Category: True Story

Zahra Hankir edited a collection of Arab women journalists reporting from the Arab world. Palestine, Egypt, Yemen, Syria — these journalists report on wars, uprisings, and protests. From their vantage point, they are able to tell stories that male journalists would never have access to in their own work. They center women’s experiences as they write about sexual assault or trying to travel without a male relative. Western society often carries a lot of assumptions about the Middle East. These brave Arab women are here to tell their own stories, risking everything to bring a much-needed perspective of their home regions.

Back when Nicole Chung was the editor of Catapult Magazine, she noticed that there were a lot of essays around the themes of immigration. She teamed up with fellow editor Mensah Demary, and they brought together 20 essays by first and second-generation immigrants. These writers share the complex experience of moving to the U.S. Each writer describes their experiences living between cultures and how that has impacted their sense of self.

Raechel Anne Jolie grew up as a working-class kid on the outskirts of Cleveland. When she was just a girl, her father was hit by a drunk driver, which ended their way of life forever. From there, her childhood was spent moving from home to home, never seeming to stay for long. She finds the alt scene downtown and begins to discover a whole new world that she feels irrevocably drawn to. This tiny memoir is a shining testament to a love of working-class people, the Midwest, and queer culture.

Brian Broome couldn’t wait to leave northeast Ohio. He spent his childhood as a queer, Black kid never fitting in. But no matter where he moved, he still faced racism and homophobia. He describes how he coped with sex and drugs, always trying to forget the trauma he’d experienced while searching for belonging. Broome’s prose is incredible, with every word chosen for a reason. His memoir is full of heart and a deep sense of longing.

Literary powerhouse Morgan Parker is out with a new collection of essays that examine Parker’s feelings of alienation in just about every part of her life. She describes living with depression and a deep sense of loneliness. Her experience with disability impacts every aspect of her life. She shares stories of her white therapist, who proved unhelpful in Parker’s experiences as a Black woman with mental illness. In other essays, she expands from ideas of the personal, giving her readers a bigger picture of Black life in America. Morgan Parker is truly a gem of a writer, one with a unique perspective always worth reading.

Ann Gazmarian grew up as a devout evangelical, but when she’s diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she finds that many of the Christians in her community are far from supportive. Some people think that she must have done something wrong to have warranted such a diagnosis, while others don’t believe that mental illness even exists. Her diagnosis starts her journey away from the evangelical church to a spiritual place wholly new to her. Gazmarian’s writing is contemplative, and constantly examines her faith, her place in the world, and how she can move forward with her life.

Iliana Regan grew up on a small farm in Indiana, going out on foraging expeditions with her family members and learning how to live with the land around her. As she grew older and began to realize she was queer, she tried to bury that knowledge with alcoholism and an intense amount of work in the food industry. As she worked her way up through the restaurant world, she discovered her calling, the thing that gave her purpose. She began to focus more on ingredients, remembering her childhood spent searching for ingredients with her family. Regan writes about her complex inner world, struggling to stay sober and create a better world for herself where she accepts who she is and becomes her best self.

I’ve had my eye on this cookbook for years, so you can imagine how excited I was to receive it as a gift. Bottom of the Pot is the winner of the IACP 2019 First Book Award, presented by The Julia Child Foundation. It combines essays and recipes to create that unique pairing of cooking from a very personal place. Deravian gives us a diverse collection of Persian recipes, adding sections about how to treat individual ingredients so we get the best results.

If you love books about cults and how the mind works, Cultish is right in your wheelhouse. This book delves into the details around the language of cults and how everyday exposure to this language influences how people view the world. Through her narrative storytelling and incredible research skills, Montell takes us deep into the influence of cults and the words that help build them.

I first read Roxane Gay after her essay collection Bad Feminist hit shelves. Since then, Gay has written essays, celebrity profiles, and advice columns. Opinions includes the best of Gay’s writing, giving readers little snapshots of Gay’s life over the course of the last decade. There’s a profile of Janelle Monae describing how Afrofuturism influenced their album Dirty Computer. Gay writes about #MeToo from her perspective as a survivor of sexual assault, and pushes it further, discussing what it’s like to be well-known for being a survivor of sexual violence. In other, less serious pieces, Gay includes her delightful sense of humor and a practical take on what’s going on in the world.

Former Nickelodeon star Jennette McCurdy writes about her life as a child star, a job she never really wanted, but her mother insisted that she did. What’s more, McCurdy shares how her mother was incredibly abusive, forcing McCurdy to submit to intimate inspections of her body, even into her teen years, and restricting McCurdy’s diet to keep her looking younger longer. McCurdy’s reflection on her mother can be very clinical, removed from the emotions of the event, which reflects how she kept herself from thinking too deeply about her and her mother’s relationship. But, after her mother dies from cancer, McCurdy must confront the trauma from her childhood if she is ever to truly move on.

In both her prose and her audiobook performance, Jia Tolentino has an excellent narrative voice. In every essay, I feel like I’m sitting with her in a cafe listening to her talk to me about her time on a reality show, or about how expensive yoga pants represent some key issues with capitalism. While I may not have been interested in these topics if I had heard about them any other way, Tolentino’s writing makes me fascinated in whatever she wants to write about. Her vivid writing makes me committed to learning more about her ideas. I will pick up whatever Tolentino decides to write next.

The moment I read the description of Erica Berry’s new book, Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear, I knew I needed to read it. Berry frames her look at wolves as symbols of human fear with the story of OR-7, a famous wolf that roamed through Oregon. She expertly ties together her ideas with the wolf, delving into everything from fairytales to her own story as a woman living in a male-centered world. I found myself consumed by this book, exploring Berry’s different ideas, each chapter building upon the last. It’s such a lush, multi-genre book, full of insightful observations and excellent storytelling.

In this gorgeous memoir, Michelle Zauner shares her experience growing up as the only Asian American kid in her community. Zauner grew up in Oregon with a white American father and a Korean mother, which has always made her feel like she was not part of either world. When her mother dies, she finds herself in an Asian grocery store, reminded of her mother and crying in the aisles. Beautifully written and full of quick wit and insight, Crying in H Mart has to be one of the best memoirs in the last few years.

I am obsessed with all sorts of stories around food, but Italian food is one of my favorites. So when I picked up Taste by Stanley Tucci, I knew I was in for a good time. Tucci tells us the story of his life through his relationship with food. We learn about his childhood as an Italian American and the many meals he ate with his family. We go to Italy as he reconnects with his heritage and then to New York City as he pursues his acting career. No matter where Stanley Tucci goes, he is sure to find a great plate of food. I loved how Tucci also describes the dishes with such detail that we can attempt to make the dishes ourselves — he even provides recipes for some of his favorites!

Tung Nguyen and Katherine Manning met in the 1970s when Manning hosted Nguyen, who had just fled Vietnam at the end of the war. Their relationship grew into something like family as they became business partners and started Hy Vong, a Vietnamese restaurant in Miami. Lyn Nguyen, Tung Nguyen’s daughter, also grew up working at the family restaurant. These three women tell their stories, which are interconnected and overlapping. This multi-narrative effect gives this memoir a unique feel, reminding food lovers of the incredible amount of work that goes into creating a restaurant and the great food they serve.

Dr. William H. Turner introduces readers to the history of Black Appalachian coal towns, places that many outside the region may not have even realized existed. He describes daily life and the economic boom they experienced after WWII. They were also cultural centers with their own magazines and organizations. And of course, he also follows the region’s decline, which deeply affected these towns and was eventually their downfall. Dr. Turner strives to ensure that these places, the places he loves, are not forgotten.

Tracy K. Smith wrote the introduction to this vital collection of essays Lorde called The Cancer Journals. Lorde was diagnosed with breast cancer and began to assess a world that treated her like a warrior for fighting the disease, but also insisted she wear a prosthetic to make sure she appeared as a woman “should look.” But Lorde pushed back. She didn’t need to erase any physical indication of her disease. She didn’t need breasts to be a woman. Lorde’s assessment of norms in the medical industry is spot on. She possesses an ability to clearly see through the ableist expectations of society, and her intersectional approach encourages others to rethink their own perspectives of illness, and what that means to women, especially Black women.

In Good Talk, Mira Jacob describes how her son asked her why his Jewish paternal grandparents would vote for Trump, a man who hated immigrants, like Mira and her parents. This question launches her into even more questions that she’s not quite sure how to answer. She works through these conversations in Good Talk, illustrating them on the page and giving readers a fuller picture. I read this graphic memoir while waiting for a delayed flight at the airport. I felt consumed, and barely even noticed spending the extra four hours surrounded by disgruntled passengers.

Leila Abdelrazaq’s grandfather was one of the thousands of Palestinians who fled Palestine after the creation of Israel and the war of 1948. He and his family spent the next several decades moving from one country to another, facing constant discrimination as they tried to make a life for themselves. At first, they thought that their exile was temporary, but as the years passed, they began to lose hope that they would ever see Palestine again.