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Biography and Memoir July 2018
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Educated : a memoir
by Tara Westover
Traces the author's experiences as a child born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, describing her participation in her family's paranoid stockpiling activities and her resolve to educate herself well enough to earn an acceptance into a prestigious university and the unfamiliar world beyond.
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| There Are No Grown-Ups: A Midlife Coming-of-Age Story by Pamela DruckermanWhat it is: part memoir, part self-help guide, this witty and lighthearted collection of 25 essays explores American expat life in Paris, the realities of aging, and family relationships.
Want a taste? "You know you're a fortysomething parent when you've decided that swimming counts as a shower."
Chapters include: "How to Have a Midlife Crisis;" "How to Plan a Ménage à Trois;" and "How to Think in French." |
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| Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale HurstonWhat it's about: In 1927, author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston interviewed Cudjo Lewis (c. 1841-1935), one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade; the transcript of their conversation was only recently discovered.
Read it for: Hurston's folkloristic preservation of Lewis's West African vernacular and storytelling.
Is it for you? Lewis' clear account of his capture and enslavement is both graphic and illuminating. |
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Meghan : A Hollywood Princess
by Andrew Morton
Women who smash the royal mold have always fascinated the public, from Grace Kelly to Princess Diana. Now acclaimed royal biographer Andrew Morton, the New York Times bestselling author of Diana: Her True Story, brings us a revealing, juicy, and inspiring look at Meghan Markle, the confident and charismatic duchess-to-be whose warm and affectionate engagement interview won the hearts of the world.
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Tiger Woods
by Jeff Benedict
Based on years of reporting and interviews with more than 250 people from every corner of Tiger Woods’s life—many of whom have never spoken about him on the record before—a sweeping, revelatory, and defining biography of an American icon.
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Focus on: Prison and Captivity
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| Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard by Laura BatesWhat it is: a powerful, eye-opening account of a group-study "Shakespeare in Shackles" program at a maximum security prison and the transformative effect it had on both instructor and students.
About the author: Laura Bates is a literature professor at Indiana State University and a graduate of the Shakespeare Institute.
Try this next: Michelle Kuo's Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship. |
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| A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout and Sara CorbettWhat it's about: In 2008, 25-year-old Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout was captured by Somali rebels in Mogadishu and held for ransom for 15 months.
Don't miss: the urgent and evocative prose.
Is it for you? Though the memoir has an upbeat ending, Lindhout's harrowing descriptions of the violence she endured may be too disturbing for some readers. |
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| The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State by Nadia MuradWhat it is: the raw yet inspiring story of Nadia Murad's escape from captivity by the Islamic State, for whom she was forced to serve as a "sabiya" (or sex slave) after her Yazidi village in Iraq was destroyed in 2014.
About the author: Nadia Murad is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. |
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The Marriott Cell : An Epic Journey from Cairo's Scorpion Prison to Freedom
by Mohamed Fahmy
The revealing, widely anticipated story by the internationally award-winning journalist is as riveting as a political thriller: it opens an astonishing window onto the closed world of geo-political power brokering as he takes us behind his headline-generating seizure and 438-day imprisonment in Cairo's notorious Scorpion Prison with leading terrorists; through the love story that made front-page news; to the profoundly personal drama of one man's fight for freedom, supported by Canadians across the country and media world-wide.
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| Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan StevensonWhat it's about: In 1994, lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative, which provides legal representation to inmates on Alabama's death row -- many of whom face miscarriages of justice.
Further reading: Stevenson provides the foreword to Anthony Ray Hinton's heartwrenching and hopeful memoir (and Oprah's latest Book Club selection) The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row, which chronicles his 30 years of false imprisonment. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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