By Chetan Bhagat
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

“Love marriage around the world are simple: Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy. They get married. In India, there are a few more steps: Boy loves Girl. Girl loves Boy. Girl’s family has to love boy. Boy’s family has to love girl. Girl’s family has to love boy’s family. Boy’s family has to love girl’s family. Girl and Boy still love each other. They get married (From the Publisher).”

By Yangzom Brauen
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

Author Yangzom Brauen shares details about her life and the lives of her mother and grandmother, who lived in Tibet during Chinese rule and were forced to find ways to preserve their identity and culture while in exile.

By Louis W. Kasischke
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

The story of one survivor from the fatally tragic 1996 Mt. Everest expedition.

By Donald Stratton
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

A memoir by a USS Arizona survivor describes his experience of the attacks that left him with burns over more than sixty-five percent of his body, his resolve to reenter service after a grueling recovery, and his contributions to some of the Pacific's most violent battles.

By Lena Mahmoud
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

After her mother is killed and her father disappears, Isra Shadi, whose parents were Palestinian and white, lives with her aunt and uncle, but when she is encouraged to leave and marry, she chooses a love from her past, as she is caught between two cultures and struggles for identity.

By David Miller
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

“In 2003, David Miller left his job, family, and friends to fulfill a dream and hike the Appalachian Trail. AWOL on the Appalachian Trail is Miller’s account of this thru-hike along the entire 2,172 miles from Georgia to Maine (From the Publisher).”

By Katherine Boo
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, April 9, 2013.  7:30 PM.

Winner of the 2012 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
“Profiles everyday life in the settlement of Annawadi as experienced by a Muslim teen, an ambitious rural mother, and a young scrap metal thief, illuminating how their efforts to build better lives are challenged by religious, caste, and economic tensions (From the Publisher).”

By Thrity Umrigar
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

During the wedding of one of their neighbors, the longtime residents of a middle-class apartment building in Bombay look back on their lives.

By James Campbell
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

The author describes his journey to the far reaches of Alaska with his teenage daughter where the harsh environment tested them and their relationship.

By Rachel Jeffs
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

The daughter of the self-proclaimed prophet of the FLDS Church describes the abusive patriarchal culture in which she was raised by sister wives and dominating men and discusses how her father remains a powerful influence on his followers.

By Michael D. Leinbach
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

Presents the story of the Columbia space shuttle disaster, the extensive ground search undertaken to recover the remains of the crew and over forty percent of the vehicle, and the initial look at how the tragedy happened.

By Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

A heart-stopping memoir of a girl shaken by the brutalities of war and empowered by the will to survive, The Broken Circle brilliantly illustrates that family is not defined by the borders of a country but by the bonds of the heart.

By Amita Trasi
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions, Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk

Returning to her homeland in India, Tara searches for her childhood friend, Mukta, who was kidnapped from her home eleven years ago, and delves into the brutal underground world of human trafficking.

By Al Lockwood
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

One mega ship. Two mature travelers. Fourteen days cruising from Barcelona to Miami. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to cruise across the Atlantic Ocean with more than 4,000 passengers, this travel memoir is for you. It answers questions like: Are the crowds crushing? Is the food boring? Is the experience a “get me outta here” nightmare or a dream-come-true adventure? The warm, personal, often humorous observations of Sunny and Al Lockwood will introduce you to colorful characters, enchanting sunsets, and authentic experiences that will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading.

By Jose Antonio Vargas
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, filmmaker and immigration-rights activist presents a debut memoir about how he unknowingly entered the United States with false documents as a child.

By Tara Westover
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, February 26, 2019. 1:30 PM.

Traces the author's experiences as a child born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, describing her participation in her family's paranoid stockpiling activities and her resolve to educate herself well enough to earn acceptance into a prestigious university and the unfamiliar world beyond.

By Shilpa Raj
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

When you are a female born into a poor Indian family, the odds are already stacked greatly against you. The human drama captured in this memoir is nothing short of amazing - a young woman's struggle between the two worlds of her existence. Saved by her grandmother from being killed at birth for being a female, and abandoned by her mother at a young age, Shilpa faces the formidable constraints placed on her by her family and the village elders. The values with which she is being brought up in a school for poor children started by a philanthropist come in conflict with those of her family, tearing each other apart. Just when all seems settled, an unforeseen death under mysterious circumstances shatters whatever stability remains in her life. Pulled in opposite directions, and torn between despair and dreams, Shilpa finally makes a choice for her escape. But is she strong enough to stand up to the people she loves, and pursue what she wants? At its heart The Elephant Chaser's Daughter is about hope, when all seems lost. Written with raw honesty and grit, this is a deeply moving memoir of a young woman confronting her 'untouchable' status in a caste-based society, and her aspirations for a good future.

By Nick Gray
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

Two brothers face cruelty, hardship, and hope, on the ultimate journey in search of freedom.

By Regina Calcaterra
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions, Jean Buchholtz, Library Clerk, Amy B., Children's Librarian

“A tenacious lawyer, state official, and activist records her childhood in foster homes and on the streets with her four siblings, revealing a life of horrible abuse in the shadows between Manhattan and the Hamptons (From the Publisher).”

By Akhil Sharma
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, January 19, 2016. 1:30 PM.

Finally joining their father in America, Ajay and Birju enjoy their new, extraordinary life until tragedy strikes, leaving one brother incapacitated and the other practically orphaned.

By Rohinton Mistry
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

“Mistry presents a magnetic tale of family obligations that comes as close to perfect as a novel can get. The setting is the ever-hectic city of Bombay during a 1990s wave of violent religious extremism, and the focus is on an extended Parsi family suffering the long-term consequences of a Juliet and Romeo-like tragedy (From the Publisher).”

By Rohinton Mistry
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

A portrait of India featuring four characters. Two are tailors who are forcibly sterilized, one is a student who emigrates, and the fourth is a widowed seamstress who decides to hang on. A tale of cruelty, political thuggery and despair by an Indian from Toronto, author of Such a Long Journey..

By Jennifer McGaha
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions, Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian

In a hilarious, honest and heartbreaking memoir, a Pushcart Prize nominee, after experiencing an economic crisis of epic proportions, chronicles her unexpected journey from country chic to a 100-year-old, mice-infested, snake-ridden cabin in a North Carolina holler where she discovered the true meaning of home.

By Christopher Andersen
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

Traces the family histories and controversies that have marked the lives of Queen Elizabeth, the Duchess of Cornwall, and the Duchess of Cambridge to illuminate their stark differences, their remarkable similarities, and their roles in an evolving monarchy.

By Regina Calcaterra
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

The authors share the experiences of youngest sister Rosie as a child of an alcoholic, abusive mother after moving into foster care in Long Island before being forced to continue living with her damaged mother in Idaho after her sisters made their escape.

By Shobha Rao
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

Forging a deep friendship with impoverished but passionate fellow weaver Savitha, motherless Poornima leaves behind everything she knows to search for her friend after an act of cruelty drives Savitha away.

By Pearl S. Buck
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

A slave bride of a Chinese laborer devotes herself to her husband's family, but when civil war in China brings wealth to the family, her happiness is endangered as her husband brings home a second wife.

By Sarah Smarsh
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

Tuesday, September 10, 2019. 7:30 PM.

Traces the author's turbulent childhood on a Kansas farm in the 1980s and 1990s to reveal her firsthand experiences with cyclical poverty and the corrosive impact of intergenerational poverty on individuals, families and communities.

By Alka Joshi
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Adrienne Rein, Library Clerk, Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions, Donna Burger, Readers' Services Librarian

A talented henna artist for wealthy confidantes finds her efforts to control her own destiny in 1950s Jaipur threatened by the abusive husband she fled as a teenage girl.

By Aarti Namdev Shahani
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

An award-winning NPR correspondent presents a heartfelt memoir about the immigrant experience in modern America, detailing her education as a scholarship student at an elite Manhattan prep school and her father’s victimization by a notorious drug cartel.

By Nadia Hashimi
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

Accused by her in–laws and imprisoned for the murder of her husband, Zeba forges bonds with a group of women who have also been locked up for social violations and places her fate in the hands of an Afghan–born, American raised civil rights lawyer.

By Malala Yousafzai
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions, Kalpana Mehta, Reference Librarian
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, March 22, 2016. 1:30 PM.

Documents the educational pursuits of the Nobel Peace Prize nominee who became an international symbol of hope and inspiration when she challenged the traditions of her Pakistan community, offering insight into the influential role of her courageous father.

By Ali Nujood
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

The true story of a Yemeni child bride describes her forced marriage to an abusive husband three times her age, her pursuit of the marriage's dissolution, and the cultural factors that place girls at risk in Yemeni society.

By Bill Bryson
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

“...A book filled with hysterical scenes of one man's attempt to reacquaint himself with his own country, but it is also an extended, if at times bemused, love letter to the homeland he has returned to after twenty years away (From the Publisher).”

By Bill Bryson
Recommended By Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian, Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

“Bryson shares accounts of his travels in Australia, which has the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife on the planet (From the Publisher).”

By Fabio Geda
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

In a fictional retelling of a true story, ten–year–old Enaiat leaves his small Afghanistan village after the Taliban takes over in 2000, and when his mother is forced to leave him in Pakistan, he endures a five–year ordeal to make his way to Italy.

By Anand Giridharadas
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

“Reversing his parents' immigrant path, a young American-born writer returns to India and discovers an old country making itself new… (Giridharadas) paints an intimate portrait of a country becoming modern while striving to remain itself (From the Publisher).”

By Anish Majumdar
Recommended By Sharon Long, Assistant Library Director, Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

Neil Kapoor, 23, is desperate to create a life beyond the shadow of his mother’s schizophrenia.

By Ed Viesturs
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

A first American mountaineer to have ascended all 14 of the world's 8,000-meter peaks explores the history of K2 as reflected by six dramatic climbing campaigns, describing the tragedies that have marked many attempts as well as his own near-fatal 1992 ascent.

By Twinkle Khanna
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

A gangly young girl transforms her village with a revolutionary idea. Sixty-eight-year-old Noni Appa finds herself drawn to a married man-- 'Why do people have to define relationships, underline each word till the paper gives way beneath?', she wonders. Bablu Tripathi becomes obsessed with sanitary napkins much to his family's horror, and a young woman keeps checking the weather forecast as she meticulously plans each of her five weddings. Funny, observant and wise, this is storytelling at its most irresistible.

By Kooshyar Karimi
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

Born in a slum, Kooshyar Karimi transformed himself into an award-winning writer as well as a successful doctor, whose conscience won't let him turn away the unmarried women who beg him to save their lives by ending pregnancies that would see them stoned to death. One of those women is Leila. She yearns to go to university, but her family forbids it. Kooshyar has rescued countless women, but Leila seeks his help for a different reason, one that will haunt him for years afterwards. Leila's Secret shows us everyday life for women in a country where it can be a crime to fall in love. For all its tragedy, this book is paradoxically uplifting, told from the heart of Kooshyar's immense sympathy.

By Saroo Brierley
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

A full-length account of the author’s inspirational effort to find his India birthplace describes how he was accidentally separated from his family in the mid-1980s, his survival on the streets of Calcutta, his adoption by an Australian family and his headline-making Google Earth search.

By Kristina Wandzilak
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

Describes how the author, a second of four children, fell into addictions at the age of thirteen and descended into a brutally violent life while her mother was forced to end a dysfunctional marriage and assume a tough-love stance in order to protect her other children.

By Padma Lakshmi
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

The host of Top Chef presents a memoir about her immigrant childhood and complicated life in front of the camera, tracing her formative experiences in her grandmother’s South India kitchen and her relationships with people who influenced her culinary skills and career.

By Jhumpa Lahiri
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, May 27, 2014. 1:30 PM.

Frequently mistaken for one another in spite of very different natures, brothers Subhash and Udayan Mitra pursue respective lives in rebellion-torn 1960s Calcutta until a shattering tragedy compels Subhash to return to India, where he endeavors to heal family wounds.

By Stephanie Land
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

A journalist describes the years she worked in low-paying domestic work under wealthy employers, contrasting the privileges of the upper-middle class to the realities of the overworked laborers supporting them.

By Colin Pyle
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

"Brothers Colin and Ryan take us with them as they travel through the diverse and extraordinary landscapes of China, from its border with North Korea, to the ancient Muslin city of Kashgar, across the vast empty spaces of the Mongolian grasslands, over the mountains and into the monasteries of Tibet (From the Publisher)."

By Ed Viesturs
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

The only American to have climbed all fourteen of the world's eight-thousand-meter peaks sets his sights on Mount Everest, in a work that combines his own climbs as well as narratives of famous climbs throughout the last century.

By Jen Carter
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

The world calls The Falkland Islands harsh and isolated. The Carters called it home… In 1982, war brought The Falkland Islands into the spotlight. When Jennifer and her family put down roots in an unspoiled community on West Falkland, they can’t help but see the unruly climate and the close proximity to a frozen wasteland. How could a place like this be worth fighting for? The Carters quickly learn that the Falklands way of life is friendliness and self-sufficiency. Their new life becomes one of abundant wildlife and growing their own food, but it never strays from the island’s true British identity. Part homesteading, part off-the-grid, and all charm, this loving testimony to the resilient people of the islands will have you adding the Falklands to your bucket list in an instant. My Falkland Islands Life is the story of one family’s adventure in a British territory 8,000 miles from the United Kingdom. Whether you live on the islands, plan to travel there, or enjoy fascinating travelogues, you’ll love Jen Carter’s engaging memoir of a charming life at the bottom of the world.

By Emma Robinson
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

When her husband’s ex-girlfriend arrives with his 4-year-old daughter Cara in hand, desperately needing him to take Cara in, Rebecca, shocked at this news, wonders if she has it in her to welcome her husband’s child into her heart and home.