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. (83)
1.
84, Charing Cross Road by Helen Hanff EN
Country: North America / 
United States of America
United States of America
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
2.
A Book of Days by Patti Smith EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
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
3.
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid EN
Country: North America / 
Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda
Description:
Lyrical, sardonic, and forthright by turns, this memoir is a brilliant look at colonialism and its effects in Antigua, by the author of "Annie John."
4.
America the Beautiful? : One Woman in a Borrowed Prius on the Road Most Traveled by Blythe Roberson EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
The author of How to Date Men When You Hate Men examines Americans' obsession with freedom, travel, and the open road in this funny, entertaining travelogue that blends the humorous observations of Bill Bryson with the piercing cultural commentary of Jia Tolentino. For writer and comedian Blythe Roberson, there are only so many Mary Oliver poems you can read about being free, and only so many times you can listen to Joni Mitchell's travel album Hejira, before you too, are itching to take off. Canonical American travel writers have long celebrated the road trip as the epitome of freedom. But wh... continue
5.
Among Flowers : A Walk in the Himalaya by Jamaica Kincaid EN
Country: North America / Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda
Description:
In this delightful hybrid of a book—part memoir and part travel journal—the bestselling author takes us deep into the mountains of Nepal with a trio of botanist friends in search of native Himalayan plants that will grow in her Vermont garden. Alighting from a plane in the dramatic Annapurna Valley, the ominous signs of Nepal's Maoist guerrillas are all around—an alarming presence that accompanies the travelers throughout their trek. Undaunted, the group sets off into the mountains with Sherpas and bearers, entering an exotic world of spectacular landscapes, vertiginous slopes, isolated villag... continue
6.
Avant la nuit : autobiographie by Reinaldo Arenas FR
Country: North America / 
Cuba
Cuba
Description:
De l'enfant nu qui mange de la terre dans une vieille ferme de Holguin à l'exilé cubain qui, à quarante-sept ans, malade, se donne la mort à New York, l'existence de Reinaldo Arenas est guidée par l'anticonformisme viscéral de qui a osé prendre tous les risques. Vibrant témoignage sur les exactions de la dictature castriste, Avant la nuit est une œuvre littéraire à part entière composée avec fureur et poésie. Elle est traversée de ses principaux thèmes de prédilection : une recherche éperdue de beauté, encore la lune, toujours la mer, et une sexualité débridée comme manifestation absolue de li... continue
7.
Baptized in Tear Gas : From White Moderate to Abolitionist by Elle Dowd EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
Discover the great cost and greater reward of moving from white moderate ally to antiracist abolitionist, In Baptized in Tear Gas, minister and activist Elle Dowd invites readers to experience her transformation from what Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as "the white moderate" into an Assata Shakur-reading, courthouse-occupying abolitionist. Like in baptism, this alteration requires parts of us to die-our tone policing, white niceness, respectability politics-so that we may be reborn. Through the Uprising in Ferguson, God made File into something new. Now it's our turn. Book jacket.
8.
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
Description:
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America-the first African-American to serve in that role-she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along th... continue
9.
Before Night Falls by Reynaldo Arenas EN
Country: North America / Cuba
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
10.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates EN
Country: North America / United States of America
United States of America
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