Book picks similar to
Green Card Youth Voices: Immigration Stories from a Minneapolis High School by Green Card Voices
non-fiction
memoir
nonfiction
essays
New Year, Same Trash: Resolutions I Absolutely Did Not Keep (A Vintage Short Original)
Samantha Irby - 2017
Nope. With a small group of woo-woo others, Irby sets seventy micro-resolutions, and then—with the rest of us—she fails at almost every single one of them. Thoughtful, witty, poignant—the failed intentions in New Year Same Trash will make you laugh and cry. Because you know you’ve been there. You can’t wake up in time to go to brunch. Swimming three times a week? Who are you kidding. You’re not going to shower every day or pack your lunch every day. You’re definitely not going to choose a smart movie over mindless entertainment, because you’re tired. You’re lazy. And, no, you’re never going to be a positive thinker. “I didn’t do this. I’m gonna. Maybe.” Don’t worry. It’s okay. There’s always next year. Instantly recognizable to anyone who’s ever failed to make goals and stick with them, New Year Same Trash will bring hilarious relief.A Vintage Shorts Original. An ebook short.
New York Days
Willie Morris - 1993
It was the 1960s, when New York City was a place "throbbing with possibility" and "in which everyone seemed to know everyone else and where everything of importance seemed to happen first". These were Willie Morris's New York days - with William Styron, David Halberstam, Woody Allen, Bobby Kennedy, Truman Capote, Shirley MacLaine, George Plimpton, Leonard Bernstein, and the other leading figures of the time. For he knew them all: the writers, the poets, the intellectuals, the editors, the actresses, the tycoons, the detectives, the athletes, and not a few fakirs and charlatans. He wined with Sinatra at the Players Club and eavesdropped in the trattorias on the Mob; sat next to DiMaggio in the Garden ringside seats and spent evenings at Elaine's. And during the day, Morris worked to transform Harper's from an uninspired literary magazine to its apex as the groundbreaking political and cultural voice of the '60s, until the editorial rift and the mass resignations of 1971 - possibly the most notable dispute in American publishing history. New York Days is a portrait of an era, but it is also a poignant, deeply personal yet universal story of a man's life: a man who attains everything he has ever hoped for only to realize that what he has sacrificed is even greater. For in the process of reaching the pinnacle of his career, Morris also experiencedprofound loss: the dissolution of his marriage and the breakdown of the magazine as he helped create it. Now, from a vantage point of more than twenty years and a thousand miles, Morris asks his younger self: "Where on earth, fast-moving boy, are you going now?" And what, i
HONG KONG State of Mind: 37 Views of a City That Doesn't Blink
Jason Y. Ng - 2010
It is where Mercedes outnumber taxi cabs, party-goers count down to Christmas every December 24, and larger-than-life billboards of fortune tellers and cram school tutors compete with breathtaking skylines.HONG KONG State of Mind is a collection of essays by a popular blogger who zeroes in on the city’s idiosyncrasies with deadpan precision. At once an outsider looking in and an insider looking out, Jason Y. Ng has created something for everyone: a travel journal for the passing visitor, a user’s manual for the wide-eyed expat, and an open diary for the native Hong Konger looking for moments of reflection.Together with No City For Slow Men (2013) and Umbrellas in Bloom (2016), HONG KONG State of Mind forms Ng’s "Hong Kong Trilogy" that traces the city’s sociopolitical developments since its return to Chinese rule.
From Binge to Blackout: A Mother and Son Struggle with Teen Drinking
Chris Volkmann - 2006
Like so many parents, his mother, Chris, overlooked Toren's growing alcohol problem. But when he graduated, Toren realized he'd become a full-blown alcoholic. And he was not alone.Considered a rite of passage, teenage drinking has skyrocketed to epidemic proportions, fostering a generation of young adults whose lives are already beginning to come apart under the strain. This book, written from the viewpoints of both mother and son, is a riveting, enlightening, and heartbreakingly true story of a family that was able to confront the fear, pain, and denial that threatened to destroy them--and survive the epidemic of teenage drinking that's putting America's future at risk.
Underbelly Hoops: Adventures in the CBA - A.K.A. The Crazy Basketball Association
Carson Cunningham - 2011
Well – sort of close. He ended up in the minor leagues of professional basketball instead, in the storied and now defunct CBA, a league that has turned out a record-setting number of NBA players and coaches, such as Phil Jackson and George Karl. It wasn’t glamorous, in fact the playing conditions in the CBA were pretty grim; near-empty arenas, interminable bus rides to nowheresville, oddball coaches, little loyalty from management, meager pay, these were a few realities of CBA life. And yet, even as it chipped away at your dignity and made little economic sense to remain, the CBA drew you in with the allure of action and the prospect of an NBA call-up. And it could inspire, like when you and your teammates caught a rhythm that made you remember why basketball is such a beautiful game, or when you saw guys continue to strive, to persevere, even if their dreams weren't fully realized.Carson writes honestly, hilariously and often touchingly of his running and gunning days as a CBA also-ran, with flash backs to his college days where the future seemed brighter than a new pair of Nikes. A top recruit with superior ballhanding and shooting skills along with a sixth basketball sense, in 1997 Carson was a Sporting News All-American freshman who broke Gary Payton's freshman scoring record and a few years later helped his team at Purdue get within a game of the Final Four.
Sleeping Solo: One Woman's Journey Into Life After Marriage
Audrey Faye - 2014
It left little bits of brain and heart matter all over the walls, and the certain, irrevocable knowledge that my life had just radically changed shape forever. I’d been unceremoniously dumped out onto the road of a new journey. I expected it to be dusty and hard and short on food and water, a gut-wrenching endurance test that would take a long time to wind its way to ease and peace and a modicum of happiness. That’s not what happened at all. There have been hard days and dusty ones, and I do my best, in this missive from the road, to speak the truth of those moments. But the words clamoring at my door weren’t the dusty ones - they were the ones full of surprised pride in the journey that has actually happened instead. The ones full of abundance and purpose and happiness and the wild, bubbling need to dance. Yeah. Not what I expected from my post-marriage apocalypse either. Welcome to Sleeping Solo, my anthem song from the road. It's 17,000 words, or about 60 pages, and every one of them comes straight from my heart.
I Wouldn't Start From Here: A Misguided Tour of the Early 21st Century
Andrew Mueller - 2007
I Wouldn't Start From Here
is his random history of the 21st century so far, and all its attendant absurdities, intermittent horrors and occasional glimmers of hope. It features gunfights, car chases and gaol cells, any number of exotic locations, and a cast which includes revolutionaries, rock stars, politicians, hitmen, warmongers and peacemakers.Whether ducking for cover in Gaza, running roadblocks in Iraq, attempting to have fun in Luxembourg, or trying to buy Colonel Gadaffi T-shirts in Tripoli, Mueller is a man in search of an answer to perhaps the crucial question of our time: "What is it with these people?""Mueller's prose is as spectacular as a Taliban attack on Lollapalooza" (PJ O'Rourke)
Failing Up: How to Take Risks, Aim Higher, and Never Stop Learning
Leslie Odom Jr. - 2018
Jr, burst on the scene in 2015, originating the role of Aaron Burr in the Broadway musical phenomenon Hamilton. Since then, he has performed for sold-out audiences, sung for the Obamas at the White House, and won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. But before he landed the role of a lifetime in one of the biggest musicals of all time, Odom put in years of hard work as a singer and an actor.With personal stories from his life, Odom asks the questions that will help you unlock your true potential and achieve your goals even when they seem impossible. What work did you put in today that will help you improve tomorrow? How do you surround yourself with people who will care about your dreams as much as you do? How do you know when to play it safe and when to risk it all for something bigger and better?These stories will inspire you, motivate you, and empower you for the greatness that lies ahead, whether you're graduating from college, starting a new job, or just looking to live each day to the fullest.
Freedom's Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories
Ellen Levine - 1993
In this inspiring collection of true stories, thirty African-Americans who were children or teenagers in the 1950s and 1960s talk about what it was like for them to fight segregation in the South-to sit in an all-white restaurant and demand to be served, to refuse to give up a seat at the front of the bus, to be among the first to integrate the public schools, and to face violence, arrest, and even death for the cause of freedom."Thrilling...Nothing short of wonderful."-The New York TimesAwards:( A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year( A Booklist Editors' Choice
If I Don't Make It, I Love You: Survivors in the Aftermath of School Shootings
Amye Archer - 2019
This scene has become too familiar.We see the images, the children with trauma on their faces leaving their school in ropes, connected to one another with hands on shoulders, shaking, crying, and screaming. We mourn the dead. We bury children. We demand change. But we are met with inaction. So, we move forward, sadder and more jaded. But what about those who cannot move on?These are their stories.If I Don’t Make It, I Love You collects more than sixty narratives from school shooting survivors, family members, and community leaders covering fifty years of shootings in America, from the 1966 UT-Austin Tower shooting through May 2018’s Santa Fe shooting.Through this collection, editors Amye Archer and Loren Kleinman offer a vital contribution to the surging national dialogue on gun reform by elevating the voices of those most directly affected by school shootings: the survivors.
Never Look an American in the Eye: A Memoir of Flying Turtles, Colonial Ghosts, and the Making of a Nigerian American
Okey Ndibe - 2016
It recounts stories of Ndibe’s relationships with Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and other literary figures; examines the differences between Nigerian and American etiquette and politics; recalls an incident of racial profiling just 13 days after he arrived in the US, in which he was mistaken for a bank robber; considers American stereotypes about Africa (and vice-versa); and juxtaposes African folk tales with Wall Street trickery.
Fullness: A Memoir
Azure Moyna - 2020
But nearly choking to death on her own vomit after yet another secretive binge forced her to seek professional help and confront the origins of her consuming and shame filled behavior of compulsive eating and extreme dieting. This raw, illuminating and tragically comic book is the story of child Azure struggling to survive her upbringing by a brilliant, sociopathic father who starved and belittled her as well as adult Azure attempting to save her marriage and her psyche while contending with her preoccupation with food, her body, a fat-phobic society, and her insatiable hunger for love and acceptance.
Falling Cars and Junkyard Dogs
Jay Farrar - 2013
Recollections of Farrar's father are prominent throughout the stories. Ultimately, it is music and musicians that are given the most space and the final word since music has been the creative impetus and driving force for the past 35 years of his life.In writing these stories, he found a natural inclination to focus on very specific experiences; a method analogous to the songwriting process. The highlights and pivotal experiences from that musical journey are all represented as the binding thread in these stories, illustrated throughout with photography from his life. If life is a movie, then these stories are the still frames.
The Lonely Planet Travel Anthology
Lonely PlanetEmily Koch - 2016
The 35 impassioned stories included in this collection - of fortune tellers, tribal baboon hunters, a friendly Japanese family, and other notable characters - span a worldwide spectrum of themes, styles and settings, but all show how travel in its unexpected turns tests and teaches us, making us aware that we are resilient, that we are not alone, and that there is so much love and connection to be had if we open ourselves up. This collection affirms that if we follow the compass of the heart, we will always find our way. Whether you read the book on the road or in an armchair at home, these tales are sure to entertain, amuse and inform you, and resonate long after the book is finished. 'As you travel through these pages, may your mind be widened, your spirit enlivened, and your own path illuminated by these worldly word-journeys.' ---Don George With sparkling contributions from some of the most acclaimed names in contemporary fiction and travel writing plus some new voices from around the world, including: Ann Patchett, Francine Prose, TC Boyle, Karen Joy Fowler, Pico Iyer, Torre DeRoche, Blane Bachelor, Rebecca Dinerstein, Jan Morris, Elizabeth George, Jane Hamilton, Alexander McCall Smith, Keija Parssinen, Mridu Khullar Relph, Yulia Denisyuk, Emily Koch, Carissa Kasper, Jessica Silber, Candace Rose Rardon, Marilyn Abildskov, Shannon Leone Fowler, Robin Cherry, Robert Twigger, Porochista Khakpour, Natalie Baszile, Suzy Joinson, Anthony Sattin, LH McMillin, Bridget Crocker, Maggie Downs, Bishwanath Ghosh, Jeff Greenwald, James Dorsey and Tahir Shah. About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, gift and lifestyle books and stationery, as well as an award-winning website, magazines, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in. TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category 'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times
'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia)
Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson
George L. Jackson - 1970
Jackson's letters make palpable the intense feelings of anger and rebellion that filled black men in America's prisons in the 1960s. But even removed from the social and political firestorms of the 1960s, Jackson's story still resonates for its portrait of a man taking a stand even while locked down.