Biography & Memoir
Stay True: A Memoir
By Hua Hsu
Like the best of memoir, Stay True contains multitudes; it’s a coming-of-age story, a grief narrative, an ode to friendship, a history lesson, a musical tribute, a capture of a moment and an awakening to it. In the mid-’90s, Hua Hsu started at UC Berkeley and became friends with Ken, both of them Asian but a study in opposites—beautiful, inseparable ones whose time together ended too quickly with Ken’s violent death. What follows is their story, both finite and all-encompassing. I loved it. —Melinda
Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships
By Nina Totenberg
Lucille Ball once said, “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” It is no surprise that two dynamic, influential women, Nina Totenberg and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, found ways to show up for each other professionally and personally over the course of their busy lives. In this memoir, Totenberg shows us how female friendships are key to both making it through life’s challenges and to opening up the possibility for women to live the professional life that they desire. This is a powerful and heartfelt account of one extraordinary friendship that also changed the world. —Casey
Bad Indians (10th Anniversary Edition)
By Deborah Miranda
As someone who has been meaning to read Deborah Miranda’s book (“memoir” is perhaps not quite the right word) for literally the last decade, I am so, so glad I took the plunge. The topics Miranda grapples with are hard, but she works through them with as much care and humor as one could ask for, embedding her writing always with admiration for her ancestors and hope for the future. —Jax
Nerd: Adventures in Fandom from This Universe to the Multiverse
By Maya Phillips
Calling all millennials nerds! Do you remember Saturday morning cartoons? Did Toonami set the rhythm of your afterschool hours? Do you wax nostalgic about your first anime or have strong opinions about the MCU? Maya Phillips does and, with the love and knowledge of a true fan, uses her wickedly sharp intellect to dive deep into the craft, meaning, and impact of these pieces of culture that used to be fringe and are now mainstream. —Jocelyn
One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World
By Michael Frank
Our ability to preserve the memories and lives of the Old World only exists if we listen to the history to be told. Stella Levi does just that by, over the course of one hundred Saturdays, recounting her remarkable life to author Michael Frank. Frank then shares her phenomenal story, of Levi’s life in the Juderia of Rhodes, an island housing Jews, Italians, Greeks, and Turks in harmony until World War II; through Auschwitz; and finally in America. Along with Maira Kalman’s poignant illustrations, One Hundred Saturdays reminds us of the vibrancy of the Jewish community and of the lifelong longing and fight to remember. —Casey
Concepcion: Conquest, Colonialism, and an Immigrant Family's Fate
By Albert Samaha
Concepcion by Albert Samaha is a perfect book for anyone interested in the Philippines and its people. In it, Samaha traces his family’s life from precolonial times to the diaspora of today. It is a well-researched, comprehensive history, a story of familial bonds, and an exploration of what it means to be a hyphenated American. —Ian
Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life
By Alice Wong
In this combination of personal essays, interviews, and a variety of pictures (including some memes!) Alice Wong describes and calls out the ableist nature of life in the US. In a “society hostile to difference,” Wong shows how much of being an activist is about fighting against that hostility, sometimes by simply existing. Truly a roaringly unique and powerful memoir, Year of the Tiger needs to be on everyone’s to-be-read list next. —Andrea
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
By Stacy Schiff
Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra) can make any historical figure a fascinating, urgent, and enjoyable study. However, resurrecting Samuel Adams from the trodden grounds of the American Revolution feels particularly fitting for today. Here is a man who blossomed in middle age, urged to action by his values in response to a world at odds with them; here is an activist, a motivating force for his community, fomenting from the beginning. There is much to learn about Sam Adams, and thus ourselves, and Schiff is our perfect guide.
—Melinda