Popular North American Biography Books

Find biography books written by authors from North America for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (52)

1.

635 Tage im Eis: Die Shackleton-Expedition by Alfred Lansing DE

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
Set in Antarctica Das Buch erzählt die Geschichte der gescheiterten Shackleton-Expedition von 1914, die als erste die Antarktis durchqueren sollte. Am Ende machten ihnen für die Jahreszeit unübliche Wetterbedingungen immer wieder einen Strich durch die Rechnung. Ihr Schiff wurde vom Packeis eingeschlossen und sie mussten auf dem Eis überwintern, und letzten Endes sogar das Schiff aufgeben und auf andere Weise versuchen, zurück in die Zivilisation und Hilfe zu finden. Das Buch erzählt unter Einbindung zahlreicher Tagebucheinträge vom harten Alltag der M&au... continue

2.

84, Charing Cross Road by Helen Hanff EN

Rating: 4 (5 votes)
Description:
"Those who have read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a novel comprised of only letters between the characters, will see how much that best-seller owes 84, Charing Cross Road." -- Medium.com A heartwarming love story about people who love books for readers who love books This funny, poignant, classic love story unfolds through a series of letters between Helene Hanff, a freelance writer living in New York City, and a used-book dealer in London at 84, Charing Cross Road. Through the years, though never meeting and separated both geographically and culturally, they share a char... continue

3.

A Book of Days by Patti Smith EN

Rating: 2 (1 vote)
Description:
A deeply moving and brilliantly idiosyncratic visual book of days by the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids and M Train, featuring more than 365 images and reflections that chart Smith’s singular aesthetic—inspired by her wildly popular Instagram. In 2018, without any plan or agenda for what might happen next, Patti Smith posted her first Instagram photo: her hand with the simple message “Hello Everybody!” Known for shooting with her beloved Land Camera 250, Smith started posting images from her phone including portraits of her kids, her radiator, her boots, and her Abyssinian cat... continue

4.

A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt EN

0 Ratings
Description:
WINNER OF THE HUBERT EVANS NON-FICTION PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE JIM DEVA PRIZE FOR WRITING THAT PROVOKES FINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION FINALIST FOR THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FOR GAY MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY NATIONAL BESTSELLER A slim but electrifying debut memoir about the preciousness and precariousness of queer Indigenous life. Opening with a tender letter to his kokum and memories of his early life on the Driftpile First Nation, Billy-Ray Belcourt delivers a searing account of Indigenous life that’s part love letter, part rallying cry. With the lyricism and emotio... continue

5.

Autobiografía de Un Esclavo by Juan Francisco Manzano EN

0 Ratings
Country: North America / Cuba flag Cuba
Description:
The proceedings of ISCV'95, the successor to previous Workshops on Computer Vision, comprise 104 refereed papers on topics in optical flow, matching/stereo, motion, object recognition, low-level vision, CAD-based vision, stereo, deformable models, systems and applications, tracking, segmentation and grouping, active vision, aerial image analysis, and integration/texture. No index. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

6.

Before Night Falls by Reynaldo Arenas EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Country: North America / Cuba flag Cuba
Description:
Reinaldo Arenas was born to a poverty-stricken family in rural Cuba. By the time of his death in New York four decades later, he had become one of Cuba's most important poets, an outspoken critic of Castro's regime and one of the leading gay voices of the twentieth century. In Before Night Falls, Arenas tells of his odyssey from young rebel fighting for the Revolution, through his suppression as a writer, his disillusionment with Castro, his imprisonment and torture, to his eventual exile from Cuba to New York, where in 1987 he was diagnosed with AIDS. He committed suicide in 1990, ending a li... continue


8.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Description:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE ... continue

9.

Brave the Wild River : The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon by Melissa L. Sevigny EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
The riveting tale of two pioneering botanists and their historic boat trip down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon. In the summer of 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious and entrepreneurial expedition leader, a zoologist, and two amateur boatmen. With its churning waters and treacherous boulders, the Colorado was famed as the most dangerous river in the world. Journalists and veteran river runners boldly proclaimed that the motley crew would never make it out alive. But for Clover and Jotter, the expedition he... continue

10.

Caribbean Chemistry: Tales from St. Kitts by Christopher Vanier EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Description:
Charming and vividly evocative... I feel as if I have got to know these islands, and almost to have been there.' Helena Drysdale, author of Strangerland Ah, to be an embryo again. Christopher Vanier's story begins where we all do, conception. Set in 1940s and 1950s on the Caribbean island of St Kitts and beset by a troubled colonial legacy, both Christopher and his island yearn for independence. Vanier recalls the mischief of an island childhood: giving his baby brother to an ungrateful monkey, sneaking out to the cinema after school hours, hair-raising jaunts on a volcano, disastrous experime... continue