No Boundaries: 25 Women Explorers Share Adventures, Inspiration, and Advice by Clare Fieseler
Rather than detailing the lives of well-known women, this anthology celebrates lesser-known change-makers and outstanding women of diverse backgrounds, nationalities and fields of study who are just beginning to make a name for themselves. Along the way, they share lessons learned and words of wisdom sure to inspire the next generation of scientists, adventurers and world-changers.
Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions by Temple Grandin
A quarter of a century after her memoir Thinking in Pictures forever changed how the world understood autism, Temple Grandin transforms our awareness of the different ways our brains are wired. Do you have a keen sense of direction, a love of puzzles, the ability to assemble furniture without crying? You are likely a visual thinker. This is a landmark book that reveals, celebrates and advocates for the special minds and contributions of visual thinkers.
Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins
For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare; poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. In Can't Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40 percent of our capabilities. Goggins calls this “the 40 percent rule,” and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear and reach their full potential.
Tomorrow Will be Different by Sarah McBride
“We must never be a country that says there’s only one way to love, only one way to look, and only one way to live.” –Sarah McBride
This captivating memoir highlights Sarah McBride’s work as an activist and the key issues at the forefront of the fight for trans equality, providing a call-to-arms and empowering look at the road ahead. The fight for equality and freedom has only just begun. Foreword by Joe Biden
Black Folk Could Fly by Randall Kenan
This a personal, social and intellectual self-portrait of the beloved and enormously influential late Randall Kenan. His use of literary forms, nurtured and unbounded by his identities as a Black man, a gay man, an intellectual and a Southerner, resulted in some groundbreaking fiction. Less visible were his extraordinary nonfiction essays, published as introductions to anthologies and in small journals, revealing countless facets of Kenan’s life and work.
Evicted: Poverty and profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of 21st century America's most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which not much else is possible.
I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee
Baek Sehee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her depression. Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a 12-week period, and expanding on each session with her own reflective essays, this part memoir, part self-help book will appeal to anyone who has ever felt alone or unjustified in their everyday despair.
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin J. DiAngelo DiAngelo is one of the country’s foremost experts in whiteness studies - a scholar, lecturer, consultant and trainer on issues of social and racial justice for more than 20 years. In this in-depth exploration, the author examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what one can do to engage more constructively. The book offers practical tools for those willing to take on their own misunderstandings and ignorance of racism.
Solito by Javier Zamora
A gifted young poet shares his harrowing migration from El Salvador to the United States at the age of 9 in this moving, page-turning memoir. Solito not only provides an immediate and intimate account of a treacherous and near-impossible journey, but also the miraculous kindness and love delivered at the most unexpected moments. Solito is Javier's story, but it's also the story of millions of others who had no choice but to leave home.
Half American by Matthew F. Delmont
More than one million Black men and women served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units and performing unheralded but vital support jobs, only to be denied housing and educational opportunities on their return home. Without their crucial contributions to the war effort, the United States could not have won the war. And yet the stories of these Black veterans have long been ignored, cast aside in favor of the myth of the “Good War” fought by the “Greatest Generation.” This is a definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, written by civil rights expert and Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont.
Stay True by Hua Hsu
This is a coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary in a friendship between two Asian American children of immigrants, cut short by tragedy. Hsu’s voice shimmers with tenderness and vulnerability as he meticulously reconstructs his memories of a nurturing, compassionate friendship. Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Author Michelle Alexander, an associate professor of law at The Ohio State University and a civil rights advocate, argues that the United States has not ended racial caste, it has simply redesigned it. The U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community – and all of us – to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.
Son of Elsewhere by Elamin Abdelmahmoud
At 12 years old, Elamin Abdelmahmoud emigrates with his family from his native Sudan to Kingston, Ontario, arguably one of the most homogenous cities in North America. At the airport, he's handed his Blackness like a passport, and realizes that he needs to learn what this identity means in a new country. In his debut collection of essays, Abdelmahmoud gives full voice to each and every one of the conflicting selves he encounters and explores how our experiences and our environments help us in the continuing task of defining who we truly are.
The World Record Book of Racist Stories by Amber Ruffin & Lacey Lamar
Comedian Amber Ruffin and her sister Lacey present a collection of hilarious, intergenerational anecdotes full of absurd detail about everyday experiences of racism. They recount the wildest tales of racism from their parents, their siblings, and Amber’s nieces and nephews. This intergenerational look at ludicrous everyday racism as experienced across age, gender and appearance will have you gasping with shock and laughter in turn. Illuminating and packed with love and laughter, this is a must-read.
Ma and Me by Putsata Reang
When Putsata Reang was 11 months old, her family fled war-torn Cambodia. A refugee, she is caught between her identity as a gay woman and the love and life debt she owes her mother. With rare clarity and lyric wisdom, Ma and Me is a stunning, deeply moving memoir about love, debt and duty.
