to LaLaLand in her forties, she invites listeners to witness her unexpected transformation to a fruitful, productive citizen. Fidler's memoir traces the how and why of this metamorphosis including a divorce from a polyamorous marriage, separation from her teenaged children, with an eventual surrender to recovery from marijuana and alcohol addiction.

Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago in the 70s, Karen lives a charmed and spunky life right out of the gate. Leading her friends and neighbors on real-time adventures, she bravely and hilariously plows through life on her groovy lace-up roller skates. Always on the lookout for fun, her energy and delight invite anyone and everyone to experience joy along the way…until a crack in the foundation threatens to crumble her vivacious spirit.

Richard Pryor was arguably the single most influential performer of the second half of the twentieth century, and certainly he was the most successful black actor/comedian ever. Controversial and somewhat enigmatic in his lifetime, Pryor's performances opened up a new world of possibilities, merging fantasy with angry reality in a way that wasn't just new - it was heretofore unthinkable. His childhood in Peoria, Illinois, was spent just trying to survive.

Published during a literary era marked by the ascendance of Black writers such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Alex Haley, this thinly fictionalized account of Claude Brown’s childhood as a hardened, streetwise criminal trying to survive the toughest streets of Harlem has been heralded as the definitive account of everyday life for the first generation of African Americans raised in the Northern ghettos of the 1940s and 1950s.

Edmond Biré retrace la destinée d’Armand de Pontmartin (1811-1890) et la place de ses écrits dans les lettres françaises. Entre biographie et étude critique, il suit le parcours d’un homme de plume au cœur du XIXe siècle, éclaire ses choix, son style et les idées qui traversent son œuvre, et interroge leur résonance.

This story begins, at the age of 14... in the closet of my Grandma's old bedroom... in my childhood home... which was now my room. I was getting ready to go into my freshman year of high school and knew I would be showering in the football locker room after practice... this terrified me because I knew everyone would see my huge scar that I received from a major childhood surgery.

En su debut, Miriam Casco Benard y sus hermanos emergen como sobrevivientes, relatando sus extraordinarias experiencias en sus recuerdos Tender Memories of Fire and Dust: Earthquakes, Revolution, and Family. Esta no es solo una historia de supervivencia, es una narrativa que palpita con la intensidad de superar el catastrófico terremoto de 1972 que asoló Nicaragua, navegar por el peligroso derrocamiento del gobierno por parte de los sandinistas y el arduo proceso de reconstruir una nueva vida en Estados Unidos.

In his sparkling memoir, M.K. Raina documents the many lives he has lived. From sharing the stage with some of the most celebrated actors in India to his journey as a young man witnessing the violence and horrors rampant through the streets of Kashmir, an entire history of northern India is...

It’s the early seventies in rural Zimbabwe. Three-year-old Mercy lives with her beloved grandma, helping tend the chickens and goats, learning the importance of growing the crops that will feed them throughout the year, and many other skills.

Brought to you by Penguin. The hilarious and piercing memoir about growing up gay in a not-so-gay world. I’m just a man, standing in front of a salad, asking it to be a cake. What do you do when you’re too gay for Pakistan, too Pakistani to be gay in America and you’re ashamed of your body...

In these nine essays, Susan Lieberman is exploring The Country of Old, in which she finds herself a new immigrant. She examines the difficulties of leaving "that other place" and making sense of this new country. Lieberman's touch is light but her analysis of the challenges/opportunities of aging is provocative. "If we are not old, then we are dead," she notes. And if we are, indeed, not dead then how can we live well in this moment in our life span?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Finalist for the Toronto Books Awards Finalist for the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction Finalist for the Hilary Weston-Writers' Trust Prize for Non-Fiction An inventive memoir about one family’s escape from Vietnam and the father’s mysterious disappearance along...

Raised in suburban Chicago, Jonathan Liebson grew up hearing fabled stories about his father's childhood in New York. The Manhattan and Queens of his father's past, and the Lower East Side of his immigrant grandfather, always shimmered in the background—until one day Jonathan finally moved...

How do you move forward when life doesn’t go as planned? Such is Life?: Framing a Positive "Next" Mindset in the Wake of Life's Setbacks by Bobby Steffens, thoughtfully narrated by Phillip Nathaniel Freeman and Lauren Henry, and produced and published by Audiobook Publishing Services, is a powerful and deeply personal memoir about resilience, healing, and finding purpose after life’s most difficult moments.

From her first ski trip, Jean Waight is entranced by the beauty and welcoming feel of Oregon's old lodge—an inspired 1937 creation. Winter by winter, her friends share weather, mishaps, and ale. She braves a comical encounter with a pine marten and is less brave when alone in a freakish snow accident that takes her to life's very edge. But Timberline Lodge's whisperings only become clear after she has to give up skiing. When skiers and snowboarders head for the slopes and all is quiet inside, the past comes out to play. Even the linocut murals hold up a mirror to her own life.

This book offers a personal inquiry, not a political treatise, into the consequences of allowing labels to define both individuals and societies. It asks: What remains when these labels are stripped away? What is the danger in neglecting to examine our core identity beneath them? My exploration culminated in a singular insight: unexamined collective labels profoundly influence not only the self but entire communities.

How long can you go on without breaking into a million pieces? Sara-Fay Tarlin, in this heartbreaking memoir that she dedicated to her daughter, will show you how. Follow her life’s story in Life’s Ups and Downs where she unfolds how she adopted her daughter, loved her as if she was her own...

When I first saw Brian Epstein’s black Twinlock binder, I was struck by how small and unassuming it was – just 160 by 100 millimetres, the kind of thing you could slip into a coat pocket. But inside, it held a universe. The book felt alive, buzzing, ready and waiting to be explored. So I dug...

In The Yankee and the British War Bride, two voices from opposite sides of the Atlantic come together to tell a deeply personal story of resilience, love, and the enduring spirit of the Greatest Generation. Through handwritten memoirs, Mary Irene Cooper-Dodd of Tipton, England, and Ernest Joseph...