Showing titles in Cultural & Regional

What would life be like for a Black boy growing up in Nazi Germany? This unprecedented autobiography answers that question with the spellbinding true story of Hans J. Massaquoi’s life in Hamburg during the height of Hitler’s regime. Hans is the son of a Black Liberian diplomat father and a white German mother. His father returns to Africa at the beginning of the war, leaving them behind in poverty without the means to flee. Within this tense atmosphere, increasingly violent Nazi policies and Allied bombing raids make Hans and his mother’s lives a day-to-day survival struggle.

In this original and trenchant work, Christina Sharpe interrogates literary, visual, cinematic, and quotidian representations of Black life that comprise what she calls the "orthography of the wake". Activating multiple registers of "wake" - the path behind a ship, keeping watch with the dead, coming to consciousness - Sharpe illustrates how Black lives are swept up and animated by the afterlives of slavery, and she delineates what survives despite such insistent violence and negation.

Brought to you by Penguin. The Roma is a profoundly personal portrait of a people and their on-going journey, shedding new light on their history and what it means to be Romani in Europe today. It is a history that is not widely known and understood, and that invisibility has created a space...

Brutally Honest, Honestly Brutal. Skinhead Diaries is a record of 20th century social history when young people aligned themselves with youth cults. There were punks, rockabillies, rockers, teds, new romantics, mods, scooter boys, heavy metallers, hippies and goths. At the age of twelve Paul Burnley followed his older brother into the ranks of London skinheads. It was a path that lead to violence, under age drinking, police cells, family abandonment, hard core oi music and far right fantatisism. Written from the viewpoint and reckless attitude of the time, the author pulls no punches.

When his Los Angeles neighborhood was threatened by gangbangers, Stanley Tookie Williams and a friend formed the Crips, but what began as protection became worse than the original gangs. From deadly street fights with their rivals to drive-by shootings and stealing cars, the Crips' influence—and Tookie's reputation—began to spread across Los Angeles. Soon he was regularly under police surveillance, and, as a result, was arrested often, though always released because the charges did not stick.

In Lost & Found: The Journey of Socorro, Linda Ann Sanchez shares her remarkable memoir of survival, resilience, and self-discovery. From the uncertainty of her earliest years to the struggles of growing up in a world where she never quite felt at home, Linda’s story is one of perseverance and hope. Through the trials of adoption, the challenges of family relationships, and the search for faith and purpose, Linda discovers that healing isn’t just about finding where you come from—it’s about embracing where you are meant to be.

Xiaolu Guo has traveled further than most to become who she needed to be. Now, as she experiences the birth of her daughter in a London maternity ward surrounded by women from all over the world, she looks back on that journey. It begins in the fishing village shack on the East China Sea where her illiterate grandparents raised her, and brings her to a rapidly changing Beijing, full of contradictions: a thriving underground art scene amid mass censorship, curious Westerners who held out affection only to disappear back home.

Sanctuary is an ancient right. But what does it mean today? Drawing on a lifetime of engagement with literature, myth, history and tradition from different cultures, Marina Warner's Sanctuary is an ambitious attempt to grapple with the sharpest questions that we are facing in today's world of...

Like much of North Korea, Songmi Han lived in desperate poverty. As a child, she and her family endured extreme hardship, with many meals consisting of little more than grass. Domestic abuse, grueling physical labor, emotional abuse, and hunger were constant in her life. School was out of the question, and she and her mother stole food to survive. Greenlight to Freedom: A North Korean Daughter’s Search for Her Mother and Herself, written by Songmi Han and Casey Lartigue Jr., recounts Songmi’s childhood and escape from North Korea in a perilous and gripping narrative.

The film, television, and comedy legend tells the hilarious and moving story of how tough love, and a sense of humor made him the man he is today By the tender age of five, Bernie Mac had found his calling: making others laugh. He has since become the star and cocreator of Fox’s hit sitcom The...

In 2020, at the age of 100, Tetsuyo Ishii was interviewed by her local paper in Hiroshima. Her positive outlook, wholesome lifestyle and connection to her community instantly captured the hearts of people. In this charming book, Granny Tetsuyo shares the optimistic principles by which she lives her life, and the simple daily rituals that sustain her.

‘If only my Cantonese parents weren’t so allergic to the word love…’ ‘A wonderfully heart-warming memoir from the bottom of the stomach. ’ Xiaolu Guo ‘A real and delightful surprise, full of smart thought and deft words – and also very funny.’ Ella Risbridger 'Poetic, delicious...

‘Deeply moving and necessary’ ANNE ENRIGHT ‘A must-read’ iPAPER ‘Original and heart-warming’ LINDSEY HILSUM ‘Remarkable … the perfect antidote to our times’ CHRISTINA LAMB From the Orwell Prize-winning author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned comes a powerful account of human...

Brought to you by Penguin. On 28 February 2013, a 600-year-old tradition was shattered: the conservative Pope Benedict XVI made a startling announcement. He would resign. Reeling from the news, the College of Cardinals rushed to Rome to congregate in the Sistine Chapel to pick his successor...

Inspired by the Academy Award-nominated Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?, an intimate and vivid look at the legendary life of Nina Simone, the classically trained pianist who evolved into a chart-topping chanteuse and committed civil rights activist. From music journalist and...

What does it mean to be Jew(ish) in 2020? Caught between tradition and modernity, between a Jewish family and a non-Jewish son, Matt Greene ponders the big questions concerning identity, religion, family and Seinfeld. When his son was born to a non-Jewish mother, Matt began to consider the upbringing he'd put behind him - the sense of not belonging, the forbidden foods, the holidays that felt more like punishments.

In The Yankee and the British War Bride, two voices from opposite sides of the Atlantic come together to tell a deeply personal story of resilience, love, and the enduring spirit of the Greatest Generation. Through handwritten memoirs, Mary Irene Cooper-Dodd of Tipton, England, and Ernest Joseph...

In Walking through Fire, Nawal El Saadawi, author of Woman at Point Zero and one of the Arab world’s greatest writers, tells the story of the later years of a life which shaped an iconic voice in global feminism. Covering her life in Nasser’s then Sadat’s and Mubarak’s Egypt, we learn about Saadawi’s experience of marriage and motherhood, and we travel with her into exile after her life was threatened by religious extremists. Filled with warmth as well as critical reflection, this book reveals the later years of a remarkable life dedicated to the fight for justice and equality.

Fahima Ali, a Brown girl raised in the UK, works as a therapist in the South Asian community. Also known as 'The Brown Therapist', she draws on her own lived experience to give a voice, validation and practical support to the often-overlooked struggles women face in the Brown community. As a society, we often fail to acknowledge or understand that people from different cultural backgrounds experience different lived-in circumstances. Our upbringing shapes and impacts our mental health in distinctive ways.

Stevie Wonder's achievements as a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer are extraordinary. During a career that has spanned almost fifty years, he has earned more than 30 Top 10 hits, 26 Grammy Awards, and a place in both the Rock and Roll and Songwriter Halls of Fame - and he's not finished yet. On the verge of turning 60, he is still composing, still touring, and still attracting dedicated fans around the world.