Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong

Hong’s collection of essays blends memoir, history, and cultural criticism to expose truths about racialized consciousness in America. Throughout, Hong develops a theory of “minor feelings”–the feelings that develop throughout her life growing up as the daughter of Korean immigrants as she is repeatedly exposed to the contradictions of American culture. Hong’s book is at turns funny, devastating, intimate, and honest, and a must-read for fans of memoir or anyone looking to build an understanding of Asian American experience(s).

High Price by Dr. Carl Hart

If you’ve fallen behind in your reading and are looking to catch up, High Price may be the book for you. Neuroscientist Carl Hart won the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award for this memoir in 2014, meaning you can read a memoir, a book by a scientist, and an award-winning author in one book! Dr. Hart details his life as he went from avoiding studying to becoming Columbia’s first tenured African American professor in the sciences. (And can we talk about how shocking it is that he was the first? Wow! It sure took Columbia long enough!) His book High Price details the rational decisions of drug users to shed light on common motivations and explain why current drug policies fail.

What God is Honored Here? ed. by Shannon Gibney and Kao Kalia Lang

Kao Kalia Lang returns to our recommendations list alongside Shannon Gibney as editors of this collection of writings on miscarriage and infant loss by and for Native women and women of color. Black women’s risk of pregnancy loss can by up to twice that of white women’s, but this dry statistic doesn’t get at the heart of the issue for the women who have experienced miscarriage or child death. What God is Honored Here? is the first book of its kind, bringing together a variety of voices of Indigenous women and women of color to discuss the expectations of interracial marriage, inter-generational love and trauma, medical racism, and much more through poetry and literary nonfiction.

Trace by Lauret Savoy

Another multi-award winner, Trace by Lauret Savoy combines memoir, history, and land as Savoy navigates her histories as woman of African American, Euro-American, and Native American heritage. What I appreciate most about Trace is that it acknowledge history is still unfolding. We live in a place shaped by the history of landscapes, migration, and movement, and we are also going somewhere. We have not reached the end of our journey yet. I would recommend Trace for anyone looking for thoughtful introspection that is deeply rooted in time and place.

Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot

After being hospitalized with the dual diagnoses of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder, Mailhot is given a notebook to write her way out of trauma. She reflects on her dysfunctional upbringing as a child at the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest, her activist mother with a thing for prisoners, and her abusive father, a brilliant artist who was murdered under mysterious circumstances. Heart Berries is an ode to love under the weight of shame, and a powerful example of reclaiming one’s own story.

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson

Johnson calls this “a memoir manifesto,” and it lives up to the name. In this series of essays journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores coming of age in New Jersey and Virginia. All Boys Aren’t Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy.

Assata by Assata Shakur

On May 2, 1973, Black Panther Assata Shakur (aka JoAnne Chesimard) lay in a hospital, close to death, handcuffed to her bed, while local, state, and federal police attempted to question her about the shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that had claimed the life of a white state trooper. Long a target of J. Edgar Hoover’s campaign to defame, infiltrate, and criminalize Black nationalist organizations and their leaders, Shakur was incarcerated for four years prior to her conviction on flimsy evidence in 1977 as an accomplice to murder. This classic autobiography continues to surprise and inform readers even now, decades after the events.