Showing titles in Cultural & Regional

Adopted as an infant from Colombia and raised in the United States, Mariela Andersen has always been curious about her biological roots. She wants to know about her birth family and wonders if they ever think about her. When a search agent helps her locate her birth family and the mystery of her past is revealed, she discovers more than she could have ever imagined.

Written and read by best-selling Australian author and much-loved actor William McInnes, this is a story about our love affair with holidays. It's about going away and staying at home. It's about the relaxing times you had as a kid, escapes you have with your children and the stories you hear from your friends. It can be about a romantic sunset, the spare seat at breakfast being taken by an attractive stranger, a miraculous airline upgrade....

First published in 1997,

Little X chronicles the multigenerational experience of Tate's family, who broke from the traditional Black church in the 1950s to join the radical Nation of Islam, then struggled to remain intact through disillusionment, shifting loyalties, and forays into Orthodox Islam.

Little X offers a rare glimpse into the everyday experience of the Nation of Islam and into a little-understood part of America's history and heritage.

Growing up on the whitewashed Central Coast in the 1980s and attending an elite school as a scholarship student from the wrong side of the tracks, Lebanese-Cypriot Simone Amelia Jordan felt like an outcast among her peers for years. Her lifeline was hip-hop, then in its golden age. From girlhood, Simone recognised the art form's pro-Black consciousness, and the rappers' resonant words inspired her to embrace her own identity and back herself.

This is an art adventure story and a memoir all in one, written by a leading expert on the Renaissance whose metier is a high-stakes detective game involving massive amounts of money and frenetic activity in the service of the art market and scholarship alike. It's also an eloquent argument for the enduring value of visual creativity, told with passion, brilliance, and surprising candor.

An Afghan refugee’s extraordinary journey - from his early life as a shepherd boy in the mountains of Northern Afghanistan, to his forced exile after being captured and tortured by the Taliban, to incarceration in an Australian detention centre...and finally, to freedom. This moving and poignant work gives the listener a rare insight into the contented ‘milk and honey’ life of a simple Afghan family before the civil war ripped their country apart. The lives and centuries-old livelihood of farmers, craftsmen and small business owners were destroyed in just weeks and months.

Lea Ypi grew up in the last Stalinist country in Europe: Albania, a place of queuing and scarcity, of political executions and secret police. While family members disappeared to what she was told were "universities" from which few "graduated," she swore loyalty to the Party. In her eyes, people were equal, neighbors helped each other, and children were expected to build a better world.

Australian writer Amaryllis Gacioppo has been raised on stories of original homes, on the Palermo of her mother, the Benghazi of her grandmother and the Turin of her great-grandmother. But what does belonging mean when you're not sure of where home is? Is the modern nation state defined by those who flourish there or by those who aren’t welcome? Is visiting the land of one’s ancestors a return, a chance to feel complete, or a fantasy?

"Questo libro raccoglie alcune cose che ho imparato in tanti anni di professione, di incontri, di esperienze, di libri letti e scritti, di speranze e delusioni..." Così Piero Angela riassume e spiega la sua ultima fatica, un testo scritto di getto e nato dall'urgenza del momento, e dalle enormi sfide che ci attendono. Un lascito morale, dopo una lunghissima carriera al servizio dell'informazione e della formazione di generazioni di italiani.

Jack Ma is the quintessential simpleton who has a big heart and wants everyone to share in prosperity. He comes from humble beginnings, had trouble getting to school, had trouble finding a job, but did everything right despite the forces that were arrayed against his intentions. We all have that life where we feel the world just doesn’t value what we have to offer. Jack certainly felt that way, but eventually he found his stride. Today he sits at the top of a global behemoth that boasts sales of $1 billion in the first five minutes of its annual sales event.

Amor por Chile y una gran nostalgia son el origen de este libro: la presencia continuada del pasado, el sentimiento de verse ausente de la patria, la conciencia de haber sido peregrina y forastera... todo ello lo transmite Isabel Allende con inteligencia y humor.

In Character Building are 37 addresses that Booker T. Washington gave before students, faculty, and guests at the Tuskegee Institute. These addresses take the form of timeless advice on a number of subjects. These talks are delivered - in the motivational and uplifting manner one would expect from this American icon - on education, ethics, morals, deportment, spirituality, and the dignity of labor.

The series weaves together more than 50 first-person interviews with an unprecedented collection of archival sound: a rare recording of the 1964 trial that resulted in Mandela's life sentence; a visit between Mandela and his family secretly taped by a prison guard; marching songs of guerilla soldiers; government propaganda films; and pirate radio broadcasts from the African National Congress (ANC).

How did a Black child, growing up in segregationist Mississippi during the early 1900s, become the commander of the Imperial Ethiopian Air Corps during the brutal Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935? In this gripping, never-before-told tale, biographer Thomas E. Simmons brings to life Robinson’s outstanding success in becoming a pilot, his expertise in building and assembling his own working aircraft, his influence on the establishment of a school of aviation at Tuskegee Institute, and his wartime service.

A birder strolling in Central Park. A college student lounging on a university quad. Two men sitting in a coffee shop. Perfectly ordinary actions in ordinary settings—and yet, they sparked jarring and inflammatory responses that involved the police and attracted national media coverage. Why? In essence, Elijah Anderson would argue, because these were Black people existing in white spaces. In this book, Anderson brings his immense knowledge and ethnography to bear in this timely study of the racial barriers that are still firmly entrenched in our society at every class level.

At Canaan's Edge concludes America in the King Years, a three-volume history that will endure as a masterpiece of storytelling on American race, violence, and democracy. Pulitzer Prize-winner and best-selling author Taylor Branch makes clear in this magisterial account of the civil rights movement that Martin Luther King, Jr., earned a place next to James Madison and Abraham Lincoln in the pantheon of American history.

It hasn’t been easy being Michael Arceneaux. Equality for LGBTQ people has come a long way and all, but voices of persons of color within the community are still often silenced, and being Black in America is...well, have you watched the news? With the characteristic wit and candor that have made him one of today’s boldest writers on social issues, I Can’t Date Jesus is Michael Arceneaux’s impassioned, forthright, and refreshing look at minority life in today’s America.

Exactly 50 years ago, in 1955, the release of Pather Panchali heralded the arrival of a master in the world of cinema. Over the next 40 years, Satyajit Ray came to be regarded as one of the world’s finest filmmakers ever. Today, more than a decade after his death, he continues to be India’s most respected name in international film circles. Apart from his achievements as a director, Ray was also a prolific writer of novels, short stories, and essays on cinema. Speaking of Films brings together some of Ray’s most memorable writings on film and filmmaking.

Aretha Franklin: The Queen of Soul documents the beloved singing star’s rocky personal life and internationally acclaimed show business career. An in-depth and frank examination of Aretha, this definitive biography traces her career from her beginnings as a 12-year-old member of a church choir in the early 1950s, recording her first album at the age of 14, a major recording contract at 18, and stardom in her 20s, right up through her headline-grabbing 2010 health scare, to her triumphant return: singing to her cheering Detroit hometown fans in summer 2011.

In 1939, Jonathan Lichtenstein’s father, Hans, escaped Nazi-occupied Berlin as a child refugee on the Kindertransport. Almost every member of his family died after Kristallnacht and, arriving in England to make his way in the world alone, Hans turned his back on his German Jewish culture. Growing up in post-war rural Wales, where the conflict was never spoken of, Jonathan and his siblings were at a loss to understand their father’s relentless drive and sometimes eccentric behaviour.