Cultural Memoir

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.

In his late 30s, Edward Parnell found himself trapped in the recurring nightmare of a family tragedy. For comfort, he turned to his bookshelves, back to the ghost stories that obsessed him as a boy, and to the writers through the ages who have attempted to confront what comes after death. In Ghostland, Parnell goes in search of the ‘sequestered places’ of the British Isles, our lonely moors, our moss-covered cemeteries, our stark shores and our folkloric woodlands.

The final volume of Taylor Branch's monumental, much honored, and definitive history of the Civil Rights Movement (America in the King Years), At Canaan's Edge covers the final years of King's struggle to hold his non-violent movement together in the face of factionalism within the Movement, hostility and harassment of the Johnson Administration, the country torn apart by Vietnam, and his own attempt (and failure) to take the Freedom Movement north.

A Place to Stand is Jimmy Santiago Baca's memoir of childhood on the small farms of New Mexico, his adolescence spent in orphanages and detention centers, his years as a drug dealer in San Diego and Arizona, and his extraordinary personal transformation under the harrowing conditions behind bars. Life in prison was often brutal, and Baca describes the extreme measures he had to take to survive, which endowed him with an indomitable will to resist the dehumanization of prison life. The act of writing offered a powerful means of transcending his surroundings.

At the height of the Civil Rights movement, Lydia Abarca was a Black prima ballerina with a major international dance company—the Dance Theatre of Harlem, a troupe of women and men who became each other’s chosen family. She performed in some of ballet’s most iconic works with other trailblazing ballerinas, including the young women who became her closest friends—founding Dance Theatre of Harlem members Gayle McKinney-Griffith and Sheila Rohan, as well as first-generation dancers Karlya Shelton and Marcia Sells. The Swans of Harlem is a riveting account of these five accomplished women.

The daughter of slaves, Madam C.J. Walker was orphaned at seven, married at 14, and widowed at 20. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then - with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for Black women - everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: Building a storied beauty empire from the ground up that would be run by four generations of Walker women until its sale in 1985.

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I was born a BASTARD of southwest Philadelphia and raised in a rundown row house in one of America's most notorious GHETTOS, Camden, New Jersey. My upbringing was marked by a resilient mother, an inconsistent father, and the harsh realities of a city that claimed several of my immediate family member's lives, the youngest among them being a victim of police violence. I found myself embodying the archetype of an American stereotype.

A blend of memoir and cultural exploration, When Echoes Speak distills the defining moments of an unusual life. In August of 1944, when Dag was five, she and her family fled Latvia to escape Soviet occupation. After five harsh years in a displaced persons camp in Germany, the family settled in Cleveland, Ohio. Growing up, Dag was caught in a painful pull between her Latvian roots and her new life in America.

A revised edition of the candid, sometimes shocking, biography of Rupert Brooke revealing the very different reality behind the golden-boy façade of an English literary icon. Paragon of youthful beauty, romantic symbol of a lost England, and precociously gifted poet, Rupert Chawner Brooke died in a hospital ship off the Aegean island of Skyros in April 1915, aged just 27. All England mourned his passing. But behind the glow of myth lies a darker reality.

At once a deeply personal memoir and an examination of a violent and stratified country, The House at Sugar Beach tells of tragedy, forgiveness, and transcendence with unflinching honesty and a survivor's gentle humor. And at its heart, it is a story of Helene Cooper's long voyage home.

Raised in a traditional Iranian family, eighteen-year-old Parvin Kolahdooz felt increasingly restricted after the 1979 Islamic revolution. She was trapped in a society where just a few strands of her hair showing from under her hijab could land her in jail, where her fatherlessness left her increasingly vulnerable to being given away in marriage, and where venturing alone put her at risk of sexual harassment or death. Left with no other choice, Parvin prepared to flee.

Calming the Chaos is a compelling and insightful guide that delves into the art and science of crisis negotiation. Drawing upon real-life experiences, this book takes readers on a gripping journey into the high-stakes world of crisis negotiation, where the power of effective communication can mean the difference between life and death.

Yvette Manessis Corporon grew up listening to her grandmother's stories about how the people of the small Greek island Erikousa hid a Jewish family - a tailor named Savvas and his daughters - from the Nazis during World War II. Nearly 2,000 Jews from that area died in the concentration camps, but even though everyone on Erikousa knew Savvas and his family were hiding on the island, no one ever gave them up, and the family survived the war. Years later, Yvette decided to track down the man's descendants - and eventually found them in Israel.

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.

David Falkner, noted author of five previous books about baseball, deftly portrays the rise to stardom of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play on a major-league team in baseball’s modern era. As Falkner traces the development of Robinson’s natural skill and tireless dedication, he focuses on the strengths that earned Robinson a unique place on the diamond and in the struggle for civil rights. This compelling biography illuminates a critical intersection of sports and cultural history.

Tough Island is a movie for your ears. Author Crash Barry’s evocative, gritty, and funny storytelling, authentic sound effects, and vocal dramatics create a soundscape that transports you to Maine’s most remote inhabited island. Crash narrates and voices the entire cast of memorable characters, including the salty Captain Donald and his insufferable wife, brawny fishermen, and other eccentric islanders.

From the moment he began writing his syndicated sex-advice column, "Savage Love", Dan Savage has never been shy about expressing his opinion on controversial topics - political or otherwise. In the height of his activism, he addresses issues ranging from parenting and the gay agenda to the Catholic Church and health care. Speaking to a broad range of subjects with brutal honesty and irreverent humor, American Savage is a pivotal piece that cements Dan Savage’s place as a provocative and insightful voice in American culture.

From the preeminent presidential scholar and acclaimed biographer of historical figures including George Washington, Herbert Hoover, and Nelson Rockefeller comes this eye-opening life of Gerald R. Ford, whose presidency arguably set the course for post-liberal America and a post-Cold War world.

A native of Birmingham, Alabama, who overcame the racism of the civil rights era to become a brilliant academic and expert on foreign affairs, Condoleezza Rice first distinguished herself as an advisor to George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign, and eventually became one of his closest confidantes.