Biography/Memoir
If you like biographies or memoirs, here is a great list for you to check out. (Updated September 2020)
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Lot Six
Growing up in a socially conservative Syrian Jewish immigrant colony in Brooklyn, a young gay man breaks free of constraints as he develops into an award-winning playwright among the community of characters and language of Brooklyn.
Format: Downloadable Audiobook
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The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez
Brought to the United States as a child, Aida was deported to Mexico years later and separated from her son, leading her to fight to return to her home and child despite detention centers and immigration nightmares.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Half Broke
At a prison ranch, horses and prisoners both arrive broken in some way, in a memoir that intertwines their healing with the writer’s life of painful childhood, followed by a career with horses, and successfully coming out as a lesbian.
Format: eBook
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Soaring to Glory
Vividly recalled from the cockpit of air battle, or in the footsteps of civil rights injustices, an African American fighter pilot recreates a time when heroism was necessary, during and after the war.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Beauty in Breaking
An African American female ER physician compassionately explains how her life and her experience with patients caused her to see that all humans are broken, and through that acknowledgment, resilience and healing can emerge.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Children of the Land
Growing up with borders in his life, a formerly undocumented immigrant observes the effects of the trauma of a parent deported, discovering his bisexuality, and intergenerational cultural experiences in an intimately but inventively told memoir.
Format: eBook
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Good Talk
Humor and openness spur this touching graphic memoir of conversations between a mother and a mixed-race six-year-old that reflect the complications of questions about race, sexuality, love, and family.
Format: Downloadable Graphic Novel
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The Magical Language of Others
In a poignant memoir, found letters spark the exploration of three generations of a Korean-American family’s traumas and recoveries in Asia and America, as told through the power of language and expression of daughter, mother, and grandmother.
Format: eBook
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What We Carry
Self-discovery is in the balance while raising a child and struggling with a fading mother in light of a burdened mother-daughter relationship, and emotions are rawly exposed in a poetic memoir of shifting family roles and relationships.
Format: eBook
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My Sister
Two sisters share a journey as women of color on the way to love and self-realization; media star Selenis and family strives to support Marizol, a trans woman activist, with her transition and new identity.
Format: eBook
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