Emory Reads

"It's clear from the first page that Davis is going to serve a more intimate, unpolished account than is typical of the average (often ghost-written) celebrity memoir; Finding Me reads like Davis is sitting you down for a one-on-one conversation about her life, warts and all."--USA Today

"From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity."

"Warmth is a new kind of book about climate change: not what it is or how we solve it, but how it feels to imagine a future - and a family - under its weight. In a fiercely personal account written from inside the climate movement, Sherrell lays bare how the crisis is transforming our relationships to time, to hope, and to each other. At once a memoir, a love letter, and an electric work of criticism, Warmth goes to the heart of the defining question of our time: how do we go on in a world that may not?"

"No one understands plants better than Dr. Cassandra Quave, and as a person born with multiple congenital defects who nearly lost her life at the age of three due to a staph infection, she has an intimate knowledge of the strengths and failings of modern medicine. In The Plant Hunter, Dr. Quave weaves together science, botany, and memoir to recount her own journey in search of natural compounds, long known to traditional healers, that could help save us all from this looming crisis."

"The critically acclaimed singer-songwriter, producer, and six-time Grammy winner opens up about faith, sexuality, parenthood, and a life shaped by music in "one of the great memoirs of our time" (Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed). Evocative and piercingly honest, Broken Horses is at once an examination of faith through the eyes of a person rejected by the church's basic tenets and a meditation on the moments and lyrics that have shaped the life of a creative mind, a brilliant artist, and a genuine empath on a mission to give back."

"A Holocaust survivor pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story, sharing his wisdom, and living his best possible life. The Happiest Man on Earth offers timeless lessons for readers of all ages, especially for young people today."

"Union deftly writes about the life-changing diagnosis that led her to surrogacy as a path to moth­erhood; the impact of cracking open her family’s life for all to see; and how she discovered who she is beyond others’ projections. . . She makes you wish she were your best friend, her number saved in your favorites—a kindred spirit always ready to share real talk over a round of shots."

"Colin O'Brady's awe-inspiring memoir spans his triumphant recovery from a tragic accident to his gripping 932-mile solo crossing of Antarctica. The Impossible First reveals how anyone can reject limits, overcome immense obstacles, and discover what matters most."

Bernardine Evaristo won the 2019 Booker Prize and was the first Black woman and first Black British person ever to win the prize in its fifty-year history. "With her characteristic humor, Evaristo describes her childhood as one of eight siblings, with a Nigerian father and white Catholic mother, tells the story of how she helped set up Britain's first Black women's theatre company, remembers the queer relationships of her twenties, and recounts her determination to write books that were absent in the literary world around her. She provides a hugely powerful perspective to contemporary conversations around race, class, feminism, sexuality, and aging."

"The riveting, pulse-pounding story of a year in the life of an emergency room doctor trying to steer his patients and colleagues through a crushing pandemic and a violent summer, amidst a healthcare system that seems determined to leave them behind. Beautifully written, vulnerable and deeply empathetic, The Emergency is a call for reform that offers a fresh vision of health care as a foundation of social justice."

"The definitive, revelatory biography of Marvel Comics icon Stan Lee, a writer and entrepreneur who reshaped global pop culture-at a steep personal cost. 'A biography that reads like a thriller or a whodunit . . .scrupulously honest, deeply damning, and sometimes even heartbreaking.' - Neil Gaiman"

"This book offers a unique account on the life and works of Srinivasa Ramanujan―often hailed as the greatest “natural” mathematical genius. Sharing valuable insights into the many stages of Ramanujan’s life, this book provides glimpses into his prolific research on highly composite numbers, partitions, continued fractions, mock theta functions, arithmetic, and hypergeometric functions."

"The story of Kurt Vonnegut and Slaughterhouse-Five, an enduring masterpiece on trauma and memory. The Writer's Crusade is a literary and biographical journey that asks fundamental questions about trauma, creativity, and the power of storytelling."

"The visual style, story and characters of films like All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind and Imitation of Life are explored to argue for Sirk as an incredibly nuanced moral thinker. Instead of imposing moralising judgements on his characters, Sirk presents them as people who do 'wrong' things often without understanding why or how, creating a complex and unsettling ethics. Douglas Sirk: Filmmaker and Philosopher argues for a filmmaker who was a 'disruptive not restorative' auteur and one who broke the rules in the most interesting and subtle of ways."

"Written by her great-granddaughter, a historical portrait of the boundary-breaking civil rights pioneer covers Wells' early years as a slave, her famous acts of resistance, and her achievements as a journalist and anti-lynching activist."

"The overdue restoration of Catherine Dior's extraordinary life, from her brother's muse to Holocaust survivor. Drawing on the Dior archives and extensive research, Justine Picardie's Miss Dior is the long-overdue restoration of Catherine Dior's life."

"Born to sharecroppers in Mississippi, Bell was part of the Great Migration, and in St. Louis, baseball saved Bell from a life working in slaughterhouses. Wheeler charts Bell's ups and downs in life and in baseball, in the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, where he went to escape American racism and MLB's color line. Rich in context and suffused in myth, this is a treat for fans of baseball history."

"This book conveys a unique, unrivaled, and moving insight into the life of Monty Howell, the little-know eldest son of Leonard Howell, regarded as the Father of Rastafari."

"Merle Haggard was one of the most important country music musicians who ever lived. His astonishing musical career stretched across the second half of the 20th Century and into the first two decades of the next, during which he released an extraordinary 63 albums, 38 that made it on to Billboard's Country Top Ten, 13 that went to #1, and 37 #1 hit singles. The Hag is the definitive account of this unique American original, and will speak to readers of country music and rock biographies alike."