In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken—with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity—is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes ’zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn’t seem to have a place for either of them.

But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become friends, a friendship built on late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet.

Determined to hold on to all that was left of one of his closest friends—his memories—Hua turned to writing. Stay True is the book he’s been working on ever since. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary, Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.

For decades, Amy ran. Through the dirt roads of Amarillo, Texas, where she grew up; to the streets of New York, where she built her adult life; through marriage, motherhood, and a thriving career. To outsiders, it all looked, in many ways, perfect. But Amy was running from something – a secret she was keeping not only from her family and friends, but unconsciously from something terrible in her past.
 
When her ten-year-old daughter confronts her on the distance between them, Amy is propelled to confront what she has spent a lifetime trying to escape. So begins Amy’s journey through the world of MDMA-assisted psychedelic therapy, to the limits of the judicial system, and ultimately, home to Texas, where her story began.
 
In her relentless search for the truth, Griffin scrutinises the pursuit of perfectionism, control, and maintaining appearances that drives so many women. She asks the question: When, in our path from girlhood to womanhood, did we learn to look outside ourselves for validation? And what kind of freedom is possible if we better protect girls from being taken advantage of on this journey.
 
Heartbreaking, powerful and raw, The Tell points a way forward for all of us, shedding light on the courage and power of truth-telling that’s required to move through trauma.

Patrick was a wayward child who could not speak until he was four and ran away from boarding school. A disappointment to his parents and the despair of his teachers, he lacked the normal abilities that young people acquire as they grow up. After being sacked from his job, Patrick decided to try his fortunes overseas. A timid traveller and always obedient to authority, how did he come to the attention of the FBI, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Los Angeles Police Departments South Africa's Bureau of State Security and Rhodesia's BSA Police? And why did he come to be in police custody in Tanganyika and the first white man deported by newly independent Kenya? Back in England, Patrick's CV was no conducive to gainful employment of the kind enjoyed by his peers: encyclopaedia salesman, nomadic field-hand, lavatory cleaner, bear-chaser, baggage-smasher, waitress (yes!), factory labourer, scullion. The BBC offered sanctuary as a clerk, with few prospects of advancement. After five years of entertaining if ill-paid work in an office full of colourful misfits, Patrick fell into the embrace of the Civil Service. A trainee again at the age of 30, could things improve? Things could, but not without a catalogue of mishaps on the way. Patrick's propensity for bright ideas tended towards disaster, including a national crisis when he set in train the events that culminated in Black Wednesday.

From the political writer and podcaster, a ferociously honest and disarmingly funny memoir about her elusive mother’s encroaching dementia and a reckoning with her complicated childhood

Molly Jong-Fast is the only child of a famous woman, writer Erica Jong, whose sensational book Fear of Flying launched her into second-wave feminist stardom. She grew up yearning for a connection with her dreamy, glamorous, just out of reach mother, who always seemed to be heading somewhere that wasn’t with Molly. When, in 2023, Erica was diagnosed with dementia just as Molly’s husband discovered he had a rare cancer, Jong-Fast was catapulted into a transformative year.

How to Lose Your Mother is a compulsively readable memoir about an intense mother–daughter relationship, a sometimes chaotic upbringing with a fame-hungry parent, and the upheavals that challenge our hard-won adulthood. A pitch-perfect balance of acceptance and rage, humor and heart, How to Lose Your Mother tells a universal story of loss alongside a singular story of a literary life. This is a memoir that will stand alongside the classics of the genre.

Hier is dit nou! Riaan klim uit die TV-kas! Sy langverwagte outobiografie met die ware Riaan gaan elke mens laat regop sit.

Gou word die leser in hierdie kostelike, gemaklike en informatiewe biografie ingetrek, sodat jy later absoluut meegevoer word deur die welkome inligting. Dit voel eintlik asof jy vir ete by die Cruywagens genooi is en jy in 'n diep gemakstoel na daardie welluidende mooi stem sit en luister wat op 'n boertige en gesellige manier onthou. Hy bring al vir die afgelope 47 jaar vir ons die nuus in ons huis en lyk sowaar nog presies dieselfde. Vind uit hoekom hy die geloofwaardigste Suid-Afrikaner naas Nelson Mandela is. In hierdie boek wys ons jou wie Riaan werklik is. 'n Familieman wat ‘n passie het vir Afrikaans en wat mal is oor 'n goeie grap.

Hierdie boek gaan jou laat skater van die lag en jou hart laat warm klop na jy dit gelees het.

When Conor Niland was 16, he was chosen to hit with Serena Williams at Nick Bollettieri's famed tennis academy. Conor, the Irish junior number one, was feeling a bit homesick. Serena, also 16, already owned her own house beside the academy.

Conor Niland knows what it's like when Roger Federer walks into the dressing room ('Ciao, bonjour, hello!'), and he has had the exquisitely terrible experience of facing Novak Djokovic in the world's biggest tennis stadium - while suffering from food poisoning. But he never reached the very top.

The Racket is the story of pro tennis's 99%: the players who roam the globe in hope of climbing the rankings and squeaking into the Grand Slam tournaments. It brings us into a world where a few dozen super-rich players - travelling with coaches and physios - share a stage with lonely touring pros whose earnings barely cover their expenses. Painting a vivid picture of the social dynamics on tour, the economics of the game, and the shadows cast by gambling and doping, The Racket is a witty and revealing underdog's memoir and a unique look inside a fascinating hidden world.

South African poet and political activist Dennis Brutus (1924-2009) wrote poetry of the most exquisite lyrical beauty and intense power. And through his various political activities, he played a uniquely significant role in mobilising and intensifying opposition to injustice and oppression - initially in South Africa, but later throughout the rest of the world as well. This book focuses on the life of Dennis Brutus in South Africa from his childhood until he went into exile on an exit permit in 1966. It is also an attempt to acknowledge Brutus' literary and political work and, in a sense, to reintroduce Brutus to South Africa. This book places his own voice at the centre of his life story. It is told primarily in his own words - through newspaper and journal articles, tape recordings, interviews, speeches, court records and correspondence. It draws extensively on archival material not yet available in the public domain, as well as on interviews with several people who interacted with Brutus during his early years in South Africa. In particular, it examines his participation in some of the most influential organisations of his time, including the Teachers' League of South Africa, the Anti-Coloured Affairs Department movement and the Coloured National Convention, the Co-ordinating Committee for International Recognition in Sport, the South African Sports Association and the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee, which all campaigned against racism in South African sport. Brutus left behind an important legacy in literature involvement, in community affairs and politics in as well.

The old, top-down approach to leadership doesn't work any more. What we need is a more flexible, creative approach – one that empowers people to do their best work, rather than tells them to do so.

In Creative Leadership, Rama Gheerawo applies the mind of a design expert to the twenty-first-century organisation. In particular, his book shows how success in the future will increasingly be dependent on a mastery of three basic principles: creativity, clarity and empathy. Drawing on his own experience in leading over 100 design projects with government, business and the third sector, it sets out a blueprint for engagement and success that applies to everything from small enterprises, to large multinationals.

Harriet Backus writes about her life as an assayer's wife and true pioneer of the West with heart-felt emotion and vivid detail. Sharing her amusing and often challenging experiences as a new bride in the high San Juan Mountains where the Tomboy Mine operated above Telluride, Colorado, she paints a poignant picture of the people, and the life centered around silver mining where most of the book takes place. It is a skillfully written account from a women's perspective in a rough and tumble mining town that has made this book a classic for women's studies. Harriet's life followed her husband George's career which took them many places beyond the San Juan Mountains including the rugged coast of British Columbia, and the mountainous mining town of Elk City, Idaho and back to Colorado's Leadville. Although both Hattie and George were from the San Francisco bay area where they eventually retired, her heart never quite left the rugged mountain trails of the high San Juans of Colorado.

From the acclaimed, controversial singer-songwriter Sinéad O’Connor comes a revelatory memoir of her fraught childhood, musical triumphs, struggles with illness, and of the enduring power of song.

Blessed with a singular voice and a fiery temperament, Sinéad O’Connor rose to massive fame in the late 1980s and 1990s with a string of gold records. By the time she was twenty, she was world-famous—living a rock-star life out loud. From her trademark shaved head to her 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live when she tore up Pope John Paul II’s photograph, Sinéad has fascinated and outraged millions.

In Rememberings, O’Connor recounts her painful tale of growing up in Dublin in a dysfunctional, abusive household. Inspired by a brother’s Bob Dylan records, she escaped into music. She relates her early forays with local Irish bands; we see Sinéad completing her first album while eight months pregnant, hanging with Rastas in the East Village, and soaring to unimaginable popularity with her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

Intimate, replete with candid anecdotes and told in a singular form true to her unconventional career, Sinéad’s memoir is a remarkable chronicle of an enduring and influential artist.

Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War.

Unique from his contemporaries, Frantz Fanon examined the dangers of post-colonial power. His monumental contribution was posing questions and explaining the `curse' which national liberation would become for the developing world. Voices of Liberation: Frantz Fanon gives insight into the extraordinary thought and ideas of the man hailed as the 20th century's most important revolutionary. The book includes a gripping view on his life, the period he lived in and a selection of his work; also interviews with those who fought with him in the struggle against French colonialism in Algeria and Tunisia. Fanon's daughter, Mireille Fanon, has written the Foreword to Voices of Liberation: Frantz Fanon, where she explains the continued importance of her father's writings and politics. Dan Watts, editor of the radical newspaper Liberator, in 1967 described Fanon's influence on the revolt of black America: `You're going along thinking all the brothers in these riots are old winos. Nothing could be further from the truth. These cats are ready to die for something. And they know why. They all read. Read a lot. Not one of them hasn't read the Bible... Fanon... You'd better get this book. Every brother on a rooftop can quote Fanon.' The Voices of Liberation series celebrates the lives and writings of African Liberation activists and heroes. By providing access to the thoughts and writings of some of the many men and women who fought for the dismantling of apartheid, this series invites the contemporary reader to engage directly with the rich history of the struggle for democracy, to discover where we come from and to explore how we, too, can choose to shape our destiny.