Memoir genre books (337)


271.

The Measure of a Man : A Spiritual Autobiography by Sidney Poitier EN

Rating: 3.5 (4 votes)
Description:
"I have no wish to play the pontificating fool, pretending that I've suddenly come up with the answers to all life's questions. Quite that contrary, I began this book as an exploration, an exercise in self-questing. In other words, I wanted to find out, as I looked back at a long and complicated life, with many twists and turns, how well I've done at measuring up to the values I myself have set." —Sidney Poitier In this luminous memoir, a true American icon looks back on his celebrated life and career. His body of work is arguably the most morally significant in cinematic history, and the powe... continue

272.

The Middle Passage : The Caribbean Revisited by Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul EN

Rating: 2 (1 vote)
Description:
Originally published: London: A. Deutsch, 1962.

273.

The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto 'Che' Guevara EN

Rating: 4 (7 votes)
Description:
Publisher Description

274.

The Nazis Knew My Name : A Remarkable Story of Survival and Courage in Auschwitz by Magda Hellinger, Maya Lee EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Slovakia flag Slovakia
Description:
The extraordinarily moving memoir by Australian Slovakian Holocaust survivor Magda Hellinger, who saved an untold number of lives at Auschwitz through everyday acts of courage, kindness and ingenuity. In March 1942, twenty-five-year-old kindergarten teacher Magda Hellinger and nearly a thousand other young Slovakian women were deported to Poland on the second transportation of Jewish people sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The women were told they'd be working at a shoe factory. At Auschwitz the SS soon discovered that by putting Jewish prisoners in charge of the day-to-day running of... continue

275.

The Night Parade : A Speculative Memoir by Jami Nakamura Lin EN

0 Ratings
Description:
"Jami Nakamura Lin has reinvented the genre of memoir, weaving an intricate braid of fable, memory, art, cultural legacy, and legend into a gorgeous tapestry of the stories that made her. Serpentine, polyphonic, and stunningly textured, The Night Parade positively pulses with life." -- Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, award-winning author of The Fact of a Body In the groundbreaking tradition of In the Dream House and The Collected Schizophrenias, a gorgeously illustrated speculative memoir that draws upon the Japanese myth of the Hyakki Yagyo--the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons--to shift the cultur... continue

276.

The Other Side of Paradise : A Memoir by Staceyann Chin EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Description:
Staceyann Chin has appeared on television and radio discussing issues of race and sexuality, but it is her extraordinary voice that launched her career as a performer, poet, and activist—here, she shares her unforgettable story of triumph against all odds in this brave and fiercely candid memoir. No one knew Staceyann's mother was pregnant until a dangerously small baby was born on the floor of her grandmother's house in Lottery, Jamaica on Christmas Day. Staceyann's mother did not want her and her father was not present—no one, except her grandmother, thought Staceyann would survive. It was h... continue

277.

The Other Side of Silence : A Memoir of Exile, Iran, and the Global Women's Movement by Mahnaz Afkhami EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Iran flag Iran
Description:
When Mahnaz Afkhami picked up the phone in a New York hotel room early one morning in November 1978, she learned she could never go home again: she had been declared an apostate and enemy of the Iranian Revolution and was now on its death list. Afkhami, Iran's first minister for women's affairs, began to rebuild her life in the United States, becoming an architect of the women's movement in the Global South. Along the way, she encountered familial, cultural, political, and organizational hurdles that threatened to derail her quest to empower women and change the very structure of human relatio... continue

278.

The Pianist of Yarmouk by Aeham Ahmad EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / Syria flag Syria
Description:
'Ahmad has created a moving and visceral account of conflict, hope and the power of music' Hannah Beckerman, Observer The incredible and inspirational true story of one young man's struggle to find peace during war, and the power of music to bring hope to a desperate nation. ____________ One morning in war-torn Damascus, a starving man drags a piano into a rubbled street. Everything he once knew has been destroyed by war. Amidst ruin and despair, he begins to play. He plays of love and hope, he plays for his family and his fellow Syrians. He plays even though he could be killed for doing so. A... continue

279.

The Prisoner : A Memoir by Hwang Sok-yong EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / South Korea flag South Korea
Description:
A sweeping account of imprisonment--in time, in language, and in a divided country--from Korea's most acclaimed novelist In 1993, writer and democracy activist Hwang Sok-yong was sentenced to five years in the Seoul Detention Center upon his return to South Korea from North Korea, the country he had fled with his family as a child at the start of the Korean War. Already a dissident writer well-known for his part in the democracy movement of the 1980s, Hwang's imprisonment forced him to consider the many prisons to which he was subject--of thought, of writing, of Cold War nations, of the heart.... continue

280.

The Return : Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between by Hisham Matar EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Country: Africa / Libya flag Libya
Description:
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE IN BIOGRAPHY WINNER OF THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY WINNER OF THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES' TOP 10 BOOKS OF 2016 The Return is at once a universal and an intensely personal tale. It is an exquisite meditation on how history and politics can bear down on an individual life. And yet Hisham Matar's memoir isn't just about the burden of the past, but the conso... continue