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Recommended Reading

In a memoir about the joys and difficulties of straddling two cultures, the author describes her life with an extended Arab and American family, exploring the role of food, cooking, and eating in shaping her life.

In a heart-wrenching, candid autobiography, a human rights activist offers a firsthand account of war from the perspective of a former child soldier, detailing the violent civil war that wracked his native Sierra Leone.

Documents the story of the author’s decision to pursue her husband’s ambition to become a minister after his tragic accidental death.

The author describes his all-American childhood growing up as a member of the baby boom generation in the heart of Iowa, detailing his rich fantasy life as a superhero known as the Thunderbolt Kid and his remarkably normal 1950s family life.

Describes the legendary food expert’s years in France and her journey from a young woman from Pasadena who cannot cook or speak any French to the publication of her legendary cookbooks.

The correspondent and anchor for CNN recounts events from his life and career, offering a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most devastating modern tragedies and their effect on his own life.

This memoir recounts the story of John Bul Dau, one of the “Lost Boys” of Sudan.

An autobiographical portrait of marriage and motherhood by the acclaimed author details her struggle to come to terms with life and death, illness, sanity, personal upheaval, and grief.

A memoir of the author’s relationship with a pair of beloved canine companions is a tribute to their irrepressible personalities, their life-changing impact on the author and his family, and their role in how the author came to understand loss and grief.

A respected magazine editor/founder and onetime spokesman for Generation X offers a satiric, eloquent, and thoroughly tradition-shattering memoir that discusses the deaths of his parents from cancer, his raising of his younger brother, and more.

A memoir by a young female neurosurgeon journeys inside the world of brain surgery to provide a sometimes shocking view of her field.

The author describes her childhood in Africa during the Rhodesian civil war of 1971 to 1979, relating her life on farms in southern Rhodesia, Milawi, and Zambia with an alcoholic mother and frequently absent father.

In a candid memoir, a successful entrepreneur traces his journey from growing up with an abusive stepfather, to life on the streets as a homeless man with a small toddler in tow, to his triumphant battle to the top as a self-made millionaire.

Traces the author’s decision to quit her job and travel the world for a year after suffering a midlife crisis and divorce, a journey that took her to three places in her quest to explore her own nature and learn the art of spiritual balance.

The author offers a chronicle of growing up in a small town in America’s heartland, offering portraits of her family and her encounters with the complexities of the adult world, romance, and small-town life during the 1960s and 1970s.

Describes growing up in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the group of young women who came together at her home in secret every Thursday to read and discuss great books of Western literature, explaining the influence of Lolita, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, and other works on their lives and goals.

A coming-of-age memoir by a Vietnamese American recounts her struggles for an American identity in the pre-politically correct climate of the Midwest and her passion for American food in the face of her family’s Buddhist lifestyle.

Tells the story of a woman whose hurts from a difficult past are healed with the help of the companionship and affection of a formerly abused horse for which she has agreed to care.

In an entertaining and inspirational memoir of living with Asperger’s Syndrome, the author describes life growing up different in an unusual family, his unusual talents, his struggle to live a “normal” life, his diagnosis at the age of forty with Asperger’s, and the dramatic changes that have occurred since that diagnosis.

A hilarious memoir of life among the super rich — and super spoiled — describes how the author’s job as director of publicity at a prestigious prep school became translated into an effort to keep some of the wealthy, pretty, and mean mothers of the elite students happy.

In a memoir written with his brother, the popular author describes how the two of them dealt with their grief over the untimely deaths of their parents and only sister by embarking on a three-week odyssey around the world.

An autistic savant with genius-level mathematical talents describes how he was shunned by his classmates in spite of his super-human capacity for math and language and offers insight into how he experiences the world.

Describes the author’s move from the Michigan suburbs to the country and the unruly menagerie he and his wife accumulated along the way.

The child of an alcoholic father and an eccentric artist mother discusses her family’s nomadic upbringing, during which she and her siblings fended for themselves while their parents outmaneuvered bill collectors and the authorities.