Memoir genre books (498)


131.

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung EN

Rating: 4 (11 votes)
Country: Asia / Cambodia flag Cambodia
Description:
One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed. Harrowing yet hopeful, Loung's powerful story is an unforgettable account of a family shaken and shattered, yet mir... continue

132.

Flight to Arras by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry EN

0 Ratings
Country: Europe / France flag France
Description:
The World War II aviator and author of The Little Prince tells his true story of flying a reconnaissance plane during the Battle of France in 1940. When the Germans first invaded France in May of 1940, the French Air Force had a mere fifty reconnaissance crews, twenty-three of which served in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Group II/33. After only a few days, seventeen of the crews in Saint-Exupéry’s unit had already perished. Flight to Arras is the harrowing story of a single mission over the French town of Arras, an endeavor Saint-Exupéry realized the futility of even as he witnessed it unfolding... continue

133.

For a House Made of Stone : Gina's Story by Gina French, Andrew Crofts EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Philippines flag Philippines
Description:
All Gina wanted was to help support her family and protect them from the elements with a house made of stone. This is the true story of a girl from the Philippines who wanted to repay her family for the trouble she'd caused them and ended up on trial for murder in the UK in 2001.

134.

For Joshua: One Ojibway Father Teaches His Son by Richard Wagamese EN

0 Ratings
Description:
“An expansive work about healing, resilience, humanity, respect, inheritance, Indigenous teachings, and most of all, love” from the author of Indian Horse (Literary Hub). “We may not relight the fires that used to burn in our villages, but we can carry the embers from those fires in our hearts and learn to light new fires in a new world.” Ojibwe tradition calls for fathers to walk their children through the world, sharing the ancient understanding “that we are all, animate and inanimate alike, living on the one pure breath with which the Creator gave life to the Universe.” In this intimate ser... continue

135.

Free : A Child and a Country at the End of History by Lea Ypi EN

Rating: 4 (15 votes)
Country: Europe / Albania flag Albania
Description:
For precocious 11-year-old Lea Ypi, Albania’s Soviet-style socialism held the promise of a preordained future, a guarantee of security among enthusiastic comrades. That is, until she found herself clinging to a stone statue of Joseph Stalin, newly beheaded by student protests. Communism had failed to deliver the promised utopia. One’s “biography”—class status and other associations long in the past—put strict boundaries around one’s individual future. When Lea’s parents spoke of relatives going to “university” or “graduating,” they were speaking of grave secrets Lea struggled to unveil. And wh... continue

136.

Freshman Year (A Graphic Novel) by Sarah Mai EN

0 Ratings
Description:
A stylish graphic novel about the unique angst, humor, and self-doubt that comes with going away to college—perfect for fans of Heartstopper. Everyone gets a fresh start. Who do you want to be? Sarah is leaving suburban Wisconsin for college n Minnesota. She has high hopes for the future: impress her professors, meet interesting new people, stay close to her best friends and boyfriend back home, flourish as an artist, and shed her lingering high school anxieties. What seems manageable at first quickly unravels into a tailspin and she is overwhelmed by the freedom, the isolation, and all the po... continue

137.

Friend of my Youth by Amit Chaudhuri EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / India flag India
Description:
A novelist named Amit Chaudhuri visits his childhood home of Bombay. The city, reeling from the memory of the 2008 terrorist attacks, weighs heavily on Amit's mind, as does the unexpected absence of his childhood friend Ramu, a drifting, opaque figure who is Amit's last remaining connection to the city he once called home.

138.

From Here by Luma Mufleh EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Jordan flag Jordan
Description:
In her coming-of-age memoir, refugee advocate Luma Mufleh writes of her tumultuous journey to reconcile her identity as a gay Muslim woman and a proud Arab-turned-American refugee. With no word for “gay” in Arabic, Luma may not have known what to call the feelings she had growing up in Jordan during the 1980s, but she knew well enough to keep them secret. It was clear that not only would her family have trouble accepting her, but trapped in a conservative religious society, she could’ve also been killed if anyone discovered her sexuality. Luma spent her teenage years increasingly desperate to ... continue

139.

From Here to Eternity : Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
A New York Times and Los Angeles Times Bestseller “Doughty chronicles [death] practices with tenderheartedness, a technician’s fascination, and an unsentimental respect for grief.” —Jill Lepore, The New Yorker Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty embarks on a global expedition to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Zoroastrian sky burials to wish-granting Bolivian skulls, she investigates the world’s funerary customs and expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with dignity. Her account questions the rituals of the American fune... continue

140.

From the Four Winds by Hayim Sabato EN

0 Ratings
Country: Africa / Egypt flag Egypt
Description:
Haim Sabato draws us into his childhood with this evocative rendering of his experiences as a young boy whose family immigrates to Israel in the 1950's, settling in a Ma'abara - a transit camp. He notices his fellow immigrants' concealment of their pasts. He accepts this secrecy, sensing that everything will reveal itself eventually. And this revelation does come, in the form of Farkash, a mysterious, dynamic man who takes Haim under his wing and gradually divulges to him his sorrowful, uplifting story, one that profoundly impacts Haim for the rest of his life...