Memoir genre books (768)


651.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals : Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by J. Maarten Troost EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Netherlands flag Netherlands
Description:
At the age of twenty-six, Maarten Troost—who had been pushing the snooze button on the alarm clock of life by racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs—decided to pack up his flip-flops and move to Tarawa, a remote South Pacific island in the Republic of Kiribati. He was restless and lacked direction, and the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better. The Sex Lives of Cannibals tells the hilarious story of what happens when Troost discovers that Tarawa is not the island paradise he... continue

652.

The Shell : Memoirs of a Hidden Observer by Moustafa Khalifa EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Country: Asia / Syria flag Syria
Description:
The work of a moder-day Sozhenitsyn that exposes acts of violence and brutality committed by the Syrian regime. This compelling first novel is the astonishing story of a Syrian political prisoner of conscience—an atheist mistaken for a radical Islamist—who was locked up for 13 years without trial in one of the most notorious prisons in the Middle East. The novel takes the form of a diary which Musa keeps in his head and then writes down upon his release. In Tadmur prison, the mood is naturally bleak and yet often very beautifully captured. The narrator, a young graduate, is defiant and stoical... continue

653.

The Silent Steppe : The Story of a Kazakh Nomad Under Stalin by Mukhamet Shai︠a︡khmetov EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / Kazakhstan flag Kazakhstan
Description:
Born into a family of nomadic Kazakh herdsmen in 1922, Mukhamet Shayakhmetov's father was imprisoned as an 'enemy of the people' as Soviet rule spread across his people's vast steppe-land in central Asia. In this book, Shayakhmetov recalls the scale of suffering in his homeland under Stalin's rule.

654.
The Song Poet

The Song Poet : A Memoir of My Father by Kao Kalia Yang EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / Thailand flag Thailand
Description:
In the Hmong tradition, the song poet recounts the story of his people, their history and tragedies, joys and losses; extemporizing or drawing on folk tales, he keeps the past alive, invokes the spirits and the homeland, and records courtships, births, weddings, and wishes. Kao Kalia Yang retells the life of her father Bee Yang, the song poet, a Hmong refugee in Minnesota, driven from the mountains of Laos by America's Secret War. Bee lost his father as a young boy and keenly felt his orphanhood. He would wander from one neighbor to the next, collecting the things they said to each other, whis... continue

655.

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Description:
Bedridden and suffering from a neurological disorder, the author recounts the profound effect on her life caused by a gift of a snail in a potted plant and shares the lessons learned from her new companion about her the meaning of her life and the life of the small creature.

656.

The Sound of Gravel : A Memoir by Ruth Wariner EN

0 Ratings
Description:
The Sound of Gravel is the remarkable true story of one girl's coming-of-age in a polygamist Mormon Doomsday cult.

657.

The Story Game by Shze-Hui Tjoa EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / Singapore flag Singapore
Description:
A transcendent, profoundly imaginative memoir that explores the complexities of sisterhood, the cost of expectation, and the power of storytelling to shape--and ultimately repair--a life.

658.

The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria A. Trapp EN

Rating: 3 (2 votes)
Country: Europe / Austria flag Austria
Description:
With nearly 1,500 Broadway performances, six Tony Awards, more than three million albums sold, and five Academy Awards, The Sound of Music, based on the lives of Maria, the baron, and their singing children, is as familiar to most of us as our own family history. But much about the real-life woman and her family was left untold. Here, Baroness Maria Augusta Trapp tells in her own beautiful, simple words the extraordinary story of her romance with the baron, their escape from Nazi-occupied Austria, and their life in America. Now with photographs from the original edition.

659.

The Tale of a Wall : Reflections on the Meaning of Hope and Freedom by Nasser Abu Srour EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Palestine flag Palestine
Description:
Longlisted for the National Book Award A passionate prison memoir from a Palestinian man incarcerated for over 30 years in an Israeli prison—equal parts metaphysical love story and cry for justice “[A] kind of prose poem…that recalls the memoirs of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish”—New York Times “Fierce and lyrical . . . a devastating testament to the power of hope, and of its loss.”—Claire Messud One of more than 5,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons before October 7, 2023, Nasser Abu Srour was sentenced to life without parole in 1993 after a forced confession. His extraordinary wri... continue

660.

The Tale of Two Horses : A 10,000 Mile Journey as Told by the Horses by Aime Tschiffely EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Switzerland flag Switzerland
Description:
In the world-famous travel book, "Tschiffely's Ride," the Swiss author recounted how he and his two Criollo horses, Mancha and Gato, set off from Argentina in 1924, bound for faraway Washington DC. Their legendary 10,000 mile ride took them through the mountains and jungles of South and Central America, where they encountered a host of adventures, including rope bridges, vampire bats, sand storms, treacherous mountains, quicksand and hostile natives! Now here is the same story but delivered with a new twist. For the first time in history, the story is narrated by the two equine heroes, Mancha ... continue