Cultural Memoir

Du Fu (712-70) is one of China’s greatest poets. His career coincided with periods of famine, war and huge upheaval, yet his secular philosophical vision, combined with his empathy for the common folk of his nation, ensured that he soon became revered. Like Shakespeare or Dante, his poetry resonates in a timeless manner that ensures it is always relevant and offers something new to the modern generation. Broadcaster and historian Michael Wood follows in his footsteps to try to understand the places that inspired Du Fu to write some of the most famous and best-loved poetry the world has known.

The explosive, definitive account of Michael Jackson’s fall from grace has now been updated with four new fascinating chapters. Award-winning journalist Diane Dimond, who first broke the story of the King of Pop’s battles against child molestation charges from 1993 to 2005, takes you behind the scenes and into the courtroom of one of the most controversial cases of the decade. This audio version gives listeners a dramatic glimpse of one reporter’s vigilance and unending quest to uncover the truth.

Andrea Kott thought of herself as “the welfare Jew.” The daughter of a single mother whose depression and drinking pitched them into poverty, her stormy life looked nothing like that of the Jewish kids she knew: It defied every stereotype she associated with being Jewish—having an intact family and material wealth, and becoming a bat mitzvah. Alienated and ashamed, Kott felt ineligible to be Jewish, yet hungered for connection to the tradition and to God. It took a near-fatal accident, her mother’s death, marriage and motherhood, and losing a beloved brother for her to find her Jewish home.

In 1972, Patty Bear’s father, Robert Bear, was excommunicated from their church and subsequently shunned by members including Gale, his wife. For Amish and Old Order Mennonites, known as “Plain People”, shunning is a biblical practice meant to bring wayward members back into the community’s fold.

Thanks to her spiteful, jealous Jamaican mother, Nell Vera Lowe was cut off from her Chinese father, Samuel, when she was just a baby, after he announced that he was taking a Chinese bride. By the time Nell was old enough to travel to her father's shop in St. Anne's Bay, he'd taken his family back to China, never learning what became of his eldest daughter. Bereft, Nell left Jamaica for New York to start a new life.

It'd been a long time since I claimed some solitude in this blessed landscape; since I've done without life's little props. Here I have no friend, no dog, no radio, no clock, no phone, no roof, no body pollutants.

"Mississippi Hippie: A Life in 49 Pieces" invites you to embark on an extraordinary odyssey through the soul-stirring landscapes of the storied Mississippi Delta and the humming streetscapes of 1970s Memphis. Willy Bearden, a master storyteller, unveils his life's mosaic in a series of poignant and evocative vignettes that resonate with the echoes of a bygone era.

This is the truly remarkable life story of the notorious Ethel Livesey, a serial fraudster and confidence trickster who became a media sensation after she ran out on her society wedding in 1945 and later was arrested for obtaining goods by false pretences. With a prologue by Ethel Livesey's granddaughter, this extraordinary tale of Australia's greatest fraudster is told for the first time in rich and fascinating detail.

A testament to the importance of imagination, trusting oneself, and making space for your creativity, Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)? is a memoir of a '90s kid who confided in his imaginary sidekick to navigate everything from parallel pop culture universes, like watching Fresh Prince alongside John Hughes movies or listening to Ja Rule and Dave Matthews, to a lifetime of birthday disappointment (being a Christmas season Capricorn will do that to you) and hoop dreams gone bad.

Long accused of racism and “white flight”, the ethnic Americans driven from their homes and neighborhoods—the author included—finally get the chance to tell their side of the story.

A reckoning with the way we choose to see and define ourselves, Self-Portrait in Black and White is the searching story of one American family's multigenerational transformation from what is called Black to what is assumed to be White. Thomas Chatterton Williams, the son of a "Black" father from the segregated South and a "White" mother from the West, spent his whole life believing the dictum that a single drop of "Black blood" makes a person Black. This was so fundamental to his self-conception that he'd never rigorously reflected on its foundations....

Abdi Nor Iftin first fell in love with America from afar. As a child, he learned English by listening to American pop and watching action films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. When US marines landed in Mogadishu to take on the warlords, Abdi cheered the arrival of these Americans, who seemed as heroic as those of the movies. Sporting American clothes and dance moves, he became known around Mogadishu as Abdi American, but when the radical Islamist group al-Shabaab rose to power in 2006, it became dangerous to celebrate Western culture.

Part memoir, part masterclass, bestselling author Ben Crawford's journey is about breaking free from fear, ineffective communication, and shallow relationships entrenched within religious communities. Excommunicated and starting anew without a community or belief system, he shares lessons from his transition, bidding farewell to old friends, forging new connections, and rebuilding relationships with his wife and children.

After 64 years, Mezzabotte Coletta, a retired truck driver for a Toronto macaroni factory, is retuning to his native Italia. In his native village of Supino is a rundown villa bought sight unseen by Mezzabotte Coletta 's daughter Maria - an olive branch after years of family struggle. While she and her husband breathe in the chatter of local tradesmen, the fragrant offerings of well-wishing neighbors, and the aroma of fine wine, her father awaits in Canada, anticipating the day he will again touch Italian soil.

In the months and weeks before the fateful November 22nd, 1963, Dallas was brewing with political passions, a city crammed with larger-than-life characters dead-set against the Kennedy presidency. These included rabid warriors like defrocked military general Edwin A. Walker; the world's richest oil baron, H. L. Hunt; the leader of the largest Baptist congregation in the world, W.A. Criswell; and the media mogul Ted Dealey, who raucously confronted JFK and whose family name adorns the plaza where the president was murdered.

Zippi Spitzer and David Wisnia were captivated by each other from the moment they first exchanged glances across the work floor. It was the beginning of a love story that could have happened anywhere. Except for one difference: this romance was unfolding in history’s most notorious death camp, between two young prisoners whose budding intimacy risked dooming them if they were caught.

With the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the war in Vietnam ended, but the refugee crisis was only beginning. Among the millions of people who fled Vietnam by boat was Vinh Nguyen, along with his mother and siblings, and his father, who left separately and mysteriously vanished in the open waters. Decades later, Nguyen goes looking for answers. What he discovers is a sea of questions and buried truths.

Sabrina Greenlee was born to teenage parents in the shadow of South Carolina’s Clemson University, and her story unfolds against the backdrop of her challenging upbringing in a family that lacked the means—financial and emotional—to offer her and her two brothers the safety, comfort, and love every child deserves. When she was a teenager, her beloved younger brother, Dilly, died in a drunk driving accident. In her early twenties, Sabrina faced the tragic loss of her fiancé and one true love. A decade later, she was brutally and publicly assaulted, resulting in the loss of her vision.

The Work is the story of how one young man traced a path through the world to find his life’s purpose. Wes Moore graduated from a difficult childhood in the Bronx and Baltimore to an adult life that would find him at some of the most critical moments in our recent history: as a combat officer in Afghanistan; a White House fellow in a time of wars abroad and disasters at home; and a Wall Street banker during the financial crisis.

At the end of a steep gravel road in one of the remotest corners of Lusikisiki in the old Transkei lies the village of Ithanga. Home to a few hundred villagers, the majority of them unemployed, it is inconceivably poor. In the broader world, most would consider it entirely inconsequential. It is to here that award-winning author Jonny Steinberg travels to explore the lives of a community caught up in a battle to survive the ravages of HIV/AIDS.