memoir

Memoir

Note: This is a unique book & a treasure because it was the only one we could find from a native Lao author! In addition, he is Hmong, which is an indigenous group in Southeast & East Asia with a rich culture & language that originated in China before migration began in the 19th century.

While Wang Yee Vang was born in Laos, he, like a number of his countrymen, was recruited to join the US Secret Army defending US national security interests from 1961 to 1975. First training in Thailand, he returned to Laos to fight in “The Secret War”, a covert CIA-backed effort to seize power from Communists during the Vietnam War. Vang rose up thru the ranks in the army before attaining the rank of Colonel and the fall of Laos when he left the country eventually settling in the US. He then went on to found Lao Veterans of America, a Lao- and Hmong-American veterans’ non-profit organization.

From the preface: “I wrote this memoir because many of my colleagues suggested, while I was working for Lao and Hmong communities inside and outside Laos for decades, that I should tell the young generations what happened and why some 500,000 Lao citizens became refugees and immigrated to Western countries.

I noted what I remembered and what I faced while I was working for the Royal Lao Government because I was one of the regular officers. My civil grade and military rank were given by the king of Laos, which we called royal ordinance.

I hope that this work would help our young generations in doing some research. May it help them accomplish their goals and the works that they need to accomplish. Thank you for reading this memoir.”

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Stay Alive, My Son

On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh to open a new and appalling chapter in the story of the twentieth century. On that day, Pin Yathay was a qualified engineer in the Ministry of Public Works. Successful and highly educated, he had been critical of the corrupt Lon Nol regime and hoped that the Khmer Rouge would be the patriotic saviors of Cambodia.In Stay Alive, My Son, Pin Yathay provides an unforgettable testament of the horror that ensued and a gripping account of personal courage, sacrifice and survival.

Documenting the 27 months from the arrival of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh to his escape into Thailand, Pin Yathay is a powerful and haunting memoir of Cambodia's killing fields. With 17 members of his family, Pin Yathay was evacuated by the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh, his family taking with them whatever they might need for the three days before they would be allowed to return to their home. Instead, they were moved on from camp to camp, their possessions confiscated or abandoned. As days became weeks and weeks became months, they became the “New People,” displaced urban dwellers compelled to live and work as peasants, their days were filled with forced manual labor and their survival dependent on ever more meager communal rations. The body count mounted, first as malnutrition bred rampant disease and then as the Khmer Rouge singled out the dissidents for sudden death in the darkness.

Eventually, Pin Yathay's family was reduced from 17 to just himself, his wife, and their one remaining son, Nawath. Wracked with pain and disease, robbed of all they had owned, living on the very edge of dying, they faced a future of escalating horror. With Nawath too ill to travel, Pin Yathay and his wife, Any, had to make the heart-breaking decision whether to leave him to the care of a Cambodian hospital in order to make a desperate break for freedom. “Stay alive, my son,” he tells Nawath before embarking on a nightmarish escape to the Thai border.

“During the Kampuchean revolutionary madness... all the urban population was driven out to work in the country, creating new peasant communities which operated on strict, dogmatic Maoist lines.... Pin Yathay's story is told with no attempt at self-aggrandizement.... For he has to live with the shame of having deserted his own child in order to facilitate his escape, of losing his wife in the jungle through ineptitude: it is a revelation of prehistoric strength within the human conscience which is far beyond our imaginings.” —Times Literary Supplement

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Survival in the Killing Fields

Note: If this book is chosen as a club read, it will be read over 2 months since it is a longer book.

“Nothing has shaped my life as much as surviving the Pol Pot regime. I am a survivor of the Cambodian holocaust. That’s who I am,” says Haing Ngor. And in his memoir, Survival in the Killing Fields, he tells the gripping and frequently terrifying story of his term in the hell created by the communist Khmer Rouge. Like Dith Pran, the Cambodian doctor and interpreter whom Ngor played in an Oscar-winning performance in The Killing Fields, Ngor lived through the atrocities that the 1984 film portrayed. Like Pran, too, Ngor was a doctor by profession, and he experienced firsthand his country’s wretched descent, under the Khmer Rouge, into senseless brutality, slavery, squalor, starvation, and disease —all of which are recounted in sometimes unimaginable horror in Ngor’s poignant memoir. Since the original publication of this searing personal chronicle, Haing Ngor’s life has ended with his murder, which has never been satisfactorily solved. In an epilogue written especially for this new edition, Ngor’s coauthor, Roger Warner, offers a glimpse into this complex, enigmatic man’s last years—years that he lived “like his country: scarred, and incapable of fully healing.”

The best book on Cambodia that has ever been published.

“For his role in the film The Killing Fields, Haing Ngor, a Cambodian doctor with no acting experience, won an Oscar. In playing the part, he drew on his own tormented life as a war slave during the Cambodian civil war. His book is a very demanding read, but it is of such high merit and rare importance that it deserves a place in every collection. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal

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The Last Girl

Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon.

On August 15th, 2014, when Nadia was just 21 years old, this life ended. Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves. Six of Nadia’s brothers were killed, and her mother soon after, their bodies swept into mass graves. Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into the ISIS slave trade.

Nadia would be held captive by several militants and repeatedly raped and beaten. Finally, she managed a narrow escape through the streets of Mosul, finding shelter in the home of a Sunni Muslim family whose eldest son risked his life to smuggle her to safety.

Today, Nadia’s story—as a witness to the Islamic State’s brutality, a survivor of rape, a refugee, a Yazidi—has forced the world to pay attention to an ongoing genocide. It is a call to action, a testament to the human will to survive, and a love letter to a lost country, a fragile community, and a family torn apart by war.

“This devastating memoir unflinchingly recounts Murad’s experiences and questions the complicity of witnesses who acquiesced in the suffering of others.” —The New Yorker

“This is likely the most inspiring feminist memoir out this year.” —Bustle

“A harrowing and brave book, a testament to human resilience.” —The Progressive

“Powerful. . . . A heartbreaking elegy to a lost community.” —Booklist

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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Free

Named a Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker, Washington Post, Financial Times, Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, Sunday Times, and more

An astonishing and deeply resonant memoir that is by turns "bitingly, if darkly, funny…and truly profound" (NY Times), Lea Ypi writes about growing up in the last days of the last Stalinist outpost of the 20th century.

Family and nation formed a reliable bedrock of security for precocious 11-year-old Lea. She was a Young Pioneer, helping to lead her country toward the future of perfect freedom promised by the leaders of her country, the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania. Then, almost overnight, the Berlin Wall fell and the pillars of her society toppled. The local statue of Stalin, whom she had believed to be a kindly leader who loved children, was beheaded by student protestors.

Uncomfortable truths about her family’s background emerged. Lea learned that when her parents had spoken in whispers of friends going to “university” or relatives “dropping out,” they meant something much more sinister. As she learned the truth about her family’s past, her best friend fled the country. Together with neighboring post-Communist states, Albania began a messy transition to join the “free markets” of the Western world: a dystopia of pyramid schemes, organized crime, and sex trafficking. Her father, despite his radical left-wing convictions, was forced to fire workers; her mother became a conservative politician on the model of Margaret Thatcher. Lea’s typical teen concerns about relationships and the future were shot through with the existential: the nation was engulfed in civil war.

Ypi’s outstanding literary gifts enable her to weave together this colorful, tumultuous coming-of-age story in a time of social upheaval with thoughtful, fresh, and invigorating perspective on the relation between the personal and the political.

"Riveting. . .A wonderfully funny and poignant portrait of a small nation in a state of collapse. . . gloriously readable. . .One of the nonfiction titles of the year, it is destined for literary accolades and popular success.” ―Observer

"Utterly engrossing . . . Ypi's memoir is brilliantly observed, politically nuanced and—best of all—funny." ―Guardian

"Ypi is a beautiful writer and a serious political thinker, and in just a couple hundred readable pages, she takes turns between being bitingly, if darkly, funny (she skewers Stalinism and the World Bank with equal deadpan) and truly profound...Free is meant to inspire." ―NY Times Book Review

“I was entranced from beginning to end." ―Sunday Times

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Gaysia

Benjamin Law considers himself pretty lucky to live in Australia: he can hold his boyfriend's hand in public and lobby his politicians to recognize same-sex marriage. But as the child of immigrants, he's also curious about how different life might have been had he grown up in Asia. So he sets off to meet his fellow Gaysians. Law takes his investigative duties seriously, going nude where required in Balinese sex resorts, sitting backstage for hours with Thai ladyboy beauty contestants, and trying Indian yoga classes designed to cure his homosexuality. The characters he meets—from Tokyo's celebrity drag queens to HIV-positive Burmese sex workers and Malaysian ex-gay Christian fundamentalists to Chinese gays and lesbians who marry each other to please their parents—all teach him something new about being queer in Asia. At once entertaining and moving, Gaysia is a wild ride and a fascinating quest by a leading Australian writer.

”Law has achieved what seems the impossible: an enjoyable read, full of titillation, yet deep with sociological observations, along with a clear understanding of Asian history. Whether you’re planning a trip to Asia, an armchair tourist, or merely curious, Gaysia is a book you should add to your collection.” —Routledge

”In between the funny asides and sharp perceptions, Law offers serious observations to show that Asia may be halfway around the world, but it’s closer than we think. Funny and charming and worthy of being tucked in your carryon this summer.” —Terri Schlichenmeyer

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Dear Senthuran

Featured on the cover of Time Magazine as a 2021 next generation leader

In critically acclaimed novels, Akwaeke Emezi has introduced readers to a landscape marked by familial tensions, native belief systems, and a boundless search for what it means to be free. Now, in this extraordinary memoir, the bestselling author of The Death of Vivek Oji (view on Amazon) reveals the harrowing yet resolute truths of their own life. Through candid, intimate correspondence with friends, lovers, and family, Emezi traces the unfolding of a self and the unforgettable journey of a creative spirit stepping into power in the human world. Their story weaves through transformative decisions about their gender and body, their precipitous path to success as a writer, and the turmoil of relationships on an emotional, romantic, and spiritual plane, culminating in a book that is as tender as it is brutal.

Electrifying and inspiring, animated by the same voracious intelligence that distinguishes their fiction, Dear Senthuran is a revelatory account of storytelling, self, and survival.

“A once-in-a-generation voice.” —Vulture

“One of our greatest living writers.” —Shondaland

“A thing of great beauty . . . Dear Senthuran is about powerful excellence, especially the excellence that appears in bodies that aren’t white and aren’t male. Emezi is changing the world and our reaction to this kind of power.” —The Paris Review

“An audacious sojourn through the terror and beauty of refusing to explain yourself.” —New York Times Book Review

“The brilliant Akwaeke Emezi candidly shares their reflections on gender, embodiment, queerness, creativity and relationships with the same fierce dedication and candor that defines their bestselling novels.” —Ms. Magazine

(A special thank you to book club member, Heather Purcell for the suggestion.)

Note: Great on audio—read by the author herself!

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My Persian Paradox

On a cold night in 1978, seven-year-old Shabnam Shahmohammad clung to her mother in a Tehran apartment while the sounds of gunshots rang out in the street: The Iranian Revolution was at hand. She and her family survived that night, but as the Islamic fundamentalists took the power over, she grew up watching her father take his beloved books away to burn, his friends be arrested and disappear, and women like her mother grow ever more marginalized. Confused by her father’s communist ideology, her mother’s conservative religious beliefs, and the regime’s oppressive rules, she developed a deep longing to live a different life.

Finding herself being married at 19, she naively dreamed to team up and discover an adventurous life. When she gave birth to a daughter whose future, she realized, mattered more to her than her own, she had to find a way to unlock her little girl’s possibilities. She longed to emigrate, but with Western countries’ embassies mostly absent from Tehran, options for escaping Iran were limited.

My Persian Paradox is a tale of resilience facing oppression and dictatorship along with fighting with narrow traditional and restrictive cultural rules. This memoir is a journey of self-discovery, mother-daughter relationship obstacles, forbidden love, and the universal desire for freedom.

”The difference between Shabnam's choices and those of many Iranian women lies in her determination to realize her dreams against all odds: dreams that evolve into a bid for freedom under impossible circumstances … Shabnam's survey of past and present ideals and their impact on her ability to assimilate makes for an engrossing survey that goes beyond most immigrant stories.” —Midwest Book Review

(Group read suggestion from Gemma Ware, book club moderator.)

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Prisoner of Tehran

In her heartbreaking, triumphant, and elegantly written memoir, Marina Nemat tells the heart-pounding story of her life as a young girl in Iran during the early days of the brutal Islamic Revolution.

What would you give up to protect your loved ones? Your life?

In January 1982, Marina Nemat, then just 16, was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to death for political crimes. Until then, her life in Tehran had centered around school, summer parties at the lake, and her crush on Andre, the young man she had met at church. But when math and history were subordinated to the study of the Koran and political propaganda, Marina protested. Her teacher replied, “If you don't like it, leave.” She did, and, to her surprise, other students followed.

Soon she was arrested with hundreds of other youths who had dared to speak out, and they were taken to the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. Two guards interrogated her. One beat her into unconsciousness; the other, Ali, fell in love with her.

Sentenced to death for refusing to give up the names of her friends, she was minutes from being executed when Ali, using his family connections to Ayatollah Khomeini, plucked her from the firing squad and had her sentence reduced to life in prison. But he exacted a shocking price—with a dizzying combination of terror and tenderness, he asked her to marry him and abandon her Christian faith for Islam. If she didn't, he would see to it that her family was harmed. She spent the next two years as a prisoner of the state, and of the man who held her life, and her family's lives, in his hands.

Lyrical, passionate, and suffused throughout with grace and sensitivity, Marina Nemat's memoir is like no other. Her search for emotional redemption envelops her jailers, her husband and his family, and the country of her birth—each of whom she grants the greatest gift of all: forgiveness.

“Nemat's engaging memoir is rich with complex characters...[she] offers her arresting, heartbreaking story of forgiveness, hope and enduring love—a voice for the untold scores silenced by Iran's revolution.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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Path to Freedom

A multi award-winning, historically-accurate memoir which the Smithsonian displays in its Anacostia Museum Library

Little about Conrad Taylor's upbringing in a remote mining town deep in the impenetrable tropical rain forests of Guyana prepared him for West Point. An extraordinary opportunity for most, attending the highly-regimented United States Military Academy was a life-changer for him. Enduring culture shock, navigating rude awakenings, and surviving the rigorous West Point experience hardened Taylor for return to a Guyanese government which had become a dictatorship overnight. Paranoid about regime change and now anti-American, leaders of the dictatorship were fearful the young graduate had become a spy for the United States.

With authentic samples of Guyanese life both before and after West Point alongside a vivid description of his time at the military academy, Taylor’s book chronicles the hardships he faced and the eventual epic journey to freedom that he made back to the US. The narrative charts a sometimes-humorous journey of resilience, hope, survival, and love. Its revelations will be nostalgic for some, shocking to many, and enlightening for others.

“Conrad Taylor's captivating memoir is an extremely interesting read, thanks to Taylor's talent for illustrating his life's journey in such a fascinating way. Difficult to put down until the end. For those looking to be inspired, as well as broaden their knowledge about Guyana and Third World political affairs, this commendable memoir is highly recommended.” —Lit Amri

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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Walk Wit’ Me

There is a saying that most Guyanese use to identify their roots after they have voluntarily immigrated or simply fled to another country: “My navel string is buried in Guyana” meaning my roots are there. It’s a place where true and enduring friendships were formed forever. Guyanese will meet one another decades later and feel as if it was yesterday, reminiscing about their beloved land; lapsing into the language only a fellow Guyanese can understand.

Before immigrating to Australia, Helena believed the sun only rose and set in Guyana. She never imagined another paradise existed on the planet.

Helena’s memoir is laced with nostalgia and, at the same time, it is her sincere intention to portray the true essence of the Guyanese culture. This is not only an account of her first 21 years of life in Guyana, it also contains anecdotes of visits back to her homeland alongside a sprinkling about her new life in Australia.

“What an eye opener! Written by a Guyanese of working-class Portuguese extraction, [this book teaches] so much about the social setting and economics of a much-neglected and rarely-written-about group of Guyanese. Often, these stories are told orally and then lost. Helena has written them with great detail and humour. Highly recommended.” —Eva James

Note: The use of colloquialism is of utmost importance to the local culture—it is the vernacular Guyanese understand. The included glossary at the back is helpful for understanding local phrases and sayings which may not be clear to some.

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I Will Never See the World Again

Best Book of the Year – Bloomberg News

A resilient Turkish writer’s inspiring account of his imprisonment that provides crucial insight into political censorship amidst the global rise of authoritarianism.

The destiny I put down in my novel has become mine. I am now under arrest like the hero I created years ago. I await the decision that will determine my future, just as he awaited his. I am unaware of my destiny, which has perhaps already been decided, just as he was unaware of his. I suffer the pathetic torment of profound helplessness, just as he did.

Like a cursed oracle, I foresaw my future years ago not knowing that it was my own.


Confined in a cell four meters long, imprisoned on absurd, Kafkaesque charges, novelist Ahmet Altan is one of many writers persecuted by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s oppressive regime. In this extraordinary memoir, written from his prison cell, Altan reflects upon his sentence, on a life whittled down to a courtyard covered by bars, and on the hope and solace a writer’s mind can provide, even in the darkest places.

“Urgent…brilliant…a timeless testament to the art and power of writing amid Orwellian repression.” —Washington Post

“Remarkable…Altan’s talent allowed him to communicate his experience in rich, haunting detail…Despite the oppressive, cruel darkness at the core of Altan’s memoir, his words shine like bioluminescent creatures patrolling the abyss…brilliant.” —NPR

“The title of Mr. Altan’s book is the statement of a brutal fact, rather than a cry of despair. There is not a smidgen of self-pity in the memoir’s 212 pages. What emerges is this: You cannot jail my mind, and you cannot shut me up.” —New York Times

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Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8

Naoki Higashida was only thirteen when he wrote The Reason I Jump (view on Amazon)a revelatory account of autism from the inside by a nonverbal Japanese child, which became an international success. Now, in Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8, he shares his thoughts and experiences as a young man living each day with severe autism. In short, powerful chapters, Higashida explores school memories, family relationships, the exhilaration of travel, and the difficulties of speech. He also allows readers to experience profound moments we take for granted, like the thought-steps necessary for him to register that it’s raining outside. Acutely aware of how strange his behavior can appear to others, he aims throughout to foster a better understanding of autism and to encourage society to see people with disabilities as people, not as problems.

With an introduction by the bestselling novelist David Mitchell, Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 also includes a dreamlike short story Higashida wrote especially for the U.S. edition. Both moving and of practical use, this book opens a window into the mind of an inspiring young man who meets every challenge with tenacity and good humor. However often he falls down, he always gets back up.

“[Naoki Higashida’s] success as a writer now transcends his diagnosis. . . . His relative isolation—with words as his primary connection to the outside world—has allowed him to fully develop the powers of observation that are necessary for good writing, and he has developed rich, deep perspectives on ideas that many take for granted. . . . The diversity of Higashida’s writing, in both subject and style, fits together like a jigsaw puzzle of life put in place with humor and thoughtfulness.” The Japan Times

“Profound insights about what the struggle of living with autism is really like . . . the invitation to step inside Higashida’s mind is irresistible.” London Evening Standard

“Naoki Higashida’s lyrical and heartfelt account of his condition is a gift to anyone involved with the same challenges…Higashida shows a delicate regard for the difficulties his condition creates…and is adept at explaining his experiences in language that makes sense to neurotypicals.” —The Guardian

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Last Night I Dreamed of Peace

Rich in detail, this posthumously published diary of a twenty-seven-year-old Vietcong woman doctor gives us fresh insight into the lives of those fighting on the other side of the Vietnam War.

Saved from destruction by an American soldier and then published in Vietnam 35 years later, Trâm’s wartime diaries chronicle the last two years of her life as an idealistic young North Vietnamese battlefield surgeon. Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is a story of the struggle for one’s ideals amid the despair and grief of war, but most of all, it is a story of hope in the most dire circumstances.

”Urgent, simple prose that pierces the heart.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Remarkable. . . A gift from a heroine who was killed at 27, but whose voice has survived to remind us of the humanity and decency that endure amid—and despite—the horror and chaos of war.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

Faithfully translated by Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnamese American journalist Pham, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is witness to the tragedy of war, a reminder made more pertinent every day. A book of hope to be read by all.” —The Bloombury Review

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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The Unwanted

Saigon fell to the Viet Cong on April 30, 1975. Kien Nguyen watched the last U.S. Army helicopter leave without him, without his brother, without his mother, without his grandparents. Left to a nightmarish existence in a violated and decimated country, Kien was more at risk than most because of his odd blond hair and his light eyes—because he was Amerasian.

He was the most unwanted.

Told with stark and poetic brilliance, this is a story of survival and hope, a moving and personal record of a tumultuous and important piece of history. The Unwanted is the only memoir by an Amerasian who stayed behind in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon and who is now living in America.

“A remarkable tale of survival at all costs.” —People

“The son of a wealthy Vietnamese woman and an American businessman, Nguyen was nearly eight when Saigon fell to the Vietcong. For the next decade, he and his family endured hardships brought on by the privileged lives they had previously enjoyed. Nguyen is adept at capturing both the broad sweep of life under the Vietcong and the peculiarities of growing up in a colorful and emotionally dysfunctional family during a jarring and vicious revolution. But perhaps the most engaging aspect of his memoir is its portrayal of the ironies that ensue when the old order collapses and the social hierarchy is turned upside down.” —Publisher’s Weekly

Trigger warning: Rape, sexual violence, & the killing of a dog.

(A special thank you to book club member, Beth Cummings for the suggestion.)

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Poppies of Iraq

Nominated for the Kirkus Prize & YALSA's Great Graphic Novels. Appeared on best of the year lists from Kirkus, Guardian, Vulture, Forbes, and more.

Poppies of Iraq is Brigitte Findakly’s nuanced tender chronicle of her relationship with her homeland Iraq, co-written and drawn by her husband, the acclaimed cartoonist Lewis Trondheim. In spare and elegant detail, they share memories of her middle class childhood touching on cultural practices, the education system, Saddam Hussein’s state control, and her family’s history as Orthodox Christians in the Arab world. 

Poppies of Iraq is intimate and wide-ranging; the story of how one can become separated from one’s homeland and still feel intimately connected yet ultimately estranged.

Signs of an oppressive regime permeate a seemingly normal life: magazines arrive edited by customs; the color red is banned after the execution of General Kassim; Baathist militiamen are publicly hanged and school kids are bussed past them to bear witness. As conditions in Mosul worsen over her childhood, Brigitte’s father is always hopeful that life in Iraq will return to being secular and prosperous. The family eventually feels compelled to move to Paris, however, where Brigitte finds herself not quite belonging to either culture. Trondheim brings to life Findakly’s memories to create a poignant family portrait that covers loss, tragedy, love, and the loneliness of exile.

“What is it like to grow up in Iraq? That’s the question at the heart of Poppies of Iraq... a beautifully drawn graphic novel that shows how growing up in Iraq is more complicated than it seems." —Bitch Magazine

“Poignant and powerful... a meditation on the ache and longing for a place you can no longer return.” —Boston Globe

"Small in size but large in impact, this intimate memoir is a highly relevant and compassionate story of family, community, prejudice, and the struggle to love when the forces of the world push groups apart."—Kirkus

“[Poppies of Iraq's] power lies in the contrast between the matter-of-fact nature of the text and visuals, and the dread and horror of the backdrop... there is also hope to be found here — the hope that, no matter what befalls a nation, there will always be individuals who can craft something beautiful by virtue of their survival.” —Vulture

"This absorbing graphic memoir offers an insider’s view of the rapid cultural changes that beset Iraq in the latter half of the 20th century... Short vignettes about her family, school, and local customs are alternately bittersweet, funny, and affecting as a series of military and political coups impact her family’s life in Iraq... A moving, thought-provoking title for all collections."—School Library Journal, Starred Review

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The Wall

A NY Times Bestseller & multi award-winning book

”I was born at the beginning of it all, on the Red side—the Communist side—of the Iron Curtain." Through annotated illustrations, journals, maps, and dreamscapes, Peter Sís shows what life was like for a child who loved to draw, proudly wore the red scarf of a Young Pioneer [a youth Marxist-Leninist organization in communist Czechoslovakia], stood guard at the giant statue of Stalin, and believed whatever he was told to believe. But adolescence brought questions. Cracks began to appear in the Iron Curtain, and news from the West slowly filtered into the country. Sís learned about beat poetry, rock 'n' roll, blue jeans, and Coca-Cola. He let his hair grow long, secretly read banned books, and joined a rock band. Then came the Prague Spring of 1968, and for a teenager who wanted to see the world and meet the Beatles, this was a magical time. It was short-lived, however, brought to a sudden and brutal end by the Soviet-led invasion. But this brief flowering had provided a glimpse of new possibilities—creativity could be discouraged but not easily killed.

By joining memory and history, Sís takes us on his extraordinary journey: from infant with paintbrush in hand to young man borne aloft by the wings of his “glorious artwork” (Elle) which “makes for irresistible reading.” (Washington Post Book World)

“A masterpiece for readers young and old.” —Starred, Kirkus Reviews

“A powerful combination of graphic novel and picture book . . . Terrific design dramatizes the conflict between conformity and creative freedom.” —Starred, Booklist

“Sís, who has entranced children and adults with his magical stories and drawings, has taken his talent to a new level. Peter, born to dream and draw, is now also teaching the tragic history of his native land under communism in this beautiful, poignant, and important work for those of all ages. ” —Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Sec of State

(A special thank you to book club member, Sarah Jean for the book suggestion.)

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Note: Whether you read the book with a child or on your own, it’s a quick read so we added on a 29-minute dramatic Czech film nominated for an Academy Award entitled “Most” aka “The Bridge”. (Free on YouTube with closed captions here.)

Trailer:

Helga’s Diary

Anne Frank's harrowing account finished before the concentration camp. This remarkable diary by a teenage girl takes readers inside.

Alongside her father and mother and the 45,000 Jews who live in Prague, Helga endures the Nazi invasion and regime: her father is denied work, schools are closed to her, she and her parents are confined to their flat. Then deportations begin, and her friends and family start to disappear.

In 1941, Helga and her parents are sent to the concentration camp of Terezín, where they live for three years. Here Helga documents their daily life—the harsh conditions, disease and suffering, as well as moments of friendship, creativity and hope—until, in 1944, they are sent to Auschwitz. Helga leaves her diary behind with her uncle, who bricks it into a wall to preserve it.

Helga's father is never heard of again, but miraculously Helga and her mother survive the horrors of Auschwitz, the grueling transports of the last days of the war, and manage to return to Prague. Helga writes down her experiences since Terezín, completing the diary. Out of the 15,000 children interred in Terezin, she is 1 of just 132 children who survived.

Reconstructed from her original notebooks, which were later retrieved from Terezín, and from the loose-leaf pages on which Helga wrote after the war, the diary is presented here in its entirety, accompanied by an interview with Helga and illustrated with the paintings she made during her time at Terezín. As such, Helga's Diary is one of the most vivid and comprehensive testimonies written during the Holocaust ever to have been recovered.

“The most moving Holocaust diary published since Anne Frank.” —The Telegraph

“A breathtaking account…a chilling testament to the tragedy of the Holocaust.”
Publishers Weekly

“What's startling throughout is the resilience with which her buoyant spirit keeps bobbing up past the hardships, indignities, and cruelties.” —Francine Prose

“Page after page of writing that candidly, expertly, showcases humanity at its best and its worst.” —The Rumpus

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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First Spring Grass Fire

Lambda Literary Award Finalist

Transgender indie electronica singer-songwriter Rae Spoon has six albums to their credit, including I Can't Keep All of Our Secrets. This first book by Rae (who uses “they” as a pronoun) is a candid, powerful story about a young person growing up queer in a strict Pentecostal family in Alberta.

The narrator attends church events and Billy Graham rallies faithfully with their family before discovering the music that becomes their salvation and means of escape. As their father's schizophrenia causes their parents' marriage to unravel, the narrator finds solace and safety in the company of their siblings, in their nascent feelings for a girl at school, and in their growing awareness that they are not the person their parents think they are. With a heart as big as the prairie sky, this is a quietly devastating, heart-wrenching coming-of-age book about escaping dogma, surviving abuse, finding love, and risking everything for acceptance.

“First Spring Grass Fire will be meaningful to anyone who has struggled to fit in. By telling these stories—of being different, queer, raised in a rigid belief system you didn't choose, trying to be yourself within circumstances you can't control—Rae Spoon illustrates the triumph in reclaiming and controlling your own identity. This moving collection is a story of what we do to find a place, physical or intangible, that we can call home.” —National Post

“The prose is concise without ornamentation; emotionally moving because of its raw honesty. While issues of gender and sexuality certainly underline the majority of the narrator's existential despair, the book works because it pushes the reader to understand the humanity of the narrator rather than simply a trans or lesbian narrative. It demonstrates the commonality of grief, loss, fear, pain, love, and longing.”
Lambda Literary

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Our Lives Our Words

“Fear. I was scared to walk on the road for fear of people recognizing me. I was afraid the police might arrest me. I avoided taking the bus, not sure whom I could sit next to. I was scared to use the public toilet for fear that people might know my difference. I was scared that rotten tomatoes might hit me in the market. I was scared of falling in love for fear of being hit hard.”

The stories in this landmark volume chronicle, in their own words, the lives of aravanis* with narratives of pain and courage, of despair and triumph.

Aravanis have long been the invisible yet hyper-visible subjects of a societal gaze that reduces them to stereotype. Imagined as often as looked at or talked about, simultaneously revered and cursed, they have, in the process, been refused individual histories, lives and identities, even selves. Yet the community continues to challenge and subvert this view, persistently refusing to allow itself to be shamed or victimized. Some of the greatest recent victories in this ongoing battle for rights have been won in Tamil Nadu (a state in southern India), where the government first began to recognize many of the rights of the hijra community.

These stories are amongst the first accounts of hijra lives to be produced entirely by the members of the community themselves.

*As Identiversity notes, “nonbinary identities may seem like a new phenomenon in Western culture, but that’s not the case in other parts of the world. In India, a third gender identity known as hijra (or aravani in Tamil Nadu) has been intertwined with Indian culture for thousands of years, with hijras holding a prominent place in some of the most significant ancient Hindu texts.

Prior to British rule, hijras enjoyed a degree of acceptance in Indian society, playing a key role in celebrations. However, the colonial era was marked by criminalization and persecution, and today’s hijras—which include people who are intersex, transgender, and eunuchs—continue to occupy an uneasy space in Indian culture. Many are forced to eke out a living through begging or functioning as sex workers.

Efforts to gain legal protections took a significant step forward in 2014, when the Supreme Court of India officially recognized hijras as a third gender.

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