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. (143)


12.

Baptized in Tear Gas : From White Moderate to Abolitionist by Elle Dowd EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
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.

13.
Be Ready When the Luck Happens

Be Ready When the Luck Happens : A Memoir by Ina Garten EN

0 Ratings
Description:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In her long-awaited memoir, Ina Garten—aka the Barefoot Contessa, author of thirteen bestselling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and cultural icon—shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Time, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Town & Country Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the re... continue

14.

Becoming by Michelle Obama EN

Rating: 5 (4 votes)
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

15.

Before Night Falls by Reynaldo Arenas EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
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

16.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates EN

Rating: 4 (5 votes)
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 NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY • NA... continue

17.

Black Friend: Essays by Ziwe EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
From the writer crowned one of the smartest, funniest voices in modern America, this hotly anticipated debut collection of essays offers “a precious glimpse into how Ziwe’s uniquely fearless mind functions” (New York) Ziwe made a name for herself staring interviewees in the eye and asking, “How many Black friends do you have?” She’s an expert at making people squirm, coming right out and asking the tough questions about race and racism that our culture has made white people experts at dancing around. In Black Friend, she turns this incisive perspective on the culture at large, with her signatu... continue

18.

Bok : The Memoir of a Dysfunctional Dog by Paula H. W. Cohen EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Description:
In first "person" voice, canine storyteller Bok, a geriatric Chow-Lab mix, details her life and interactions with the four- and two-footed residents of her lair. With wit and insight, Bok recounts enduring the traumas of obedience school and visits to the vet, spending a night in "doggy jail" and her disruption of a church's outdoor event. She delivers a sensitive, sometimes humorous story of love and compassion. Written by Bok with the help of Middletown, Ohio, resident Paula Cohen, a retired elementary special education teacher.

19.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Description:
A New York Times Bestseller and National Book Award Winner Jacqueline Woodson, the acclaimed author of Red at the Bone, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for... continue

20.

Carnet de Voyage by Craig Thompson EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Description:
A visual diary and travel sketchbook chronicles two months of the artist's wanderings through Africa and Europe.