Moving and Memorable MemoirsLike this list

16 items

• All You Can Ever Know

  Chung, Nicole,

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  Essayist Chung, expecting her own child, investigates the mysteries and complexities of her adoption from Korea by a white Oregon couple in this courageous and compelling chronicle of family, identity and the struggle to belong.

• Heart Berries

  a Memoir

  Mailhot, Terese Marie,

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  Begun on a notebook in a hospital as therapy, this uniquely voiced and sometimes unsettling memoir tells the tale of Mailhot's dysfunctional upbringing on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest and her efforts to overcome…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Maid

  Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive

  Land, Stephanie, 1978-

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  Stephanie Land's plans of breaking free from the roots of her hometown in the Pacific Northwest to chase her dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer, were cut short when a summer fling turned into an unplanned pregnancy. She turned to…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Girl Who Smiled Beads

  a Story of War and What Comes After

  Wamariya, Clemantine,

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  Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father started speaking in whispers and her neighbors began to disappear. It was 1994, and in 100 days more than 800,000 people would be murdered in Rwanda. Clemantine and her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• How to Forget

  a Daughter's Memoir

  Mulgrew, Kate, 1955-

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  When her father is diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer and her mother with atypical Alzheimer's, New York-based actress Kate Mulgrew returns to Dubuque, Iowa, to care for her parents: Tom, a witty, charming, seductive, hard-drinking son of the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• When They Call You a Terrorist

  a Black Lives Matter Memoir

  Khan-Cullors, Patrisse, 1984-

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  A poetic and powerful memoir about what it means to be a Black woman in America--and the founding of a movement that demands restorative justice for all in the land of the free. Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, these loving women…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Untamed

  Doyle, Glennon, 1976-

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  There is a voice of longing inside every woman. We strive so mightily to be good, but are left feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We hide our simmering discontent--even from ourselves. Until we reach our boiling point. Soulful and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Educated

  a Memoir

  Westover, Tara,

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  Born to isolated survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Until then, Tara had educated herself, learning enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, then…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Glass Castle

  a Memoir

  Walls, Jeannette,

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  In the tradition of Mary Karr's The Liars' Club and Rick Bragg's All Over But the Shouting, Walls has written a stunning and life-affirming memoir about surviving a willfully impoverished, eccentric, and severely misguided family.

• Hollywood Park

  a Memoir

  Jollett, Mikel,

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  Born into the Church of Synanon, one of the country's most infamous cults, and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse, Mikel Jollett's raw and poetic story of fierce love and family loyalty signals the emergence…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

  [a Memoir]

  Murakami, Haruki, 1949-

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  In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he'd completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, not to mention triathlons and a dozen…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Latehomecomer

  [a Hmong Family Memoir]

  Yang, Kao Kalia, 1980-

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  Presents the journey from refuge camp to America and the hardships and joys of a family's struggle to adapt in a strange culture while holding onto traditions that are passed down from her beloved grandmother.

• I Am Malala

  How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World

  Yousafzai, Malala, 1997-

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  When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday October 9, 2012, she almost paid the ultimate price.

• Brother, I'm Dying

  Danticat, Edwidge, 1969-

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  When Danticat's parents left Haiti for America when she was four, they placed her in the care of her uncle Joseph, a charismatic pastor. When, at twelve, she joins her barely remembered parents in New York City, she is pulled from Joseph, her second…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Cooked Seed

  Min, Anchee, 1957-

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  Traces the author's journey from the painful deprivations of her homeland to the sudden bounty of the United States, where she endured five jobs, crime, and a painful marriage before the birth of a daughter inspired her writing career.

• Memorial Drive

  a Daughter's Memoir

  Trethewey, Natasha D., 1966-

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  At 19,Trethewey's world turned upside down when her former stepfather shot and killed her mother. Here she explores the way this experience lastingly shaped the artist she became. Moving through her mother's history in the deeply segregated South…Read moreRead more of this annotation