Showing titles in Cultural & Regional

Rooted in two vastly different cultures, a young man struggles to understand himself, find his place in the world, and reconnect with his mother - and her remote tribe in the deepest jungles of the Amazon rainforest - in this powerful memoir that combines adventure, history, and anthropology.

A generation of 20th-century Americans knew him as a gentle, stoop-shouldered old black man who loved plants and discovered more than a hundred uses for the humble peanut. George Washington Carver goes beyond the public image to chronicle the adventures of one of history's most inspiring and remarkable men.

Since 1851, The New York Times has published thousands of obituaries—for heads of state, celebrities, scientists, and athletes. There’s even one for the person who invented the sock puppet. But, until recently, only a fraction of the Times’s obits chronicled the lives of women or people of color. The vast majority tell of the lives of men—mostly white men. Now, in the first book connected to the trailblazing series, Overlooked shares 66 extraordinary stories of women, BIPOC and LGBTQIA figures, and people with disabilities who have broken rules and overcome obstacles.

In the winter of 1986, driven by an, “everlasting itch for things remote” a knucklehead, disobeying official orders from the Chinese police, sneaks across the southern branch of the Silk Road en route to Lhasa, Tibet. Along the way a series of unique circumstances unfold which alter his perception of life and love forever.

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....

In this revealing and beautifully written memoir, Mark Obama Ndesandjo recounts his complex relationship with his older half brother, President Barack Obama, including their first meeting in Kenya over 20 years ago. The book also offers the author's inspiring personal story about identity and multiculturalism.

As the 20th century was ending and the millennium approached, a new ethnic category was invented in the South. The Melungeons were born thrashing and squawling into the American consciousness. They were a tri-racial clan hidden away in the hills and hollers of Lower Appalachia with a genetic predisposition to six fingers and Mediterranean diseases and an unsavory reputation for moonshining, counterfeiting and secret cults.

Carol Wall, a white woman living in a lily-white neighborhood in Middle America, was at a crossroads in her life. Her children were grown; she had successfully overcome illness; her beloved parents were getting older. One day she notices a dark-skinned African man tending her neighbor's yard. His name is Giles Owita. He bags groceries at the supermarket. He comes from Kenya. And he's very good at gardening. Before long Giles is transforming not only Carol's yard, but her life....

Sarfraz Manzoor was two years old when, in 1974, he emigrated from Pakistan to Britain with his mother, brother, and sister. Sarfraz spent his teenage years in a constant battle, trying to reconcile being both British and Muslim, trying to fit in at school and at home. But it was when his best friend introduced him to the music of Bruce Springsteen that his life changed completely. Both a tribute to Springsteen and a story of personal discovery, Greetings from Bury Park is a warm, irreverent, and exceptionally perceptive memoir about how music transcends religion and race.

In her extraordinary follow-up memoir, The Arrogant Years, Lagnado revisits her first years in America, and describes a difficult coming-of-age tragically interrupted by a bout with cancer at age 16. At once a poignant mother and daughter story and a magnificent snapshot of the turbulent ’60s and ’70s, The Arrogant Years is a stunning work of memory and resilience that ranges from Cairo to Brooklyn and beyond - the unforgettable true story of a remarkable young woman’s determination to push past the boundaries of her life and make her way in the wider world.

This book restores a little-known advocate of Indian rights to her place in history. In June 1889 a widowed Brooklyn artist named Catherine Weldon traveled to the Standing Rock Reservation in Dakota Territory to help Sitting Bull hold on to land that the government was trying to wrest from his people. Her efforts were counterproductive; she was ordered to leave the reservation, and the Standing Rock Sioux were bullied into signing away their land. But she returned with her teenage son, settling at Sitting Bull's camp on the Grand River.

Uplifting and occasionally heartbreaking stories of love from the time of slavery in the American south.

Over the course of a lifetime of service to his country, Colin Powell became a national hero, a beacon of wise leadership, and, according to polls, "the most trusted man in America". From his humble origins as the son of Jamaican immigrants, to the highest levels of government in four administrations, he helped guide the nation through some of its most heart-wrenching hours.

At the 1968 Olympics, Tommie Smith came in first in the 200-meter dash. As they received their medals, he and bronze winner John Carlos each raised a black-gloved fist, creating an indelible image of courage and protest that still resonates 40 years later. In this, his autobiography, Smith fills out the story of that moment - how it came to be and where it led him, and paints a vivid picture of the long, painful backlash that came with his fame, and his fate, all of which was rapped up in his "silent gesture".

Actress, singer, author Angela Bowie draws upon her years of working with ex-husband David Bowie in the exciting Glam Rock '70s when boys were wearing mascara, and society was changing, to tell the story of Lipstick Legends. She also interviewed Mae West, Jayne County, Alice Cooper, producer Kim Fowley, Warhol legend Cherry Vanilla, Glenn Hughes of deep purple, Chris Robison of The New York Dolls, musician Chick Cashman, and David Bowie's mime teacher and mentor Lindsay Kemp.

Born and raised in a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish family, Tova Mirvis committed herself to observing the rules and rituals prescribed by this way of life. After all, to observe was to be accepted and to be accepted was to be loved. She married a man from within the fold and quickly began a family. But over the years, her doubts became noisier than her faith, and at age 40 she could no longer breathe in what had become a suffocating existence.

Terrie had made it: She had launched her own public relations company with such clients as Eddie Murphy and Johnnie Cochran. Yet she was in constant pain, waking up in terror, overeating in search of relief. For 30 years she kept on her game face of success, exhausting herself daily to satisfy her clients' needs while neglecting her own. When she finally collapsed, she had no clue what was wrong or if there was a way out.

Cinelle Barnes was barely three years old when her family moved into Mansion Royale, a stately ten-bedroom home in the Philippines. Filled with her mother’s opulent social aspirations and the gloriously excessive evidence of her father’s self-made success, it was a girl’s storybook playland. But when a monsoon hits, her father leaves, and her mother’s terrible lover takes the reins, Cinelle’s fantastical childhood turns toward tyranny she could never have imagined.

The sons and daughters of slaves and slaveholders attempt racial reconciliation in York County, South Carolina – the onetime heart of the Klu Klux Klan. As they embark on their global journey, they find trauma – and heroes – through the generations...and a path to healing.

In Elina Penners fulminantem Sachbuchdebüt geht es um Dinge, die auf den ersten Blick wenig kontrovers anmuten: den Kauf eines Schulranzens, das Sitzenbleiben der Kinder am Tisch nach dem Essen oder Medienkonsum. All das wird von Eltern mit Migrationshintergrund, Alleinerziehenden oder Eltern aus der sogenannten "Arbeiterschicht" oft anders gehandhabt als von ihren "bessergestellten" Pendants. Pointiert zeigt Elina Penner, wie politisch Elternschaft ist.