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Recommendations based on The Sound of Gravelby Ruth Wariner
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss
by Anderson Cooper
A candid conversation between a mother and son, exploring their past and present.
A charming and intimate collection of correspondence between #1 New York Times bestselling author Anderson Cooper and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, that offers timeless wisdom and a revealing ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
by Daniel James Brown
An inspiring story of a rowing crew battling against the odds to win gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
This novel is about the University of Washington eight-oared crew that represented the United States in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and narrowly beat out Italy and Germany to win the gold medal. The ... (Wikipedia)
Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland
by Amanda Berry
True story of a woman taken captive and her struggle to stay alive and be reunited with her family.
Two women kidnapped by infamous Cleveland school-bus driver Ariel Castro share the stories of their abductions, captivity, and dramatic escape, On May 6, 2013, Amanda Berry made headlines around the ... (Goodreads)
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story
by Hyeonseo Lee
A harrowing journey of escape from a repressive regime and the struggle to find a new life in freedom.
An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her ... (Goodreads)
Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
by Cheryl Strayed
Collection of heartfelt advice from a wise and compassionate storyteller.
Life can be hard: your lover cheats on you; you lose a family member; you can’t pay the bills - and it can be great: you've had the hottest sex of your life; you get that plum job; you muster the ... (Goodreads)
A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy
by Sue Klebold
A mother's story of her son's involvement in a school shooting and her journey of understanding and healing.
On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Over the course of minutes, they would kill twelve students and a teacher and wound ... (Goodreads)
The Water is Wide
by Pat Conroy
A teacher's journey of helping disadvantaged children escape poverty and ignorance.
The island is nearly deserted, haunting, beautiful. Across a slip of ocean lies South Carolina. But for the handful of families on Yamacraw Island, America is a world away. For years the people here ... (Goodreads)
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League
by Jeff Hobbs
A poignant biography of a man's rise and fall, caught in the crossfire of economic and social inequality.
An instant, New York Times, bestseller, named a best book of the year by, The New York Times Book Review, Amazon, and, Entertainment Weekly, among others, this celebrated account of a young ... (Barnes & Noble)
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
by Barbara Demick
Exploration of the lives of North Koreans during the famine and repression of the 1990s.
Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years—a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, and the ... (Goodreads)
Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology
by Leah Remini
An account of Leah Remini's journey of faith, fame, and a decades-long involvement with Scientology.
The outspoken actress, talk show host, and reality television star offers up a no-holds-barred memoir, including an eye-opening insider account of her tumultuous and heart-wrenching thirty-year-plus ... (Goodreads)
In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
by Yeonmi Park
A young woman's harrowing escape from North Korea and her struggle to survive and thrive in a new country.
Human rights activist Park, who fled North Korea with her mother in 2007 at age 13 and eventually made it to South Korea two years later after a harrowing ordeal, recognized that in order to be ... (Goodreads)
Hunger: A Memoir of
by Roxane Gay
A candid and raw exploration of body image and its effects on a woman's life.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist : a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself. “I ate and ate ... (Goodreads)
Lab Girl
by Hope Jahren
A memoir about a young woman's journey to discover her scientific calling and resilience.
Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she’s studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Her first book is a revelatory treatise on plant life—but it is also so much ... (Goodreads)
Seabiscuit: An American Legend
by Laura Hillenbrand
An inspiring story of the rise of champion racehorse Seabiscuit and his unlikely jockey.
There's an alternate cover edition, here, Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular attractions in sports history and the single biggest newsmaker in the world in 1938, receiving more ... (Goodreads)
The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice
by Rebecca Musser
A memoir of a woman who escaped a polygamous cult and testified against its leaders, leading to their conviction.
Rebecca Musser grew up in fear, concealing her family's polygamous lifestyle from the "dangerous" outside world. Covered head-to-toe in strict, modest clothing, she received a rigorous education at ... (Barnes & Noble)
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
by J.D. Vance
An exploration of the struggles of working-class Americans, and the power of family and culture to shape one's life.
Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for ... (Goodreads)
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less
by Terry Ryan
A mother's determination to keep her family afloat through creative writing competitions.
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is based on the true story of housewife Evelyn Ryan, who helped support her husband, Kelly, and their 10 children by winning jingle-writing contests. Kelly failed ... (Wikipedia)
Jesus Land: A Memoir
by Julia Scheeres
A coming-of-age story of two adopted siblings navigating life in a strict religious home.
For Julia Scheeres and her adopted brother David, "Jesus Land" stretched from their parents' fundamentalist home, past the hostilities of high school, and deep into a Christian reform school in the ... (Goodreads)
Infidel
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
A memoir of a woman's journey of faith, identity, and self-liberation.
One of today’s most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following the murder of Theo van Gogh by an Islamist who threatened that she would ... (Goodreads)
Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir
by Jenny Lawson
A humorous and candid memoir of a woman's life, incorporating stories from her childhood to adulthood.
The #1, New York Times, bestselling (mostly true) memoir from the hilarious author of, Furiously Happy,.,“Gaspingly funny and wonderfully inappropriate.”—,O, The Oprah Magazine, When Jenny Lawson was ... (Barnes & Noble)
Born Survivors
by Wendy Holden
The true story of three women who gave birth in concentration camps during WWII and their fight for survival and motherhood.
The Nazis murdered their husbands but concentration camp prisoners Priska, Rachel, and Anka would not let evil take their unborn children too—a remarkable true story that will appeal to readers of ... (Goodreads)
The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan
by Jenny Nordberg
An exploration of the secret lives of Afghan girls who live as boys for safety, security, and independence.
An investigative journalist uncovers a hidden custom that will transform your understanding of what it means to grow up as a girl. In Afghanistan, a culture ruled almost entirely by men, the birth of ... (Goodreads)
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
by Matthew Desmond
An exploration of eviction’s devastating consequences on the lives of the urban poor.
NEW YORK TIMES, BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF, TIME,’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • One of the most acclaimed books of our time, this modern classic “has set a ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom
by Corrie ten Boom
A remarkable testament to faith and courage in the face of unfathomable odds and unspeakable horrors.
The book begins with the ten Boom family celebrating the 100th anniversary of the family business; they sell and repair watches under the family's elderly father, Casper ten Boom . The business takes ... (Wikipedia)
The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey
by Rinker Buck
Exploration of 1800s America through the lens of a modern-day wagon journey.
In the bestselling tradition of Bill Bryson and Tony Horwitz, Rinker Buck's "The Oregon Trail" is a major work of participatory history: an epic account of traveling the 2,000-mile length of the ... (Goodreads)
I Love Everybody
by Laurie Notaro
Humorous memoir of one woman's search for self-acceptance, with an irreverent twist.
Here are more scathingly funny tales from the wild side! Laurie Notaro survived the debauched ride of her twenties and the bumpy road to matrimony. Now she’s ready to take on the thirtysomething ... (Goodreads)
Coming Clean
by Kimberly Rae Miller
A memoir of growing up with hoarder parents and the emotional toll it takes on the author.
Kimberly Rae Miller is an immaculately put-together woman with a great career, a loving boyfriend, and a beautifully tidy apartment in Brooklyn. You would never guess that behind the closed doors of ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
by Anne Fadiman
Exploring the cultural divide between the Hmong people and the medical establishment.
Lia Lee was born in 1982 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, ... (Goodreads)
Escape
by Carolyn Jessop
Autobiography of a woman's struggle to escape an oppressive polygamous cult.
The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children. When she was eighteen years ... (Goodreads)
My Story
by Elizabeth Smart
True story of a young girl's survival of abduction and captivity.
The harrowing true story of abduction and survival from the courageous young woman who lived it—now the subject of a Lifetime original movie,, I Am Elizabeth Smart., In this memoir, Elizabeth Smart ... (Barnes & Noble)
