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From the Bookshelf
Tails & Tales: Memoirs that Inform and Inspire
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IN-BETWEEN ATTENDING OUR SUMMER READING programs and events, try passing the time with these stories of inspiration.
1. “Children of the Land: A Memoir” by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo (2020)
An unforgettable memoir from a prizewinning poet about growing up undocumented in the United States.
2. “Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019”
edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain (2021)
Ninety extraordinary voices tell the epic story of the 400-year journey of African Americans from Jamestown’s first slaves in 1619 to today’s Black Lives Matter movement.
3. “Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind
of an American Family” by Robert Kolker (2020)
Robert Kolker uncovers the heartrending story of a mid-century American family with 12 children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science’s great hope in the quest to understand the disease.
4. “How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir”
by Saeed Jones (2019)
Haunted and haunting, “How We Fight for Our Lives” is a stunning coming-of-age memoir about a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself.
5. “The Man Who Ate Too Much: the Life of James Beard” by John Birdsall (2020)
“The Man Who Ate Too Much” brings to life a towering figure who represents the best in eating and has never been fully understood .
6. “One Life” by Megan Rapinoe and Emma Brockes (2020)
Megan Rapinoe, an Olympic gold medalist and two-time Women’s World Cup champion, writes about her life. She urges us to ask ourselves, “What will you do with your one life?”
7. “Paper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked
Their Lives to Defy the Nazis” by Jeffrey H. Jackson (2020)
“Paper Bullets” tells of an audacious campaign undertaken by two French women, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, who drew on their skills as Parisian avant-garde artists to write and distribute insults against Hitler and the Nazis.
8. “Untamed” by Glennon Doyle (2020)
“Untamed” is an intimate memoir of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. 9. “They Called Us Enemy” by George Takei et al (2019)
George Takei’s stunning graphic memoir recounts his childhood imprisonment in American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty and love.
10. “When Harry Met Minnie: A True
Story of Love and Friendship” by Martha Teichner (2021)
Martha Teichner writes a touching memoir of love and loss, of being in the right place at the right time, and of the mysterious ways a beloved pet can bring people together. I| S
— LARA LUCK, collection development
