Memoirs That Uplift Black Voices
In these memoirs, authors tell their own unique stories in their own words, reflecting a myriad of perspectives on notions of success, family, belonging, pop culture, and more. Add to your reading list to celebrate Black voices all year long!
Nichole Perkins takes readers on a rollicking trip through the last twenty years of music, media and the internet, exploring her experience with mental illness, her attachment to the TV show Frasier, her role as a mistress, Prince, and what it means to figure out desire and sexuality in a world where women are still expected to prioritize marriage.
Combining her sharp wit, stellar pop culture sensibility, and trademark spirited storytelling, Nichole boldly tackles the damage done to women–especially Black women–by society’s failure to confront the myths and misogyny at its heart. Nichole illuminates how to take the best pop culture has to offer and discard the harmful bits, offering a mirror into our own lives.
A Roxane Gay Audacious Bookclub November Pick
Named "Most Anticipated Books of 2021" by Buzzfeed and Lithub
Shellye Archambeau recounts how she overcame the challenges she faced as a young black woman, wife, and mother, managing her personal and professional responsibilities while climbing the ranks at IBM and subsequently in her roles as CEO. Through the busts and booms of Silicon Valley in the early 2000s, this bold and inspiring book details the risks she took and the strategies she engaged to steer her family, her career, and her company MetricStream toward success.
Through her journey, Shellye discovered that ambition alone is not enough to achieve success. Here, she shares the practical strategies, tools, and approaches readers can employ right now, including concrete steps to most effectively:
- Dismantle impostor syndrome
- Capitalize on the power of planning
- Take risks
- Developing financial literacy
- Build your network
- Establish your reputation
- Take charge of your career
- Integrate work, marriage, parenthood, and self-care
“[C]harming and surprising. . . The work of Admissions is laying down, with wit and care, the burden James assumed at 15, that she — or any Black student, or all Black students — would manage the failures of a racially illiterate community. . . The best depiction of elite whiteness I’ve read.”—New York Times
A Most Anticipated Book by Vogue.com · Parade · Town & Country · Nylon ·New York Post · Lit Hub · BookRiot · Electric Literature · Glamour · Marie Claire · Publishers Weekly · Bustle · Fodor's Travel· Business Insider · Pop Sugar · InsideHook · SheReads
Early on in Kendra James’ professional life, she began to feel like she was selling a lie. As an admissions officer specializing in diversity recruitment for independent prep schools, she persuaded students and families to embark on the same perilous journey she herself had made—to attend cutthroat and largely white schools similar to The Taft School, where she had been the first African-American legacy student only a few years earlier. Her new job forced her to reflect on her own elite education experience, and to realize how disillusioned she had become with America’s inequitable system.
In ADMISSIONS, Kendra looks back at the three years she spent at Taft, chronicling clashes with her lily-white roommate, how she had to unlearn the respectability politics she'd been raised with, and the fall-out from a horrifying article in the student newspaper that accused Black and Latinx students of being responsible for segregation of campus. Through these stories, some troubling, others hilarious, she deconstructs the lies and half-truths she herself would later tell as an admissions professional, in addition to the myths about boarding schools perpetuated by popular culture.
With its combination of incisive social critique and uproarious depictions of elite nonsense, ADMISSIONS will resonate with anyone who has ever been The Only One in a room, dealt with racial microaggressions, or even just suffered from an extreme case of homesickness.
From Academy Award-winning multi-talent Jamie Foxx, a hilariously candid look at the joys and pitfalls of being the father of two daughters.
Jamie Foxx has won an Academy Award and a Grammy Award, laughed with sitting presidents, and partied with the biggest names in hip-hop. But he is most proud of his role as father to two very independent young women, Corinne and Anelise. Jamie might not always know what he’s doing when it comes to raising girls—especially when they talk to him about TikTok (PlikPlok?) and don’t share his enthusiasm for flashy Rolls Royces—but he does his best to show up for them every single day.Luckily, he has a strong example to follow: his beloved late grandmother, Estelle Marie Talley. Jamie learned everything he knows about parenting from the fierce woman who raised him: As he puts it, she’s “Madea before Tyler Perry put on the pumps and the gray wig.”
In Act Like You Got Some Sense—a title inspired by Estelle—Jamie shares up close and personal stories about the tough love and old-school values he learned growing up in the small town of Terrell, Texas; his early days trying to make it in Hollywood; the joys and challenges of achieving stardom; and how each phase of his life shaped his parenting journey. Hilarious, poignant, and always brutally honest, this is Jamie Foxx like we’ve never seen him before.
*INDIE NEXT PICK*
*A LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR*
Writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers Amber Ruffin writes with her sister Lacey Lamar with humor and heart to share absurd anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism.
Now a writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and host of The Amber Ruffin Show, Amber Ruffin lives in New York, where she is no one's First Black Friend and everyone is, as she puts it, "stark raving normal." But Amber's sister Lacey? She's still living in their home state of Nebraska, and trust us, you'll never believe what happened to Lacey.
From racist donut shops to strangers putting their whole hand in her hair, from being mistaken for a prostitute to being mistaken for Harriet Tubman, Lacey is a lightning rod for hilariously ridiculous yet all-too-real anecdotes. She's the perfect mix of polite, beautiful, petite, and Black that apparently makes people think "I can say whatever I want to this woman." And now, Amber and Lacey share these entertainingly horrifying stories through their laugh-out-loud sisterly banter. Painfully relatable or shockingly eye-opening (depending on how often you have personally been followed by security at department stores), this book tackles modern-day racism with the perfect balance of levity and gravity.
Nearly four years after an errant tackle left him paralyzed below the waist, the inspiring comeback story of how former Pittsburgh Steeler Ryan Shazier recovered to walk again.
As an All-American at Ohio State and All-Pro linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ryan Shazier was living his best life while excelling at the game he loves, a game that has given him so much. But then Ryan was forced to redefine success. Suddenly, it was no longer measured by tackles or sacks, but by purpose and faith.
WALKING MIRACLE is the story of this new definition of success, following the arc from December 4, 2017, when Shazier was injured playing the Cincinnati Bengals, to his retirement. For three years, Shazier doggedly pursued a return to professional football. He took small wins as “first downs” on the drive to return to the field: moving his toes, walking, dancing at his wedding, and ultimately running and returning to the team. What Shazier didn’t realize is that along the way, he was preparing himself for another purpose—that of father and husband, philanthropist, and football analyst. The journey was preparing him not for a renewed life as a middle linebacker, but a renewed life after the game.
Here we see Shazier overcome childhood alopecia, which caused a great deal of emotional pain, and scoliosis, which nearly robbed him of his dreams of playing college and professional football. We gain insights into legendary coaches Urban Meyer and Mike Tomlin. And we see him star on the field. Shazier was one of the best defensive players in Steeler history—a history full of great defensive stars.
WALKING MIRACLE—the message on a bracelet given to him by his godmother—is the story of Ryan’s comeback, but it’s also a book of life’s lessons, challenges, and a love letter to the power of positive thinking.
As an All-American at Ohio State and All-Pro linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ryan Shazier was living his best life while excelling at the game he loves, a game that has given him so much. But then Ryan was forced to redefine success. Suddenly, it was no longer measured by tackles or sacks, but by purpose and faith.
WALKING MIRACLE is the story of this new definition of success, following the arc from December 4, 2017, when Shazier was injured playing the Cincinnati Bengals, to his retirement. For three years, Shazier doggedly pursued a return to professional football. He took small wins as “first downs” on the drive to return to the field: moving his toes, walking, dancing at his wedding, and ultimately running and returning to the team. What Shazier didn’t realize is that along the way, he was preparing himself for another purpose—that of father and husband, philanthropist, and football analyst. The journey was preparing him not for a renewed life as a middle linebacker, but a renewed life after the game.
Here we see Shazier overcome childhood alopecia, which caused a great deal of emotional pain, and scoliosis, which nearly robbed him of his dreams of playing college and professional football. We gain insights into legendary coaches Urban Meyer and Mike Tomlin. And we see him star on the field. Shazier was one of the best defensive players in Steeler history—a history full of great defensive stars.
WALKING MIRACLE—the message on a bracelet given to him by his godmother—is the story of Ryan’s comeback, but it’s also a book of life’s lessons, challenges, and a love letter to the power of positive thinking.
The celebrated ballerina and role model, Misty Copeland, shares the secrets of how to reshape your body and achieve a lean, strong physique and glowing health.
Misty Copeland believes "There has been a shift in recent years in which women no longer desire the bare bones of a runway model. Standards have changed: what women do want is a long, toned, powerful body with excellent posture." In other words, the body of a ballerina. In her first health and fitness book, Misty will show women how to find the motivation to get healthier and stronger, and how to reshape their bodies to be lean and flexible, with step-by-step advice, meal plans, workout routines, and words of inspiration.
Celebrating the importance of healthy fats and a fitness regimen based on ballet exercises, Misty shares her own time-tested exercises and an eating plan focusing on healthy fats, both of which keep her in top shape. Tips for motivation and words of encouragement as well as tips on how to keep going even when you may want to give up. An inspiring section on the importance of finding mentors, and eventually being one, plus excerpts from Misty's personal journal, round out this important book on grace and strength.
Misty Copeland believes "There has been a shift in recent years in which women no longer desire the bare bones of a runway model. Standards have changed: what women do want is a long, toned, powerful body with excellent posture." In other words, the body of a ballerina. In her first health and fitness book, Misty will show women how to find the motivation to get healthier and stronger, and how to reshape their bodies to be lean and flexible, with step-by-step advice, meal plans, workout routines, and words of inspiration.
Celebrating the importance of healthy fats and a fitness regimen based on ballet exercises, Misty shares her own time-tested exercises and an eating plan focusing on healthy fats, both of which keep her in top shape. Tips for motivation and words of encouragement as well as tips on how to keep going even when you may want to give up. An inspiring section on the importance of finding mentors, and eventually being one, plus excerpts from Misty's personal journal, round out this important book on grace and strength.