In the wake of a shattered home, I wake each day beside my wife and children, spread across what remains of our former life. Our roof collapsed, taking with it both shelter and the steady rhythm of daily work.
Tales from Dystopia is a series of blog posts I am writing of memories of the apartheid era in South Africa. I started it because of some comments made by some South African Christian bloggers abou…
Like a Wave We Break: A Memoir of Falling Apart and Finding Myself by Jane Marie Chen, 2025
The courageous memoir of one woman’s globe-spanning journey of unraveling and awakening—breaking free of the narratives that once defined her and confronting the long-buried truths of a traumatic past—by the former CEO and co-founder of Embrace.
An unflinching and stunning debut memoir of an Iranian girl’s coming-of-age experiencing abuse, war, and superstition—and her survival through dissociative identity disorder, which offered her an inner world into which she could escape.
Republished to celebrate the centenary of his birth, here is Gerald Durrell’s legendary account of his coming-of-age as a reader, writer and budding naturalist at Whipsnade Zoo.
We Are Not Numbers The Voices of Gaza's Youth by Ahmed Alnaouq & Pam Bailey, 2025
These are the stories of young people from Gaza, born under Israeli occupation and blockade. They are people who have endured unspeakable struggles and losses, who keep fighting to be recognised not as numbers, but as human beings with hopes, dreams and lives worth living.
Just Go: Turning Fear Into a Superpower by Saya Sakakibara, 2025
Saya Sakakibara triumphed over fear, self-doubt and family tragedy to become an Olympic champion. Her journey will inspire you to face your fears and unlock your greatest potential.
An intimate and rousing memoir by progressive trailblazer Ilhan Omar—the first African refugee, the first Somali-American, and one of the first Muslim women, elected to Congress.
"Baek's book inverted the notion that social success is the ultimate measure of a life well lived, openly addressing the mental health issues many commonly face and, in doing so, showing readers that acknowledging your emotions is the first step towards healing."
Discover a gripping and harrowing tale of war and torture from the man who lived it in this powerful memoir by the celebrated war journalist who not only documented over a dozen conflict zones worldwide but was also captured and held hostage by Syrian rebels in 2013.
BRUTALLY CANDID, WITTY, eloquent memoir about the pressures of infertility, divorce, being a writer, being a woman, being queer, simply existing as a person in the world. Charming and spare prose complements the daring frankness. B PLUS
'Set Europe ablaze.' The order came from Churchill himself. The result was the Special Operations Executive – the SOE. Established in 1941 with the aim of supplying Occupied France with a steady stram of highly trained resistance agents, this clandestine Second World War network grew to become a cricual part of the Allied arsenal.
A GLORIOUS MULTI-GENRE COLLECTION of memoir, essays, and poetry exploring the lives of Black women as a group, as individuals, and in families. The clarity of Jeffers’s insights and the power of her words will leave you breathless. A MINUS
STARTLINGLY CANDID, AMBITIOUS mixed-media essay on a year of unrequited love and passionate friendship is a rare chance to accompany a complicated, erudite person on a quest to understand herself, her own feelings and the very nature of love. SOLID B
"Jones is impatient with the outsize expectations laid at the feet of librarians. She stresses that the extent of what librarians owe their patrons, including the care they provide to those who wander in through their library doors, is elastic but not infinite."
@thecontinent has a guest post this week from the Harare Review of Books. Here’s a review of Freda Epum’s memoir, “The Gloomy Girl Variety Show,” a book about the Nigerian-American writer and artists’s search for belonging in Tucson, Arizona. “Epum may call herself a gloomy girl, but she is cool to hang out with in these pages. Her memoir is lively, sometimes sad, and always vulnerable. And she is upbeat, if somewhat wry. It’s a raw, beautiful and deep work,” the review concludes.
ELEGANT, ELEGAIC, VIVID and thoughtful book intertwines the author’s mourning for her complicated, beloved family with hard truths about the ecological crises facing our earth and its oceans. Beautiful, sobering writing, grounded in love. B PLUS
NENEH CHERRY’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY weaves a fascinating tapestry from her distinctive life: her joys (love, family, friends, art, nature) and her sorrows (losses, deep grief, addiction). Like a heart-to-heart with your coolest friend. B PLUS
