Cultural Memoir

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. But for all his greatness, this scion of a complex family from North Carolina's Coastal Plain has a darker side: He's a ruthless competitor and a lover of high stakes. There's never been a biography that encompassed the dual nature of his character and looked so deeply at Jordan on and off the court - until now.

She was a successful ad sales rep in Manhattan. He was a homeless 11-year-old panhandler on the street. He asked for spare change; she kept walking. But then something stopped her in her tracks, and she went back. And she continued to go back, again and again. They met up nearly every week for years and built an unexpected, life-changing friendship that has today spanned almost three decades.

Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker is the first installment in the long-awaited portrait of one of the most talented and influential musicians of the twentieth century, from Stanley Crouch, one of the foremost authorities on jazz and culture in America. Throughout his life, Charlie Parker personified the tortured American artist: A revolutionary performer who used his alto saxophone to create a new music known as bebop even as he wrestled with a drug addiction that would lead to his death at the age of thirty-four.

Martín Prechtel continues the narrative of his unique life in Santiago, Atitlan in Long Life, Honey in the Heart, an eloquent memoir replete with the subtle intelligence and sophistication of Mayan culture. Set against the dramatic backdrop of Guatemala's political upheaval in the 1980s, this heady mix of magic, humor, and spirituality immerses the listeners in the experiences of Mayan birth, courting, marriage, child-rearing, old age, death, and beyond, using the true story of Prechtel's own family and friends.

At once a powerful evocation of his early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic, James Baldwin galvanized the nation in the early days of the civil rights movement with this eloquent manifesto. The Fire Next Time stands as one of the essential works of our literature.

With Nothing But the Truth, Marie Henein, arguably the most sought-after lawyer in the country, has written a memoir that is at once raw, beautiful, and altogether unforgettable. Her story, as an immigrant from a tightknit Egyptian-Lebanese family, demonstrates the value of strong role models - from her mother and grandmother, to her brilliant uncle Sami who died of AIDS. She learned the value of hard work, being true to herself and others, and unapologetically owning it all.

Harvey Milk - eloquent, charismatic, and a smart-aleck - was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, but he had not even served a full year in office when he was shot by a homophobic fellow supervisor. Milk's assassination at the age of 48 made him the most famous gay man in modern history; 20 years later, Time magazine included him on its list of the hundred most influential individuals of the 20th century.

Unbroken is an extraordinary work of memoir and investigative journalism focusing on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, written by an award-winning Gitxsan journalist who survived life on the streets against all odds.

Everyone knows Jackie Chan. Whether it’s from Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon, The Karate Kid, or Kung Fu Panda, Jackie is admired by generations of moviegoers for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, and mind-bending stunts. In Never Grow Up, the global superstar reflects on his early life, including his childhood years at the China Drama Academy (in which he was enrolled at the age of six), his big breaks (and setbacks) in Hong Kong and Hollywood, his numerous brushes with death (both on and off film sets), and his life as a husband and father.

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: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than 60 years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects.

In the early 80s, Mark Fleischman reopened Studio 54, the world's most glamorous and notorious nightclub, after it was closed down by the State of New York. Ten thousand people showed up that night, ready to restart the party that abruptly ended after the raid in 1978 landed its former owners in jail. Inside Studio 54 invites you to revisit the happening scenes of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, the post-Pill, pre-AIDS era of free love, consequence-free sex, and seemingly endless partying. Following Fleischman as he built connections that lead him to Studio 54.

From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens is a violent and introspective memoir that reveals not only 50 Cent's story but the story of a generation of youth faced with hard choices and very little options. It is a tale of sacrifice, transformation, and redemption, but it is also one of hope, determination, and the power of self. Told in 50's own unique voice, the narrative drips with the raw insight, street wisdom, and his struggle to survive at all costs.

It begins with a simple ritual: Every Saturday afternoon, a boy who loves to cook walks to his grandmother’s house and helps her prepare a roast chicken for dinner. The grandmother is Swedish, a retired domestic. The boy is Ethiopian and adopted, and he will grow up to become the world-renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson. This book is his love letter to food and family in all its manifestations.

When award-winning actor, producer, and international icon Gabriel Byrne was a young boy, his grandmother brought him to the cinema for the first time. There, Byrne fell in love with the transporting power of the big screen. Growing up in 1950s and 60s Dublin within a family of eight, Byrne's formative childhood years were both carefree and challenging, spent between home, the church, school, and the streets of his ever-changing city.

Tired of the pace and noise of life near London and longing for a better place to raise their young children, Mary J. MacLeod and her husband, George, encountered their dream while vacationing on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides. Enthralled by its windswept beauty, they soon were the proud and startled owners of a near-derelict croft house - a farmer’s stone cottage - on “a small acre” of land. Mary assumed duties as the island’s district nurse.

Wallace is an award-winning journalist who has built his career on writing unforgettable profiles, bringing a provocative and engaged sensitivity to his subjects. Now he turns the focus on himself, examining his own life and the circumstances that frame it—to make sense of seeking refuge from homelessness with a young single mother, living in a ghostly white Pennsylvania town, becoming a partner and parent, raising two teenagers in what feels like a collapsing world.

"My name is 'J' and I'm awkward--and Black. Someone once told me those were the two worst things anyone could be. That someone was right. Where do I start?" Being an introvert in a world that glorifies cool isn't easy. But when Issa Rae, the creator of the Shorty Award-winning hit series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, is that introvert--whether she's navigating love, work, friendships, or rapping--it sure is entertaining.

“Writing this memoir is a betrayal.” So begins this electrifying personal account from Danny Ramadan, a celebrated novelist who has long enjoyed the shield his fiction provides. Now, to tell the story of his life, he must revisit dark corners of his past he’d rather forget and unearth memories of a city he can no longer return to. Starting with his family’s humble beginnings in Damascus, he takes listeners on an epic border-crossing journey.

His real name was Earl Simmons. As a child, he placed higher on tests than his fellow students and liked to spend mornings with his mother and sisters playing games and making pancakes. But for young Earl - a boy growing up on the streets of Yonkers, New York - that kind of childhood didn’t last long. Beatings, abuse, and neglect very soon had him moving on to other things, like robbing, stealing, drugs, and, eventually, jail. Along the way, however, he found a talent and a passion for rhyme.

Veteran Toronto Star editor Haroon Siddiqui, brown and Muslim, has spent a life on the media front lines, covering conflicts both global and local. Siddiqui’s journey took him from a divided India to a welcoming Canada—until the cataclysm of 9/11 hardened attitudes to Muslims around the world. His personal story weaves through growing Islamophobia in both India and North America. Siddiqui's experiences in the corridors of power in newsrooms and warzones are threaded with insights about historic changes in the last seventy years in India and Canada.