Cultural & Regional

Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a modern American classic....

Raised in the ghetto, abandoned as a child, addicted to drugs and women all his life but still able to produce four consecutive number one hip-hop albums in a row...this is the life and times of the darkest and most dangerously introspective hip-hop artist ever....

A heartfelt, and riveting biography of the short life of a talented young man who escapes the slums of Newark for Yale University only to succumb to the dangers of the streets....

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells - taken without her knowledge - became one of the most important tools in medicine....

Award-winning comedian Zarna Garg turns her astonishing life story into a hilarious memoir—from narrowly escaping an arranged marriage in India to carving her own path in America and launching a dazzling second act in midlife.

Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Taraji P. Henson reads her inspiring and funny book about family, friends, the hustle required to make it from DC to Hollywood....

The Color of Water touches listeners of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son....

Problem Child is the unbelievably true story of Terrell Carter, an American musician and actor who grew up in Buffalo, New York, in a dysfunctional family, each member crazier than the next....

"My name is 'J' and I'm awkward--and Black. Someone once told me those were the two worst things anyone could be."....

The Worlds I See is the moving memoir of a scientist coming of age as an immigrant in America who finds her calling at the forefront of the AI revolution.

With echoes of Educated and The Glass Castle, How to Say Babylon is a “lushly observed and keenly reflective chronicle” (The Washington Post), brilliantly recounting the author’s struggle to break free of her rigid religious upbringing and navigate the world on her own terms.

Dear Cary meets Confessions of a Video Vixen in this searing memoir of drugs, sex, and old school R&B from the wife of legendary soul icon Marvin Gaye....

From New York Times best-selling author Elizabeth Dowling Taylor comes this riveting chronicle of a critical yet overlooked chapter in American history: the inspiring rise and calculated fall of the Black elite, from Emancipation through Reconstruction to the Jim Crow Era....

An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships - and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom....

The phenomenal true story of the Black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America's greatest achievements in space....

Notes of a Native Son inaugurated Baldwin as one of the leading interpreters of the dramatic social changes erupting in the United States in the 20th century, and many of his observations have proven almost prophetic....

Jimmy O. Yang is a stand-up comedian, film and TV actor and fan favorite as the character Jian Yang from the popular HBO series Silicon Valley....

Poet and Latine therapist Kim Guerra tells a story of coming into her own power, and guides listeners through the process of finding their own.

The definitive, dramatic biography of the most important African American of the 19th century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era....

Writer John Howard Griffin decided to perform an experiment in order to learn from the inside out how one race could withstand the second class citizenship imposed on it by another race....

This inspirational New York Times best seller chronicles the lifelong friendship between a busy sales executive and a disadvantaged young boy and how both of their lives were changed by what began as one small gesture of kindness....

A startling and eye-opening look into America's first family, Never Caught is the powerful narrative of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington's runaway slave....

Tracing the birth of a revolutionary, Huey P. Newton's famous and oft-quoted autobiography is as much a manifesto as a portrait of the inner circle of America's Black Panther Party.

This memoir written by writer, orator, and former slave Frederick Douglass describes, in gripping detail, the circumstances of his upbringing, his brutal treatment at the hands of slave-owners, and his narrow escape from Maryland to freedom....

The definitive biography of a legendary athlete. The Shrug. The Shot. The Flu Game. When most people think of him, they think of his beautiful shots with the game on the line, his body totally in sync with the ball - hitting nothing but net....

Michelle Zauner vit à Philadelphie et jongle entre trois jobs alimentaires et un groupe de rock dont la carrière ne décolle pas quand elle apprend que sa mère est malade. Elle rentre alors dans l'Oregon pour l'accompagner dans son combat contre le cancer, et pour essayer de rattraper le temps perdu. Car Michelle a été une adolescente rebelle, ne se sentant jamais à la bonne place, et fuyant cette figure maternelle qui incarne l'exigence mais aussi la culture coréenne, si proche et si lointaine.

Charles M. Blow’s mother was a fiercely driven woman with five sons, brass knuckles in her glove box, and a job plucking poultry at a factory near their segregated Louisiana town, where slavery's legacy felt close. When her philandering husband finally pushed her over the edge, she fired a pistol at his fleeing back, missing every shot, thanks to “love that blurred her vision and bent the barrel.” Charles was the baby of the family, fiercely attached to his “do-right” mother. Until one day that divided his life into Before and After—the day an older cousin took advantage of the young boy.

Desde que mi madre murió, lloro en H Mart. H Mart es una cadena de supermercados especializada en comida asiática. La H es por han ah reum, una frase en coreano que podría traducirse como ‘un brazo lleno de comestibles’. Mi madre expresaba su amor por medio de la comida. Por muy crítica o cruel que pudiera parecer no dejaba de presionarme para que colmara sus utópicas expectativas, yo siempre sentía que su afecto irradiaba de los platos que me preparaba exactamente como a mí me gustaban.

This beautifully honest account of survival and restoration carries the potency to revitalize each of us. This book holds inspiration for worldwide compassionate action and celebrates what Loving Bravely truly means.

Aikau's legendary life and legacy, a pipeline into the exhilarating world of surfing, and an important chronicle of the Hawaiian Renaissance and the emergence of modern Hawaii. In the 1970s, a decade before bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing the phrase Eddie Would Go began popping up all over the Hawaiian islands and throughout the surfing world, Eddie Aikau was proving what it meant to be a "waterman."

When a master craftsman dies three days before finishing his last cabinet, he leaves behind more than an empty workshop. In this searing meditation on authenticity in modern America, a son inherits his father's tools, his unfinished work, and the weight of what's real in an increasingly artificial world. From a union hall's demolition to the circus of presidential campaigns, from German drawer pulls that never found their home to AI programs generating "authentic" experiences, THE UNFINISHED CABINET weaves a masterful narrative about what we lose when we polish away our rough edges. At its ...

It was 1947 in Celina, Ohio, when Dr. Ralph Beare and his wife, Lou, childless and in their early forties, adopted a four-and-a-half-month-old orphan. “Janice” knew she was adopted, because her mommy read her a book about how the Beare's chose her out of a Home. "We chose you, but we love you as if you were our own." However, her mother never seemed to forget she was adopted, especially on Mother’s Day, when she couldn’t look at Janice without crying.

A girl name Sheila that grew up in Ivy City, Northeast Washington, DC, engaged in illegal drug activities and the street life. Throughout the years, Sheila fell in love and married her supplier and relocated to a rural area to raise their son, RJ.

Dogs of all shapes and sizes visit Ruth Shaw's three wee bookshops in Manapōuri in the far south of Aotearoa New Zealand. Local dogs, holiday house dogs, travelling dogs – many have great stories, be they funny, sad, strange, bemusing, quirky or sweet. Woven throughout are tales of the very special Hunza, the dog who worked with troubled teens alongside Shaw when she was a youth worker.

This story is about a man who had his feelings bottled up for way too long. Not able to tell his family why he did the things he did and not able to recoup the lost years away from the people who he loved. In the Mexican-American community, you never show your sadness, your pain, or weakness. As an act of pride, you always keep all your emotions to yourself like as if nothing is wrong. Showing everyone that you're not suffering and everything is fine is strength.

"Ich bin in Tokio mittlerweile so sehr vereinsamt, dass die Waschmaschine meine einzige verlässliche Konversationspartnerin ist. Immerhin treffe ich morgen diese Dolmetscherin. Nicht, dass das ein Date wäre ..." Drei Jahre später sind Andreas und Junko verheiratet, vier Jahre später ist Nachwuchs im Anmarsch und fünf Jahre später schreiben sie auf, wie das alles passieren konnte. Eine Liebesgeschichte zwischen Tokio, München und Bremen-Vegesack, im Spannungsfeld von Dirndl und Kimono, von Schweinshaxn und Reisbällchen, deutscher Korrektheit und japanischer Überkorrektheit.

Life has not always been kind to Wendy Wilson. Childhood traumas, an abusive marriage, and the complexities of being a woman in a high-stakes corporate atmosphere all proved to be adversities that could make or break her very spirit. And yet, at every challenge, she persevered by learning what it truly takes to forge a way forward and ultimately reach success in both her personal and professional lives. She went on to become a CFO and leader of global procurement, and found true happiness in a healthy and loving second marriage.

பொன்னியின் புதல்வர் கல்கி கிருஷ்ணமூர்த்தியின் வாழ்வையும் பணிகளையும் சுவையாகவும் எளிமையாகவும் அறிமுகப்படுத்தும் முக்கியமான நூல். ஓர் ஆளுமை குறித்த சித்திரமாக மட்டுமின்றி அவர் இயங்கிய காலத்தைப் படம்பிடித்துக் காட்டும் ஓர் ஆவணமாகவும் இந்நூல் திகழ்வது அதன் சிறப்பு.

I grew up in Raleigh county, in a little town called Beaver, in the state of West Virginia. I lived on a 100-acre farm in a family of ordinary means. When I look back to my childhood I realize how fortunate I was to have clean air, clean water, vegetables from a thoroughly organic garden, fresh cow's milk, butter, and buttermilk—fresh every day. We gave the hogs what was left from each day so we raised great pork. Recycling was a part of life, not something you had to work into your habit.

The New York Hustle is a memoir authored by Rosario Cipolla, who was born in the 1950s in America – during the great music boom. His motto has always been, ‘Dream big, and you shall have it all!’ - something that has led him to the highest pinnacle of success, from the lowest of the low point in life. It is all about the hustle, which he did, despite having a tough childhood. Over and over again, he ‘got back up’ and joined the fray, showing an impressive amount of resilience. Hear his story; a man who made his life about good music and managing shows while living the best life had to offer.

Andrea Kott thought of herself as “the welfare Jew.” The daughter of a single mother whose depression and drinking pitched them into poverty, her stormy life looked nothing like that of the Jewish kids she knew: It defied every stereotype she associated with being Jewish—having an intact family and material wealth, and becoming a bat mitzvah. Alienated and ashamed, Kott felt ineligible to be Jewish, yet hungered for connection to the tradition and to God. It took a near-fatal accident, her mother’s death, marriage and motherhood, and losing a beloved brother for her to find her Jewish home.

Don’t Take Your Love to Town is a story of courage in the face of poverty and tragedy. Ruby recounts losing her mother when she was six, growing up in a mission in northern New South Wales and leaving home when she was 15. She lived in tin huts and tents in the bush and picked up work on the land while raising nine children virtually single-handedly. Later she struggled to make ends meet in the Koori areas of Sydney.

Ani Gjika was born in Albania and came of age just after the fall of Communism, a time when everyone had a secret to keep and young women were afraid to walk down the street alone. When her family immigrates to America, Gjika finds herself far from the grandmother who helped raise her, grappling with a new language, and isolated from aging parents who are trying in their own ways to survive. When she meets a young man whose mind leans toward writing, as hers does, Ani falls in love-at least, she thinks it's love.

Moidl ist eine der Töchter des Hohenhauserbauern in Hintertux im Zillertal. Die enge Bindung an ihre Familie und ihren Hof ist ihr Lebenselixier und wird nur noch stärker, als verschiedene Schicksalsschläge die Hohenhauser treffen. Sie bleibt ledig und arbeitet tagtäglich von früh bis spät auf dem Hof. Auf einem Markt begegnet sie Hermann, der mit nur zwölf Jahren nach einer Arbeitsstelle sucht, um zu überleben; der Waisenknabe wird gehandelt wie ein Stück Vieh.

Este libro es mucho más que una simple colección de datos; es una puerta a las maravillas ocultas del conocimiento. A través de sus páginas, descubrirás hechos tan asombrosos como inesperados, que te harán repensar lo que crees saber sobre el mundo. Cada curiosidad está diseñada para despertar tu imaginación y ofrecerte una nueva perspectiva sobre el mundo que nos rodea. Si alguna vez te has preguntado por qué ciertos patrones se repiten en la naturaleza o cómo ciertos eventos históricos cambiaron el curso de la humanidad, aquí encontrarás respuestas que te sorprenderán.