Cultural Memoir

No Longer Human (1948, Ningen Shikkaku / A Shameful Life / Confessions of a Faulty Man) was an attack on the traditions of Japan, capturing the postwar crisis of Japanese cultural identity. Framed by an epilogue and prologue, the story is told in the form three notebooks left by Ōba Yōzō, whose calm exterior hides his tormented soul. Osamu Dazai was a Japanese author who is considered one of the foremost fiction writers of 20th century Japan. A number of his most popular works, such as Shayō (The Setting Sun) and Ningen Shikkaku (No Longer Human), are considered modern-day classics in Japan.

Few politicians have risen to national prominence as quickly as Marco Rubio. Here is the full story of his unlikely journey. Florida Senator Marco Rubio electrified the 2012 Republican National Con­vention by telling the story of his parents, who were struggling immigrants from Cuba. They embraced their new country and taught their children to appreciate its unique opportunities. Every sacrifice they made over the years, as they worked hard at blue-collar jobs in Miami and Las Vegas, was for their children. Young Marco grew up dreaming about football, not politics.

Hancock discusses his musical influences, colorful behind-the-scenes stories, his long and happy marriage, and how Buddhism inspires him creatively and personally. Honest, enlightening, and as electrifyingly vital as the man who wrote it, Herbie Hancock promises to be an invaluable contribution to jazz literature and a must-read for fans and music lovers.

Meet Denver, raised under plantation-style slavery in Louisiana until he escaped the “Man” in the 1960’s by hopping a train. Untrusting, uneducated, and violent, he spends 18 years on the streets of Dallas and Fort Worth. Meet Ron Hall, a self-made millionaire in the world of high-priced deals—an international arts dealer who moves between upscale New York galleries and celebrities. It seems unlikely that these two men would meet under normal circumstances, but when Deborah Hall, Ron's wife, meets Denver, she sees him through God's eyes of compassion.

A true story that few ever believed would come to light, Growing Up bin Laden uncovers startling revelations and hidden secrets carefully guarded by the most wanted terrorist of our lifetime, Osama bin Laden.

Barack Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention instantly catapulted the little-known state senator from Illinois into the national spotlight. Three months later Obama would win election to the US Senate; four years later he would make history as America's first black president. Now, at the end of his second presidential term, David J. Garrow delivers the most compelling and comprehensive biography ever written of Obama in the years preceding his presidency.

Stacyann Chin has appeared on television and radio, including The Oprah Winfrey Show , CNN, and PBS, 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 Jamaica, on Christmas Day.

In 1982, Sally Morgan travelled back to her grandmother's birthplace. What started as a tentative search for information about her family, turned into an overwhelming emotional and spiritual pilgrimage. My Place is a moving account of a search for truth into which a whole family is gradually drawn, finally freeing the tongues of the author's mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories.

When Sheila Kohler was 37, she received the heart-stopping news that her sister Maxine, only two years older, was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned by the news, she immediately flew back to the country where she was born, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with his history of violence and the lingering effects of their most unusual childhood - one marked by death and the misguided love of their mother.

A brutally honest memoir of talent, addiction, and recovery from one of the greatest baseball pitchers of all time. As a shy 19-year-old, Dwight Gooden swept into New York, lifting a team of crazy characters to World Series greatness and giving a beleaguered city a reason to believe. Then he threw it all away. Now, with fresh and sober eyes, the Mets’ beloved Dr. K shares the intimate details of his life and career, revealing all the extraordinary highs and lows: The hidden traumas in his close-knit Tampa family. The thrill and pressure of being a young baseball phenom in New York.

The Stone Thrower is a moving story about race and destiny written by a daughter looking for answers about her own Black history. Using insightful interviews, archival records, and her personal reflections, Richardson’s journey to learn about her father’s past leads her to her own important discoveries about herself and what it really means to be Black in Canada.

Writer John Howard Griffin (1920-1980) 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. Through medication, he dyed his skin dark and left his family and home in Texas to find out.

Antonio Michael Downing's memoir of creativity and transformation is a startling mash-up of memories and mythology, told in gripping, lyrical prose. Raised by his indomitable grandmother in a hot, verdant Trinidad, Downing at age 11 is uprooted to Canada when she dies. But not urban Toronto: He and his older brother are sent to live with his stern, evangelical Aunt Joan in Wabigoon, a mostly Indigenous community in Northern Ontario where they are the only Black children in the town.

The first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor has become an instant American icon. Now, with a candor and intimacy never undertaken by a sitting Justice, she recounts her life from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench, a journey that offers an inspiring testament to her own extraordinary determination and the power of believing in oneself.

Spanning an extraordinary range of subjects and locations, these ten gripping essays show why Jon Krakauer is considered a standard-bearer of modern journalism.

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. Written in 1845, this narrative is one of the most famous works of American literature and provided fuel for the abolitionist movement that began in the early 19th century.

डॉ. बाबासाहेब आंबेडकर हे नाव आज सर्वांत आदरणीय भारतीयांच्या नामावलीत घेतलं जातं आणि देशभरातील त्यांच्या पुतळ्यांची संख्या महात्मा गांधींच्या पुतळ्यांखालोखाल असेल. किंबहुना, आधुनिक काळातील 'सर्वांत थोर भारतीय' ठरवण्यासाठी अलीकडे एक मतचाचणी घेण्यात आली, त्यात दोन कोटींहून अधिक मतं नोंदवली गेली आणि त्यात आंबेडकरांना गांधींपेक्षा जास्त मतं मिळाली होती.

On her 17th birthday in 1973, Janice Hunter met Marvin Gaye - the soulful prince of Motown with the seductive liquid voice whose chart-topping, socially conscious album What's Going On made him a superstar two years earlier. Despite a 16-year-age difference and Marvin's marriage to the sister of Berry Gordy, Motown's founder, the star-struck teenager and the emotionally volatile singer began a scorching relationship.

Warm, feisty, and intelligent, the Delany sisters speak their mind in a book that is at once a vital historical record and a moving portrait of two remarkable women who continued to love, laugh, and embrace life after over a hundred years of living side by side. Their sharp memories show us the post-Reconstruction South and Booker T. Washington, Harlem’s Golden Age and Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Paul Robeson. Bessie breaks barriers to become a dentist; Sadie quietly integrates the New York City system as a high school teacher.

Sharks have been on this planet for over 400 million years, so there is a lot they can teach us about survival and adaptability. For example: how do sharks, which unlike other fish are denser than water, stay afloat? They keep moving. When Jasmin Graham, an award-winning young shark scientist, started to feel that the traditional path to becoming a marine biologist was pulling her under, she remembered this important lesson: keep moving forward.