What’s in it
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorMao's Last Dancer
Li Cunxin · 444 pages
A poor child living in poverty is chosen out of millions of children to attend Madame Mao's dancing ballet. His life drastically shifted from living in poverty to studying dance.
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Daniel James Brown · 416 pages
Daniel James Brown’s robust book tells the story of the University of Washington’s 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing f
The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls · 296 pages
A story about the early life of Jeannette Walls. The memoir is an exposing work about her early life and growing up on the run and often homeless. It presents a different perspective of life from all over the United States and the struggle a girl had to find normalcy as she grew into an adult.
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
Trevor Noah · 297 pages
Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often ab
I Love Capitalism!: An American Story
Ken Langone · 320 pages
Becoming
Michelle Obama · 432 pages
In this adaptation of her autobiography for younger readers, Michelle Obama presents an account of her life, and, in telling of her own personal evolution, stresses the need for people to realize that no one is perfect, that the process of "becoming" is what really matters.
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
Michael Lewis · 345 pages
Follows one young man from his impoverished childhood with a crack-addicted mother, through his discovery of the sport of football, to his rise to become one of the most successful, highly-paid players in the NFL.
Seabiscuit: An American Legend
Laura Hillenbrand · 453 pages
Retraces the journey of Seabiscuit, a horse with crooked legs and a pathetic tail that made racing history in 1938, thanks to the efforts of a trainer, owner, and jockey who transformed a bottom-level racehorse into a legend.
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Cheryl Strayed · 315 pages
A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again. At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she'd lost everything when her mother died young of cancer. Her family scattered in their grief, her marriage was soon destroyed, and slowly her life spun out of control. Four years after her mot
Angela's Ashes
Frank McCourt · 384 pages
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish im
My Beloved World
Sonia Sotomayor · 315 pages
An instant American icon, the third woman, and the first Hispanic on the U.S. Supreme Court, the author tells the story of her life before becoming a judge, in this personal memoir. Here the author recounts her life from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench, a progress that is testament to her extraordinary determination and the power of believing in oneself. She writes of her precarious c
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope
William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer · 294 pages
William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery. It was also a land withered by drought and hunger, and a place where hope and opportunity were hard to find. But William had read about windmills in a book called Using Energy, and he dreamed of building one that would bring electricity and water to his village and change his life and the lives of tho
Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog
John Grogan · 368 pages
The heartwarming and unforgettablestory of a family in the making and thewondrously neurotic dog who taughtthem what really matters in lifeJohn and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wiggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same.Marley quickly grew int
All Over But the Shoutin'
Rick Bragg · 329 pages
This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. It is the story of Bragg's father, a hard-drinking man with a murderous temper and the hab
Wings of Fire: An Autobiography
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam · 180 pages
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, the son of a little-educated boat-owner in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, had an unparalleled career as a defence scientist, culminating in the highest civilian award of India, the Bharat Ratna. As chief of the country’s defence research and development programme, Kalam demonstrated the great potential for dynamism and innovation that existed in seemingly moribund res
Black Boy
Richard Wright · 288 pages
Black Boy is a classic of American autobiography, a subtly crafted narrative of Richard Wright's journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. An enduring story of one young man's coming of age during a particular time and place, Black Boy remains a seminal text in our history about what it means to be a man, black, and Southern in America.
Sam Walton: Made In America
Sam Walton, John Huey · 272 pages
Meet a genuine American folk hero cut from the homespun cloth of America's heartland: Sam Walton, who parlayed a single dime store in a hardscrabble cotton town into Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world. The undisputed merchant king of the late twentieth century, Sam never lost the common touch. Here, finally, inimitable words. Genuinely modest, but always sure if his ambitions and achie
The Good Earth
Pearl S. Buck · 316 pages
This tells the poignant tale of a Chinese farmer and his family in old agrarian China. The humble Wang Lung glories in the soil he works, nurturing the land as it nurtures him and his family. Nearby, the nobles of the House of Hwang consider themselves above the land and its workers; but they will soon meet their own downfall. Hard times come upon Wang Lung and his family when flood and drought
Same Kind of Different as Me
Ron Hall, Denver Moore, Lynn Vincent · 240 pages
Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption
Katie J. Davis, Beth Clark · 264 pages
What would cause an eighteen-year-old old senior class president and homecoming queen from Nashville, Tennessee, to disobey and disappoint her parents by forgoing college, break her little brother’s heart, lose all but a handful of her friends (because the rest of them think she has gone off the deep end), and break up with the love of her life, all so she could move to Uganda, where she knew only