Memoirs & Biographies
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ALGONQUIN
How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning
Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood
by Jim Grimsley (Apr. 14, hardcover,
$23.95, ISBN 978-1-61620-376-4). In
August of 1966, playwright and novelist
Jim Grimsley entered the sixth grade in his
small eastern North Carolina hometown,
the year federally mandated integration of
the schools began. Here he looks back on
his 1960s childhood and renders history on
very personal terms.
ALLEN & UNWIN
Making Soapies in Kabul: Hot Days,
Crazy Nights and Dangerous Liaisons in
a War Zone by Trudi-Ann Tierney (Apr. 1,
paper, $19.95, ISBN 978-1-74331-427-2).
The dramatic yet funny account of how a
TV producer and former actress found herself working on Afghanistan’s most popular
soap opera. Wacky ex-pats live wild lives,
and locals try to survive as best they can
against the backdrop of war.
ATRIA
Corruption Officer: From Jail Guard
to Perpetrator Inside Rikers Island by
Gary L. Heyward (Mar. 31, paper, $16,
ISBN 978-1-4767-9432-7). Former corrections officer Gary Heyward, a Harlem-born
ex-Marine, shares an eye-opening, gritty,
and devastating account of his descent into
the criminal life, smuggling contraband
inside the infamous Rikers Island jails.
BALLANTINE
Wide-Open World: How Volunteering
Around the Globe Changed One Family’s
Lives Forever by John Marshall (Feb. 10,
hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-0-345-54964-8).
Marshall and his wife and teenage children
embark on a life-changing adventure: six
months of world travel, volunteering their
way from Costa Rica to New Zealand and
East Asia on a challenging, stimulating,
often stressful, but rewarding trip.
BLOOMSBURY
Girl in Glass: How My “Distressed
Baby” Defied the Odds, Shamed a CEO,
and Taught Me the Essence of Love,
Heartbreak, and Miracles by Deanna Fei
(June 2, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-1-
62040-991-6). An inspiring memoir of
Fei’s daughter’s extremely premature birth
and the controversy that erupted when
AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong blamed her
“distressed baby” for a cut in employee
benefits.
Kaleidoscope City: A Year in Varanasi
by Piers Moore Ede (Apr. 21, hardcover,
$26, ISBN 978-1-60819-868-9). Varanasi’s
inhabitants relate their own tales in a
revealing tour of India’s holiest city that
offers new insight into the city and a vibrant
portrait of modern, multicultural India.
CENTRAL RECOVERY
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Many Faces, One Voice: Secrets from
The Anonymous People by Bud Mikhi-tarian, foreword by Greg Williams (May
12, paper, $17.95, ISBN 978-1-937612-
93-1). In this companion book to the
award-winning film The Anonymous People,
the testimony of those who have come out
of the shadows to fight the stigma associated
with addiction take the reader on a journey
of individual growth and, potentially, to
world change.
CROWN
The Porcelain Thief: Searching the
Middle Kingdom for Buried China by
Huan Hsu (Mar. 24, hardcover, $27, ISBN
978-0-307-98630-6). Hsu, a first-generation Chinese-American, melds memoir,
travelogue, ethnography, and social and
political history in this story of his return
to China to discover the fate of his great-great-grandfather’s long-buried porcelain
collection.
The Theft of Memory: Losing My
Father, One Day at a Time by Jonathan
Kozol (June 2, hardcover, $26, ISBN 978-
0-8041-4097-3). National Book Award–
winning author and education activist
Kozol offers a deeply personal biography of
; Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget
Sarah Hepola. Grand Central, June 23
; Frontlist
Tracy K. Smith. Knopf, Mar. 31
; Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland
Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus. Viking, Apr. 28
; Just Kids from the Bronx: Telling It the Way It Was: An Oral History
Arlene Alda. Holt, Mar. 3
; The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir
Vivian Gornick. FSG, May 19
; The Rose Hotel: A Memoir of Secrets, Loss, and Love from Iran to America
Rahimeh Andalibian. National Geographic, May 12
; Screening Room: Family Pictures
Alan Lightman. Pantheon, Feb. 10
; Smash Cut: A Memoir of Howard & Art & the ’70s & the ’80s
Brad Gooch. Harper, Apr. 14
; The Story: A Reporter’s Journey
Judith Miller. Simon & Schuster, Apr. 7
; The Theft of Memory: Losing My Father, One Day at a Time
Jonathan Kozol. Crown, June 2
PW’S TOP 10: MEMOIR
