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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood
Richard Blanco · 260 pages
A poignant, hilarious, and inspiring memoir from the first Latino and openly gay inaugural poet, which explores his coming-of-age as the child of Cuban immigrants and his attempts to understand his place in America while grappling with his burgeoning artistic and sexual identities. Richard Blanco’s childhood and adolescence were experienced between two imaginary worlds: his parents’ nostalgic w
A Cup of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir
Daisy Hernandez · 185 pages
*It's 1980. Ronald Reagan has been elected president, John Lennon has been shot, and a little girl in New Jersey has been hauled off to English classes. Her teachers and parents and tias are expecting her to become white--like the Italians.* This is the opening to A cup of water under my bed, the memoir of one Colombian-Cuban daughter's rebellions and negotiations with the women who raised her
Infidel
Ayaan Hirsi Ali · 353 pages
"Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright little girl evolved out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no story could be timelier or more significant.--From publisher description."--From source other than the Library of Congress
West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story
Tamim Ansary, Mir Tamim Ansary · 292 pages
"The day after Islamic terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, Tamim Ansary of San Francisco sent an anguished e-mail to twenty friends, discussing the attack from his perspective as an Afghan American. That message, spreading via the Internet, reached and touched millions of people around the world." "Now Ansary gives us West of Kabul, East of New York, an account of a life lived in two very
The Other Side of Paradise
Staceyann Chin · 278 pages
From the iconic and charismatic star of "Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam" comes this brave and fiercely candid memoir about growing up in Jamaica by performer, activist, and writer Chin.
Me Talk Pretty One Day
David Sedaris · 272 pages
A recent transplant to Paris, humorist David Sedaris, bestselling author of “Naked”, presents a collection of his strongest work yet, including the title story about his hilarious attempt to learn French. David Sedaris' move to Paris from New York inspired these hilarious pieces, including the title essay, about his attempts to learn French from a sadistic teacher who declares that every day sp
The Complete Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi · 352 pages
From inside front cover: The story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a ... loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private and public life in a coutnry plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trails of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming -- both sweet and terrible; and, fina
God Grew Tired of Us: A Memoir
John Bul Dau, Michael S. Sweeney · 295 pages
"Lost Boy" John Bul Dau's harrowing experience surviving the brutal horrors of Sudanese civil war and his adjustment to life in modern America is chronicled in this inspiring memoir and featured in an award-winning documentary film of the same name. Movingly written, the book traces Dau's journey through hunger, exhaustion, terror, and violence as he fled his homeland, dodging ambushes, massacres
Out of Egypt: A Memoir
Andre Aciman · 339 pages
Set in luxuriant cosmopolitan Alexandria, this richly colored memoir chronicles the exploits of a flamboyant Jewish family from its bold arrival in Egypt at the turn of the century to its defeated exodus three generations later. In elegant and witty prose, Andre Aciman introduces us to the Olympian figures who shaped his life: Uncle Vili, the strutting daredevil, by turns soldier, salesman, Itali
Do They Hear You When You Cry?
Fauziya Kassindja, Layli Miller Bashir, Fauziya Kasinga · 518 pages
Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS, and Survival
Sean Strub · 432 pages
Sean Strub, founder of the groundbreaking POZ magazine, producer of the hit play The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, and the first openly HIV-positive candidate for U.S. Congress, charts his remarkable life. As a politics-obsessed Georgetown freshman, Strub arrived in Washington from Iowa in 1976, with a plum part-time job running a Senate elevator. He also harbored a terrifying secret: his attracti
Sipping from the Nile: My Exodus from Egypt
Jean Naggar · 373 pages
When We Rise: My Life in the Movement
Cleve Jones · 305 pages
Born in 1954, Cleve Jones was among the last generation of gay Americans who grew up wondering if there were others out there like himself. There were. Like thousands of other young people, Jones, nearly penniless, was drawn in the early 1970s to San Francisco, a city electrified by progressive politics and sexual freedom. Jones found community--in the hotel rooms and ramshackle apartments shar
Goodbye, I Love You
Carol Lynn Pearson · 240 pages
When in French: Love in a Second Language
Lauren Collins · 243 pages
"A language barrier is no match for love. Lauren Collins discovered this firsthand when, in her early thirties, she moved to London and fell for a Frenchman named Olivier--a surprising turn of events for someone who didn't have a passport until she was in college. But what does it mean to love someone in a second language? Collins wonders, as her relationship with Olivier continues to grow entirel
I Was Born There, I Was Born Here
Mourid Barghouti · 216 pages
In 2000 Mourid Barghouti published I Saw Ramallah, the acclaimed memoir that told of returning in 1996 to his Palestinian home for the first time since exile following the Six-Day War in 1967. I Was Born There, I Was Born Here takes up the story in 1998 when Barghouti returned to the Occupied Territories to introduce his Cairo-born son, Tamim, to his Palestinian family. Ironically, a few years lat
American Gypsy
Oksana Marafioti · 370 pages
Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter
Adeline Yen Mah · 278 pages
Adeline Yen Mah was born in 1937 in Tianjin, a port city one thousand miles north of Shanghai. She was the fifth and youngest child of an affluent family. Her grand aunt - in an unprecedented achievement - had founded the Shanghai Women's Bank in 1924, and her father was a revered businessman whose reputation for turning iron into gold began when he started his own firm at the age of nineteen. Ye
A Border Passage: From Cairo to America--A Woman's Journey
Leila Ahmed · 318 pages
Leila Ahmed grew up in Cairo in the 1940s and '50s in a family that was eagerly and passionately political. Although many in the Egyptian upper classes were firmly opposed to change, the Ahmeds were proud supporters of independence. But when the Revolution arrived, the family's opposition to Nasser's policies led to persecutions that would throw their lives into turmoil and set their youngest chil
Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child
Elva Trevino Hart · 236 pages
Autobiography. Latino/a Studies. BAREFOOT HEART is a vividly told autobiographical account of the life of a child growing up in a family of migrant farm workers. Elva Trevino Hart was born in south Texas to Mexican immigrants and spent her childhood moving back and forth between Texas and Minnesota, eventually leaving that world to earn a master's degree in computer science/engineering. This is a
Reaching Out
Francisco Jimenez · 196 pages
Leaving his home in a migrant community, Francisco sets off for college, carrying memories of years of poverty and prejudice.
A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology and leaves twelve years later to become the lovely lady she is today
Kate Bornstein · 258 pages
In the early 1970s, a boy from a Conservative Jewish family joined the Church of Scientology. In 1981, that boy officially left the movement and ultimately transitioned into a woman. A few years later, she stopped calling herself a woman—and became a famous gender outlaw. Gender theorist, performance artist, and author Kate Bornstein is set to change lives with her stunningly original memoir. W
Fifth Chinese Daughter
Jade Snow Wong · 264 pages
No well brought up Chinese girl refers to herself in the first person, so the author tells her charming story in the approved Chinese fashion. How, as the fifth daughter of a hard-working Chinese tailor, she and her sisters lived in a San Francisco basement, cutting, sewing, and sorting hundreds of men's overalls for the wholesale market. How she went to school and later, in face of parental oppos