Cultural Memoir

Marcella Hazan is known as America's godmother of Italian cooking. The owner of her own cooking schools, and author of bestselling and award-winning cookbooks, she has collected invitations to cook at top restaurants around the world. Her story begins in Alexandria, Egypt, where an early...

As the US occupation of Iraq rages, novelist Mortada Gzar, a student at the University of Baghdad, has a chance encounter with Morise, an African American soldier. It’s love at first sight, a threat to them both, and a moment of self-discovery. Challenged by society’s rejection and Morise’s return to the US, Mortada takes to the page to understand himself. In his affecting memoir, Mortada interweaves tales of his childhood work as a scrap-metal collector in a war zone and the indignities faced by openly gay artists in Iraq with his impossible love story and journey to the US.

Candid and moving, The Face Pressed Against a Window charts the life of one of our most celebrated business leaders. Tim Waterstone is one of Britain's most successful businessmen, having built the Waterstones empire that started with one small bookshop in 1982. In this charming and evocative memoir, he recalls the childhood experiences that led him to become an entrepreneur and outlines the business philosophy that allowed Waterstones to dominate the book-selling business throughout the country.

Tracing the four days from the moment she gets the call that every immigrant fears to the burial of her mother, Elizabeth Nunez tells the haunting story of her lifelong struggle to cope with the consequences of the 'sterner stuff' of her parents' ambitions for their children and her mother's seemingly unbreakable conviction that displays of affection are not for everyday use. But Nunez sympathizes with her parents.

A major, best-selling novelist and former magazine editor, long married to a handsome and successful stockbroker with whom she has a beautiful daughter and son, Benilde Little once had every reason to feel on top of the world. But as illness, the aging of her parents, and other hurdles interrupted her seemingly perfect life, she took a tailspin into a pit of clinical depression. Told in her own fearless and wise voice, Welcome to My Breakdown chronicles a cavern of depression so dark that Benilde didn't know if she'd ever recover.

In Oakland Hills, Milwaukee Rivers: A Memoir of Survival, Identity, and Purpose, Dr. Keyimani L. Alford opens the door to his most vulnerable truths. From the quiet knock that changed his life to the fractured moments of family, faith, and identity, this second edition goes deeper than ever before—expanded with new chapters, fresh reflections, and the lasting legacy of Aunt Grace. You’ll walk through his hills—the weight of struggle, abandonment, and silence—and cross his rivers—the grace of healing, resilience, and purpose.

One of crime's most colourful and idiosyncratic leaders is examined in crime writer Nate Hendley's fast-paced book. A treat for fans of true-crime and bizarre mob stories. Nate Hendley brings to the lexicon of gangster profiles a meticulously researched, very human examination of this legendary figure.

'Brown Baby is a beautifully intimate and soul-searching memoir. It speaks to the heart and the mind and bears witness to our turbulent times.' - Bernardine Evaristo How do you find hope and even joy in a world that is racist, sexist and facing climate crisis? How do you prepare your children...

Early in the morning of 6th October 1957, a five-year-old boy looked up to the skies over the Tunisian Sahel region to get a glimpse of the very first satellite in orbit around Earth, the famous Sputnik. Despite not spotting it, he started dreaming of a future high up in the skies. Little did the young boy know then about his future, and that his life would eventually fulfill and even exceed his wildest dreams.

The second and concluding volume of Noël Coward's legendary autobiography includes Future Indefinite and the unfinished Past Unconditional. With his trademark wit, Coward delivers anecdotes about his travels in South America, Hollywood encounters with an array of contemporary stars and directors, and his later theatrical successes, including the Broadway triumph of Design For Living.

"You will be a son, my daughter." With these stunning words Ukmina learned that she was to spend her childhood as a boy. In Afghanistan there is a widespread practice of girls dressing as boys to play the role of a son. These children are called bacha posh: literally "girls dressed as boys." This practice offers families the freedom to allow their child to shop and work - and in some cases, it saves them from the disgrace of not having a male heir. But in adolescence, religion restores the natural law.

Footprints in the Margin: The Life of a Forgotten Cultural Mediator recounts the quiet yet deeply influential life of an individual who served as a bridge between cultures—only to be overlooked by history. Born in one land and raised in the language of another, the protagonist carried within them a rare gift: the ability to understand—and translate—two seemingly distant worlds. The book delves into the life of a translator, letter writer, linguistic advisor, and cultural intermediary during critical historical moments—from international summits to postwar negotiations.

Martin Luther was a controversial figure during his lifetime, eliciting strong emotions in friends and enemies alike, and his outsized persona has left an indelible mark on the world today. Living I Was Your Plague explores how Luther carefully crafted his own image and how he has been portrayed in his own times and ours, painting a unique portrait of the man who set in motion a revolution that sundered Western Christendom.

The mixed population is the fastest-growing group in the UK today, but the mainstream conversation around mixedness is stilted, repetitive and often problematic. At a time when ethnically ambiguous models fill our Instagram feeds and our high street shop windows, and when children of interracial relationships are lauded as heralding in the dawn of a post-racial utopia, journalist Natalie Morris takes a deep dive into what it really means to be mixed in Britain today.

In honest, confessional prose, Born on the Bayou - a roller-coaster rags-to-riches story - transports us to a pocket of the South where Lourd learns how to be a man from the two people he looks up to the most: his larger-than-life father, "Puffer", a prominent figure in the oil business; and his successful older brother, Bryan.

يتناول هذا الكتاب مذكرات الرحالة الإسباني «دومينجو باديا إي ليبليش» الذي انتحل شخصية «علي باي العباسي» مُدَّعِياً أنه من أحفاد العباسيين الهاربين إلى أوروبا بعد سقوط دولتهم. بدأ رحلاتـه من المغرب حتى الشرق العربي في مرحلة من أخطر مراحل المنطقة سياسياً مع نهايات القرن الثامن عشر وبدايات القرن التاسع عشر؛ الفترة التي شهدت المدّ البريطاني الفرنسي على المنطقة للسيطرة على طريق التجارة مع الهند وشرق آسيا. هذه المذكرات والرحلات لم يلتفت إليها سوى القليل من العرب رغم ترجمتها ونشرها في عدد من اللغات الحية مثل الفرنسية والإنجليزية والألمانية. يشمل هذا الكتاب وصف رحلة علي باي إلى المدن والمجتمعات التي مر بها من شمال أفريقيا إلى الإسكندرية والقاهرة، ثم رحلته إلى الحجاز وأدائه مناسك الحج، مع وصف دقيق لمكة والكعبة المشرفة، والشخصيات التي التقاها في الحجاز، ثم عودته إلى القاهرة والرحيل منها باتجاه الشام، ماراً بشمال سيناء ومدن وقرى فلسطين حتى وصوله إلى أورشليم (القدس)، ليواصل رحلته منها إلى دمشق، مع وصف دقيق لنشاط سكان تلك البلاد في مجال التجارة، والعناصر المختلفة المكونة لمجتمعاتها السكانية.

Growing up as one of fifteen children to black sharecroppers in the Jim Crow South, Samuel was raised to fight for what he believed in. From an early age, he was taught to speak out against injustice, follow his dreams, trust in God, and never forget his roots. From the Alabama plantation where his grandfather Nute was a slave, to riding the family wagon to church on Sundays, to working his way through the ranks as a factory employee in Niagara Falls, first-time author Samuel Carter shares his life story and family history with honesty and deep poignance.

From a celebrated figure of the food world comes a poignant, provocative memoir about being young and gay during the 1970s punk revolution in America Long before James Oseland was a judge on Top Chef Masters, he was a teenage rebel growing up in the pre–Silicon Valley, California, suburbs...

Here is a memoir about the seafaring culture of the West Coast of Scotland and the significance of the Gaelic language. The practice of architecture in Edinburgh and work in foreign fields, some up-roaring poetry and intriguing artistic collaborations follow. It will tell you tales, make you laugh, and also help you to understand what Scotland is now, and how we got here. It reads well, it looks beautiful, and it will last.

Many tales of horror about German occupation have been told through the ages. Some stories are well-known, the history books and television programs documenting them in wretched detail; others are more obscure: the painful separation of families as they attempted to escape an inevitable future, children snatched at a tender age and hidden, everyone wary and vigilant - and afraid. Those years were heavy and their victims mostly silent.