From the founder and activist behind one of the largest movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the “me too” movement, Tarana Burke debuts a powerful memoir about her own journey to saying those two simple yet infinitely powerful words―me too―and how she brought empathy back to an entire generation in one of the largest cultural events in American history.
In the fall of 1959, Harvard recruited an unprecedented eighteen “Negro” boys as an early form of affirmative action. Four years later they would graduate as African Americans. Some fifty years later, one of these trailblazing Harvard grads, Kent Garrett, would begin to reconnect with his classmates and explore their vastly different backgrounds, lives, and what their time at Harvard meant.
Garrett and his partner Jeanne Ellsworth recount how these eighteen youths broke new ground, with ramifications that extended far past the iconic Yard. By the time they were seniors, they would have demonstrated against national injustice and grappled with the racism of academia, had dinner with Malcolm X and fought alongside their African national classmates for the right to form a Black students’ organization.
Part memoir, part group portrait, and part narrative history of the intersection between the civil rights movement and higher education, this is the remarkable story of brilliant, singular boys whose identities were changed at and by Harvard, and who, in turn, changed Harvard.
Coetzee grew up in a new development north of Cape Town, tormented by guilt and fear. With a father he despised, and a mother he both adored and resented, he led a double life—the brilliant and well-behaved student at school, the princely despot at home, always terrified of losing his mother’s love. His first encounters with literature, the awakenings of sexual desire, and a growing awareness of apartheid left him with baffling questions; and only in his love of the high veld (“farms are places of freedom, of life”) could he find a sense of belonging. Bold and telling, this masterly evocation of a young boy’s life is the book Coetzee’s many admirers have been waiting for, but never could have expected.
Che Guevara’s legend is unmatched in the modern world. Since his assassination in 1967 at the age of thirty-nine, the Argentine revolutionary has become an internationally recognized icon, as revered as he is controversial. As a Marxist ideologue who sought to end global inequality by bringing down the American capitalist empire through armed guerrilla warfare, Che has few rivals in the Cold War era as an apostle of revolutionary change. In Che: A Revolutionary Life, Jon Lee Anderson and José Hernández present the man behind the myth, creating a complex and human portrait of this passionate idealist.
Adapted from Jon Lee Anderson’s definitive masterwork, Che vividly transports us from young Ernesto’s medical school days as a sensitive asthmatic to the battlefields of the Cuban revolution, from his place of power alongside Castro, to his disastrous sojourn in the Congo, and his violent end in Bolivia. Through renowned Mexican artist José Hernández’s drawings we feel the bullets wing past the head of the young rebel in Cuba, we smell the thick smoke of his and Castro’s cigars, and scrutinize his proud face as he’s called “Comandante” for the first time. With astonishing precision, color, and drama, Anderson and Hernández’s Che makes us a witness to the revolutionary life and times of Che Guevara.
This book shows that a walk with God can be exhilarating, rewarding, and full of promise. Your fears will fade in the presence of the Living God.
Many know Pat Robertson as the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network whose programs have inspired faith in thousands of viewers. But Robertson’s ministry extends beyond CBN: he founded Operation Blessing which continues to provide hunger relief, safe water, orphan care, disaster relief, medical care, and development to communities in every US state and in over ninety countries. Robertson also organized The American Center for Law & Justice which has protected the rights of pro-life demonstrators as well as religious groups and individuals.
In this heartwarmingly honest account, Robertson gives you an inside look at his life and legacy, and shares about the power that dwells behind what’s visible. Packed with explosive truths about the reality of God, I Have Walked With the Living God lays bare Robertson’s deepest feelings about a God who brings miracles into the daily lives of those who trust Him. Discover what God can do when one hard-headed businessman meets the supernatural.
The British comedian of Nigerian heritage and co-executive producer and writer of the CBS hit series Bob Hearts Abishola chronicles her odyssey to get to America and break into Hollywood in this lively and humorous memoir.
According to family superstition, Gina Yashere was born to fulfill the dreams of her grandmother Patience. The powerful first wife of a wealthy businessman, Patience was poisoned by her jealous sister-wives and marked with a spot on her neck. From birth, Gina carried a similar birthmark—a sign that she was her grandmother’s chosen heir, and would fulfill Patience’s dreams. Gina would learn to speak perfect English, live unfettered by men or children, work a man’s job, and travel the world with a free spirit.
Is she the reincarnation of her grandmother? Maybe. Gina isn’t ruling anything out. In Cack-Handed, she recalls her intergenerational journey to success foretold by her grandmother and fulfilled thousands of miles from home. This hilarious memoir tells the story of how from growing up as a child of Nigerian immigrants in working class London, running from skinheads, and her overprotective Mom, Gina went on to become the first female engineer with the UK branch of Otis, the largest elevator company in the world, where she went through a baptism of fire from her racist and sexist co-workers. Not believing her life was difficult enough, she later left engineering to become a stand up comic, appearing on numerous television shows and becoming one of the top comedians in the UK, before giving it all up to move to the US, a dream she’d had since she was six years old, watching American kids on television, riding cool bicycles, and solving crimes.
A collection of eccentric, addictive, and uproarious stories that combine family, race, gender, class, and country, Cack-Handed reveals how Gina’s unconventional upbringing became the foundation of her successful career as an international comedian.
In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world.” She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone.
It started with an itch—first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion, and the six-hour naps that only deepened her fatigue. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her twenty-third birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival. Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames. By the time Jaouad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence. She would spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed, fighting for her life and chronicling the saga in a column for The New York Times.
When Jaouad finally walked out of the cancer ward—after countless rounds of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant—she was, according to the doctors, cured. But as she would soon learn, a cure is not where the work of healing ends; it’s where it begins. She had spent the past 1,500 days in desperate pursuit of one goal—to survive. And now that she’d done so, she realized that she had no idea how to live.
How would she reenter the world and live again? How could she reclaim what had been lost? Jaouad embarked—with her new best friend, Oscar, a scruffy terrier mutt—on a 100-day, 15,000-mile road trip across the country. She set out to meet some of the strangers who had written to her during her years in the hospital: a teenage girl in Florida also recovering from cancer; a teacher in California grieving the death of her son; a death-row inmate in Texas who’d spent his own years confined to a room. What she learned on this trip is that the divide between sick and well is porous, that the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms throughout our lives. Between Two Kingdoms is a profound chronicle of survivorship and a fierce, tender, and inspiring exploration of what it means to begin again.
You’ve never read a book like The Reason I Jump. Written by Naoki Higashida, a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, it is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic loved one at last have a way to break through to the curious, subtle, and complex life within.
Using an alphabet grid to painstakingly construct words, sentences, and thoughts that he is unable to speak out loud, Naoki answers even the most delicate questions that people want to know. Questions such as: “Why do people with autism talk so loudly and weirdly?” “Why do you line up your toy cars and blocks?” “Why don’t you make eye contact when you’re talking?” and “What’s the reason you jump?” (Naoki’s answer: “When I’m jumping, it’s as if my feelings are going upward to the sky.”) With disarming honesty and a generous heart, Naoki shares his unique point of view on not only autism but life itself. His insights—into the mystery of words, the wonders of laughter, and the elusiveness of memory—are so startling, so strange, and so powerful that you will never look at the world the same way again.
She dazzled millions as Gigi. Eliza Doolittle. Holly Golightly. But to her most adoring fan, Audrey Hepburn was best known for her role as “Mummy.”
In this heartfelt tribute to his mother, Sean Hepburn Ferrer offers a rare and intimate glimpse into the life of one of Hollywood’s brightest stars. Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit is a stunning compilation of nearly 300 photographs, many straight from the family album and never before published; archival documents, personal correspondence, and mementos; even paintings and illustrations from the actress herself.
Sean tells Audrey Hepburn’s remarkable story, from her childhood in war-torn Holland to the height of her fame to her autumn years far from the camera and the crush of the paparazzi. Sean introduces us to someone whose grace, charm, and beauty were matched only by her insecurity about her appearance and talent, and who used her hard-won recognition as a means to help children less fortunate than her own. With this unique biography, Sean celebrates his mother’s history and humanity
For more than forty years, Chinua Achebe maintained a considered silence on the events of the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967–1970, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Decades in the making, There Was a Country is a towering account of one of modern Africa’s most disastrous events, from a writer whose words and courage left an enduring stamp on world literature. A marriage of history and memoir, vivid firsthand observation and decades of research and reflection, There Was a Country is a work whose wisdom and compassion remind us of Chinua Achebe’s place as one of the great literary and moral voices of our age.
The Boot Room story starts in 1959 when Bill Shankly arrived and converted a 12 x 12storage room into a meeting place for him and his coaches, a move that had momentous consequences, both for the Club and British football.
Fans in the Kop will remember the heart-stopping extra time of the 1965 FA Cup Final, and the jubilation of winning the treble in 1984. But what was the common thread during Liverpool’s glory years? It was the Boot Room.
Lifelong Liverpool supporter and editor of legendary fanzine The End, Peter Hooton takes us back into that old storage room, where first Shankly, then Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish in succession, drank tea, analysed, strategized, selected and deselected, and built the most successful British club in Europe in the 20th Century.
Illustrated throughout with powerful never-before-seen images from the Mirror, the Echo and the Liverpool Post, Peter Hooton sheds new light on the story behind Liverpool FC ‘s most exulted era, and celebrates a city flourishing around it.
I Am Restored tells the untold story of how Lecrae’s past nearly ruined his future–until he learned that the wounds we carry can have the potential to be unlikely guides to healing and freedom for ourselves and others.
Throughout I Am Restored, Lecrae documents the shattering yet hopeful story of how he faced the scars of his past–sexual abuse, physical trauma, addiction, and depression–and emerged more fully human than ever before. With remarkable transparency and vulnerability, Lecrae reveals that at the height of his professional success, his life was spinning out of control, driven by a past that he had never confronted and a religious perspective that was incapable of meeting the challenge.
I Am Restored takes an unflinching look at the personal and public spaces that are too often at the societal core of our pain and heartache–culture, politics, family, church, and more–and teaches us that forgiveness can be the birthplace of the life that God has created for us.
Throughout this powerful, deeply personal account, Lecrae shares the life lessons he’s learned
Jamie Foxx has won an Academy Award and a Grammy Award, laughed with sitting presidents, and partied with the biggest names in hip-hop. But he is most proud of his role as father to two very independent young women, Corinne and Anelise. Jamie might not always know what he’s doing when it comes to raising girls—especially when they talk to him about TikTok (PlikPlok?) and don’t share his enthusiasm for flashy Rolls Royces—but he does his best to show up for them every single day.
Luckily, he has a strong example to follow: his beloved late grandmother, Estelle Marie Talley. Jamie learned everything he knows about parenting from the fierce woman who raised him: As he puts it, she’s “Madea before Tyler Perry put on the pumps and the gray wig.”
In Act Like You Got Some Sense—a title inspired by Estelle—Jamie shares up close and personal stories about the tough love and old-school values he learned growing up in the small town of Terrell, Texas; his early days trying to make it in Hollywood; the joys and challenges of achieving stardom; and how each phase of his life shaped his parenting journey. Hilarious, poignant, and always brutally honest, this is Jamie Foxx like we’ve never seen him before.
In 1992, the young Babs Omotowa accepted an offer to work in the materials department of a multinational oil company. And this was the start of an exciting journey up the corporate ladder – one that would see him go on to head corporations and global functions in Nigeria, the UK and the Netherlands and become a leader of note in global oil and gas.
Driven by the important values – hard work, honesty and integrity – inculcated in him by his teacher-farmer parents, Omotowa, in From Storeroom to Boardroom, chronicles his struggles and successes as a corporate guru tackling the challenges big businesses face in the developing world; ethical dilemmas in leadership; corruption in governance; and the future of climate change discourse.
The incredible life story of Haben Girma, the first Deafblind graduate of Harvard Law School, and her amazing journey from isolation to the world stage.
Haben grew up spending summers with her family in the enchanting Eritrean city of Asmara. There, she discovered courage as she faced off against a bull she couldn’t see, and found in herself an abiding strength as she absorbed her parents’ harrowing experiences during Eritrea’s thirty-year war with Ethiopia. Their refugee story inspired her to embark on a quest for knowledge, traveling the world in search of the secret to belonging. She explored numerous fascinating places, including Mali, where she helped build a school under the scorching Saharan sun. Her many adventures over the years range from the hair-raising to the hilarious.
Haben defines disability as an opportunity for innovation. She learned non-visual techniques for everything from dancing salsa to handling an electric saw. She developed a text-to-braille communication system that created an exciting new way to connect with people. Haben pioneered her way through obstacles, graduated from Harvard Law, and now uses her talents to advocate for people with disabilities.
Haben takes readers through a thrilling game of blind hide-and-seek in Louisiana, a treacherous climb up an iceberg in Alaska, and a magical moment with President Obama at The White House. Warm, funny, thoughtful, and uplifting, this captivating memoir is a testament to one woman’s determination to find the keys to connection.
Those who championed globalization once promised a world of winners, one in which free trade would lift all the world’s boats, and extremes of left and right would give way to universally embraced liberal values. The past few years have shattered this fantasy, as those who’ve paid the price for globalism’s gains have turned to populist and nationalist politicians to express fury at the political, media, and corporate elites they blame for their losses.
The United States elected an anti-immigration, protectionist president who promised to “put America first” and turned a cold eye on alliances and treaties. Across Europe, anti-establishment political parties made gains not seen in decades. The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union.
And as Ian Bremmer shows in this eye-opening book, populism is still spreading. Globalism creates plenty of both winners and losers, and those who’ve missed out want to set things right. They’ve seen their futures made obsolete. They hear new voices and see new faces all about them. They feel their cultures shift. They don’t trust what they read. They’ve begun to understand the world as a battle for the future that pits “us” vs. “them.”
Bremmer points to the next wave of global populism, one that hits emerging nations before they have fully emerged. As in Europe and America, citizens want security and prosperity, and they’re becoming increasingly frustrated with governments that aren’t capable of providing them. To protect themselves, many government will build walls, both digital and physical
