Popular North American Memoir Books
Find memoir books written by authors from North America for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (54)
41.
The Day The World Came To Town by Jim DeFed EN
Country: North America / 
United States of America
United States of America
Description:
The True Story Behind the Events on 9/11 that Inspired Broadway’s Smash Hit Musical Come from Away, Featuring All New Material from the Author When 38 jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land at Gander International Airport in Canada by the closing of U.S. airspace on September 11, the population of this small town on Newfoundland Island swelled from 10,300 to nearly 17,000. The citizens of Gander met the stranded passengers with an overwhelming display of friendship and goodwill. As the passengers stepped from the airplanes, exhausted, hungry and distraught after being held o... continue
42.
The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie EN
Country: North America / 
Canada
Canada
Description:
In this award-winning memoir, two sisters reckon with the convalescence and death of their outlandishly tyrannical mother and with the care of their psychologically terrorized father, all relayed with dark humor and brutal honesty. When Vicki Laveau-Harvie and her sister learn their mother has been hospitalized for a broken hip, they return to their parents' home in Alberta, Canada, to put things back in order. Though their parents disowned them years before, the sisters now reassert themselves in the dysfunctional household: their father, undernourished and suffering from Stockholm syndrome i... continue
43.
The Ghosts That Haunt Me : Memories of a Homicide Detective by Steve Ryan EN
Country: North America / Canada
Canada
Description:
After years working as a homicide detective, there are some things you just can’t forget. For retired homicide detective Steve Ryan, hair-raising true crime stories are more than just entertainment — they were real life. Investigating homicide for more than a decade, he spent time searching for killers and saw his share of sad and unjust occurrences. Some things were so terrible they were impossible to forget, even after his retirement from the police force. In The Ghosts That Haunt Me, Steve memorializes his time as a homicide investigator. While hard to tell, these stories were harder to liv... continue
44.
The Hitchhiker Man by Matt Fox EN
Country: North America / Canada
Canada
Description:
In June of 2007 Matt Fox left his middle-class life in Toronto behind to go hitchhiking. One year later he arrived in Alaska with less than fifty dollars to his name. This is his story.
45.
The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria by Alia Malek EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
Alia Malek weaves a lyrical narrative around the history of her family's apartment building in the heart of Damascus, the many lives that crossed in the stairwell, and how the fates of her neighbors reflect the fate of her country. At the Arab Spring's hopeful start, Alia Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parent's decision to make their lives in America. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Alia portrays the Syrians-... continue
46.
The Measure of a Man : A Spiritual Autobiography by Sidney Poitier EN
Country: North America / 
Bahamas
Bahamas
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
47.
The Middle Passage : The Caribbean Revisited by Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul EN
Country: North America / 
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago
Description:
Originally published: London: A. Deutsch, 1962.
48.
The Night Parade : A Speculative Memoir by Jami Nakamura Lin EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
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
49.
The Other Side of Paradise : A Memoir by Staceyann Chin EN
Country: North America / 
Jamaica
Jamaica
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
