Memoir Archives - Page 4 of 26

I Just Wanted to Save My Family: A Memoir by Stéphan Pélissier with Cécile-Agnès Champart, translated by Adriana Hunter [in Shelf Awareness]

23 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, French, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Translation

The title alone is a universally resounding cry for help: I Just Wanted to Save My Family. It also proves to be French legal expert and first-time author Stéphan Pélissier's best defense to challenge a guilty verdict that demands seven years of imprisonment. Co-written with Cécile-Agnès Champart...

Aftershocks: A Memoir by Nadia Owusu [in Shelf Awareness]

14 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Memoir, Repost

A stepmother's unwanted visit, a mother's unexpected phone call, a lover's departure – all happening in a single month – precipitated the breakdown that eventually engendered Whiting Award winner Nadia Owusu's penetrating debut memoir, Aftershocks. Owusu spent her youth navigating multiple continents, a half dozen countries,...

Papaya Salad by Elisa Macellari, translated by Carla Roncalli Di Montorio [in Booklist]

26 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Italian, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian, Thai, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Although Thai Italian artist Elisa Macellari’s Kusama (2020) hit U.S. shelves first, Papaya Salad is actually her debut title, originally published in 2018 in her native Italy. Introducing her tale as “a story the protagonist told me when I was a child and which I stumbled across...

The Dragons, the Giant, the Women by Wayétu Moore [in Booklist]

18 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Wayétu Moore is the first to speak, although only briefly, to share her initial excitement over the possibility of narrating her elegant memoir. That opportunity, alas, became another “casualty of COVID-19,” preventing her from safe studio time, but she adds a personal thanks to narrator...

The Magical Language of Others by E. J. Koh [in Library Journal]

16 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Korean, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

That she’s fluent in Korean, Japanese, and English ensures a smooth double debut – as memoirist and narrator – for poet E. J. Koh (A Lesser Love). Her languid delivery is a lulling invitation into emotional intimacy. From her San Jose, California, birth into early...

Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother’s Letter to Her Son by Homeira Qaderi, translated by Zaman Stanizai [in Shelf Awareness]

05 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Afghan, Afghan American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

During the 985 nights since she was cleaved from her then 19-month-old, still-breastfeeding son, Homeira Qaderi managed to escape her native Afghanistan and eventually settle in California. Her son, now 4, has been told his mother is dead. With this haunting memoir, Dancing in the...

Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey [in Booklist]

03 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey makes both her prose and narrating debut with a startling memoir that alchemizes neverending trauma into an exquisite memorial. On June 5, 1985, Trethewey’s mother, Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough, was murdered by former stepfather Joel Grimmett on Atlanta’s Memorial...

Nineteen by Ancco, translated by Janet Hong [in Booklist]

02 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Introduced to Western audiences with the internationally awarded Bad Friends (2018), Ancco returns with a five-years-in-the-making collection she wrote in her early 20s, originally published more than a decade ago in her native Korea. Translated by prize-winning Canadian Janet Hong, these 13 stories are largely...

Kimiko Does Cancer by Kimiko Tobimatsu, illustrated by Keet Geniza [in Booklist]

30 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Memoir, Repost

“I’m not a big fan of the common sentiment, ‘Cancer made me a better person,’” Kimiko Tobimatsu admits in her author’s note. “But then, cancer did make me a better person.” Diagnosed at 25 with “a rare form of breast cancer – mucinous,” Tobimatsu is...

Invisible Differences: A Story of Asperger’s, Adulting, and Living a Life in Full Color by Julie Dachez, illustrated by Mademoiselle Caroline, translated by Edward Gauvin [in Shelf Awareness]

23 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

In her enormously affecting comics debut, Invisible Differences, French activist Julie Dachez introduces her autobiographical stand-in, 27-year-old Marguerite. Marguerite's daily life is most comfortable when she abides by her familiar rituals: wear soft clothes, depart for work at 7:30 a.m., grab her daily spelt roll...

Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang [in Shelf Awareness]

21 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Biography, Black/African American, European, Hmong American, Memoir, Myanmarese (Burmese) American, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian American, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

"The people in this book are people from your lives," Kao Kalia Yang writes to her three sleeping children in the final chapter of her affecting hybrid nonfiction collection, Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir. Minnesota – where Yang has lived for...

Dead Girls by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott [in Shelf Awareness]

17 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South American, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW "As a girl, I sensed that there wasn't really anywhere I was safe," Selva Almada (The Wind That Lays Waste) reveals in the chilling author's note about growing up in a provincial Argentinian town. By 8, Almada had already experienced verbal sexual abuse, accosted...

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist by Adrian Tomine [in Booklist]

24 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW As early as age 8, Adrian Tomine (Killing and Dying) publicly announced exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up: “A famous cartoonist,” he told his Fresno class in 1982. He confused his teacher, who thought perhaps he aspired to be Walt...

Happiness Will Follow by Mike Hawthorne [in Booklist]

23 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Puerto Rican, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Born Michael Anthony Hawthorne, his last name was “swiftly pilfered from [his] father” by his Puerto Rican mother “to keep [him] safe in ways she never was.” Yet surviving into adulthood was a near-superhuman feat: his single mother’s fierce love came with horrific stipulations...

Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness by Catherine Cho [in Shelf Awareness]

19 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Ultimately, Inferno is a love story: raw, unfiltered, wrenching, lifesaving. Catherine Cho, a Korean American literary agent living in London, makes her debut with a scorching memoir about the postpartum psychosis that nearly destroyed her – but didn't. On November 4, 2017, Cho and husband, James,...

Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir by Bishakh Som [in Booklist]

07 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American

Earlier this year, Bishakh Som debuted her dazzling graphic collection, Apsara Engine, the genesis of which is found here – inseparably entwined with Som’s own unique origin story. Som introduces herself in a narrative frame, bordering the memoir’s beginning and end: “I wanted to clue...

Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes by Lun Zhang and Adrien Gombeaud, illustrated by Ameziane, translated by Edward Gauvin [in Booklist]

31 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Lun Zhang was there during “the largest spontaneous gathering in all of Chinese history,” surrounded by “the joys and smiles of Beijing’s youth” hoping to achieve freedom and democracy. At 26, he was older than his student counterparts; he had “lived through the regime’s most...

The Toni Morrison Book Club by Juda Bennett, Winnifred Brown-Glaude, Cassandra Jackson, Piper Kendrix Williams [in Booklist]

08 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW In their joint introduction, four The College of New Jersey colleagues – three African American women, one gay white man, all PhD-ed – declare, “Toni Morrison is our greatest living historian about love, race, nation, and just about everything else of consequence.” The Nobel...

Fairest: A Memoir by Meredith Talusan [in Shelf Awareness]

01 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Filipina/o American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

For Meredith Talusan, transformation looks like this: "Sun Child," "Harvard Man," "Lady Wedgwood." In the nimbly titled Fairest, award-winning journalist Talusan shares an unflinching exploration of identity. "Mirrors were not just mirrors to me," she writes in her prologue, "but bridges made of light to fantastic...

Little Josephine: Memory in Pieces by Valérie Villieu, illustrated by Raphaël Sarfati, translated by Nanette McGuinness [in Booklist]

26 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

For Parisian nurse Valérie Villieu, the proverbial City of Lights is “filled with solitude, isolation, and confinement” – especially for the elderly. Villieu meets soon-to-be-84 Josephine, trapped in her tiny apartment with a stuffed dog and bear as her only constant companions. For months, Josephine...

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