Download or read book The Race to Be Myself A Memoir written by Caster Semenya and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2023-10-31 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World champion runner Caster Semenya offers an empowering account of her extraordinary life and career, and her trailblazing battle to compete on her own terms. Olympian and World Champion Caster Semenya is finally ready to share the vivid and heartbreaking story of how the world came to know her name. Thrust into the spotlight at just eighteen years old after winning the Berlin World Championships in 2009, Semenya’s win was quickly overshadowed by criticism and speculation about her body, and she became the center of a still-raging firestorm about how gender plays out in sports, our expectations of female athletes, and the right to compete as you are. Told with captivating speed and candor, The Race to Be Myself is the journey of Semenya’s years as an athlete in the public eye, and her life behind closed doors. From her rural beginnings running free in the dust, to crushing her opponents in record time on the track, to the accusations and falsehoods spread about her in the press, the legal trial she went through in order to compete, and the humiliation she has been forced to endure publicly and privately. This book is a searing testimony for anyone who has been forced to stop doing what they love.
Download or read book Can t Nothing Bring Me Down written by Ida Keeling and published by HarperChristian + ORM. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's never too late to do the impossible. Meet Ida Keeling, a 104-year-old mother, activist, and world record-holding runner. Her fierce independence and deep faith carried her through the Depression and the civil rights movement--but her greatest trials were yet to come. Miss Ida, as she is known in her community in the Bronx, grew up as a child of immigrants during the Great Depression. She began working to help provide for her family at age twelve. Later, after her husband passed, she raised her four children alone while serving as an active member in the civil rights movement. In 1978 and 1980, Ida's two sons were brutally murdered. Justice was never achieved. Ida felt like she didn't have the strength to carry on, but, encouraged by her daughter, Ida put on her first pair of running shoes at the age of 67 and began to chase the paralyzing sorrow from her heart. Running gave light and new energy to Ida, and since her first race nearly 35 years ago, she's never looked back. Holding the world record for the fastest time in the 60-meter dash for the 95-99 age group, Ida isn't slowing down. Can't Nothing Bring Me Down gives us a clear picture of what it means to: Find new passions, no matter your age Navigate life's obstacles with grace Lean on faith, family, and friends in hard times In Can't Nothing Bring Me Down, Ida offers time-tested truths gathered from a lifetime of watching a nation change--and from a lifelong faith in Jesus. "Every night, I thank him for my many blessings, for his guidance, for his protection," Ida says. "And every night he tells me, 'Miss Ida, you just keep on, because I ain't done with you yet.'"
Download or read book Memoir of a Race Traitor written by Mab Segrest and published by South End Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Courageous and daring, this work documents the reality that political solidarity, forged in struggle, can exist across difference.' bell hooks
Download or read book Running Home written by Katie Arnold and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Wild and H Is for Hawk, an Outside magazine writer tells her story—of fathers and daughters, grief and renewal, adventure and obsession, and the power of running to change your life. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE I’m running to forget, and to remember. For more than a decade, Katie Arnold chased adventure around the world, reporting on extreme athletes who performed outlandish feats—walking high lines a thousand feet off the ground without a harness, or running one hundred miles through the night. She wrote her stories by living them, until eventually life on the thin edge of risk began to seem normal. After she married, Katie and her husband vowed to raise their daughters to be adventurous, too, in the mountains and canyons of New Mexico. But when her father died of cancer, she was forced to confront her own mortality. His death was cataclysmic, unleashing a perfect storm of grief and anxiety. She and her father, an enigmatic photographer for National Geographic, had always been kindred spirits. He introduced her to the outdoors and took her camping and on bicycle trips and down rivers, and taught her to find solace and courage in the natural world. And it was he who encouraged her to run her first race when she was seven years old. Now nearly paralyzed by fear and terrified she was dying, too, she turned to the thing that had always made her feel most alive: running. Over the course of three tumultuous years, she ran alone through the wilderness, logging longer and longer distances, first a 50-kilometer ultramarathon, then 50 miles, then 100 kilometers. She ran to heal her grief, to outpace her worry that she wouldn’t live to raise her own daughters. She ran to find strength in her weakness. She ran to remember and to forget. She ran to live. Ultrarunning tests the limits of human endurance over seemingly inhuman distances, and as she clocked miles across mesas and mountains, Katie learned to tolerate pain and discomfort, and face her fears of uncertainty, vulnerability, and even death itself. As she ran, she found herself peeling back the layers of her relationship with her father, discovering that much of what she thought she knew about him, and her own past, was wrong. Running Home is a memoir about the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of our world—the stories that hold us back, and the ones that set us free. Mesmerizing, transcendent, and deeply exhilarating, it is a book for anyone who has been knocked over by life, or feels the pull of something bigger and wilder within themselves. “A beautiful work of searching remembrance and searing honesty . . . Katie Arnold is as gifted on the page as she is on the trail. Running Home will soon join such classics as Born to Run and Ultramarathon Man as quintessential reading of the genre.”—Hampton Sides, author of On Desperate Ground and Ghost Soldiers
Download or read book Between the World and Me written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and published by One World. This book was released on 2015-07-14 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
Download or read book Chasing My Cure written by David Fajgenbaum and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LOS ANGELES TIMES AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER • The powerful memoir of a young doctor and former college athlete diagnosed with a rare disease who spearheaded the search for a cure—and became a champion for a new approach to medical research. “A wonderful and moving chronicle of a doctor’s relentless pursuit, this book serves both patients and physicians in demystifying the science that lies behind medicine.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, New York Times bestselling author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene David Fajgenbaum, a former Georgetown quarterback, was nicknamed the Beast in medical school, where he was also known for his unmatched mental stamina. But things changed dramatically when he began suffering from inexplicable fatigue. In a matter of weeks, his organs were failing and he was read his last rites. Doctors were baffled by his condition, which they had yet to even diagnose. Floating in and out of consciousness, Fajgenbaum prayed for a second chance, the equivalent of a dramatic play to second the game into overtime. Miraculously, Fajgenbaum survived—only to endure repeated near-death relapses from what would eventually be identified as a form of Castleman disease, an extremely deadly and rare condition that acts like a cross between cancer and an autoimmune disorder. When he relapsed while on the only drug in development and realized that the medical community was unlikely to make progress in time to save his life, Fajgenbaum turned his desperate hope for a cure into concrete action: Between hospitalizations he studied his own charts and tested his own blood samples, looking for clues that could unlock a new treatment. With the help of family, friends, and mentors, he also reached out to other Castleman disease patients and physicians, and eventually came up with an ambitious plan to crowdsource the most promising research questions and recruit world-class researchers to tackle them. Instead of waiting for the scientific stars to align, he would attempt to align them himself. More than five years later and now married to his college sweetheart, Fajgenbaum has seen his hard work pay off: A treatment he identified has induced a tentative remission and his novel approach to collaborative scientific inquiry has become a blueprint for advancing rare disease research. His incredible story demonstrates the potency of hope, and what can happen when the forces of determination, love, family, faith, and serendipity collide. Praise for Chasing My Cure “A page-turning chronicle of living, nearly dying, and discovering what it really means to be invincible in hope.”—Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grit “[A] remarkable memoir . . . Fajgenbaum writes lucidly and movingly . . . Fajgenbaum’s stirring account of his illness will inspire readers.”—Publishers Weekly
Download or read book Talking to Myself written by Studs Terkel and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Incomplete Book of Running written by Peter Sagal and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter Sagal, the host of NPR’s Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me! and a popular columnist for Runner’s World, shares “commentary and reflection about running with a deeply felt personal story, this book is winning, smart, honest, and affecting. Whether you are a runner or not, it will move you” (Susan Orlean). On the verge of turning forty, Peter Sagal—brainiac Harvard grad, short bald Jew with a disposition towards heft, and a sedentary star of public radio—started running seriously. And much to his own surprise, he kept going, faster and further, running fourteen marathons and logging tens of thousands of miles on roads, sidewalks, paths, and trails all over the United States and the world, including the 2013 Boston Marathon, where he crossed the finish line moments before the bombings. In The Incomplete Book of Running, Sagal reflects on the trails, tracks, and routes he’s traveled, from the humorous absurdity of running charity races in his underwear—in St. Louis, in February—or attempting to “quiet his colon” on runs around his neighborhood—to the experience of running as a guide to visually impaired runners, and the triumphant post-bombing running of the Boston Marathon in 2014. With humor and humanity, Sagal also writes about the emotional experience of running, body image, the similarities between endurance sports and sadomasochism, the legacy of running as passed down from parent to child, and the odd but extraordinary bonds created between strangers and friends. The result is “a brilliant book about running…What Peter runs toward is strength, understanding, endurance, acceptance, faith, hope, and charity” (P.J. O’Rourke).
Download or read book Hold Still written by Sally Mann and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2015-05-12 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This National Book Award finalist is a revealing and beautifully written memoir and family history from acclaimed photographer Sally Mann. In this groundbreaking book, a unique interplay of narrative and image, Mann's preoccupation with family, race, mortality, and the storied landscape of the American South are revealed as almost genetically predetermined, written into her DNA by the family history that precedes her. Sorting through boxes of family papers and yellowed photographs she finds more than she bargained for: "deceit and scandal, alcohol, domestic abuse, car crashes, bogeymen, clandestine affairs, dearly loved and disputed family land . . . racial complications, vast sums of money made and lost, the return of the prodigal son, and maybe even bloody murder." In lyrical prose and startlingly revealing photographs, she crafts a totally original form of personal history that has the page-turning drama of a great novel but is firmly rooted in the fertile soil of her own life.
Download or read book My Song Enhanced Edition written by Harry Belafonte and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This deluxe eBook edition of Harry Belafonte's remarkable memoir includes nearly eighteen minutes of original video—Mr. Belafonte talking about his first meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr. . . . his friendship with Sidney Poitier . . . the making of “We Are the World” . . . and much more—the bonus song “Jump in the Line” from the companion album Harry Belafonte—Sing Your Song: The Music; and the book's photographs compiled as a slide show. Harry Belafonte is not just one of the greatest entertainers of our time; he has led one of the great American lives of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Now, at last, this extraordinary icon tells us about it all—his poverty-ridden childhood in Harlem and Jamaica; his meteoric rise to become one of the world’s most popular singers, breaking down racial barriers that no one had broken before, achieving equal popularity with white and black audiences; his lifelong, passionate involvement at the heart of the civil rights movement and countless other political and social causes. Along the way he’s befriended many beloved and important figures in both entertainment and politics—Paul Robeson; Eleanor Roosevelt; Sidney Poitier; John F. Kennedy; Marlon Brando; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Robert Kennedy; Nelson Mandela; Fidel Castro—and writes about them with the same exceptional candor and insight with which he reveals himself on every page. As both an artist and an activist, Belafonte has touched the lives of countless men and women. With My Song, he has found yet another way to entertain and inspire us. It is an electrifying memoir from a remarkable man.
Download or read book I Am Not Myself These Days written by Josh Kilmer-Purcell and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-12-31 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Josh Kilmer-Purcell lived a double life. By day, he was a successful young advertising executive. By night, he would trade in his corporate uniform for high heels and sequins, and perform in downtown New York nightclubs as a drag queen called Acquadisiac before returning to the uptown penthouse he shared with his crack-addicted male escort boyfriend. In this powerfully written, emotional rollercoaster of a memoir, Kilmer-Purcell blends the glittering and highly dramatic world of nightclubs, drugs and drag with a soulful and ironic perspective on his own journey through love and life. Told with a raw and honest voice that conveys hard truths with unflinching courage, I Am Not Myself These Days is a stunningly witty and ultimately deeply moving tour de force by a remarkable talent.
Download or read book Big Little Man written by Alex Tizon and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A journalist presents an intimate assessment of the mythology, experience, and psyche of the Asian-American male that traces his own experiences as an immigrant under the constraints of American cultural stereotypes.
Download or read book Condoleezza Rice A Memoir of My Extraordinary Ordinary Family and Me written by Condoleezza Rice and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2010-10-12 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Condoleezza Rice, former secretary of state and New York Times bestselling author of Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom, comes a captivating memoir of her remarkable childhood. Condoleezza Rice’s life began in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1950s, a place and time where black people lived in a segregated parallel universe away from their white neighbors. She grew up during the violent and shocking 1960s, when bloodshed became a part of daily life in the South. Rice’s portrait of her parents, John and Angelena, highlights their ambitions and frustrations and shows how much they sacrificed to give their beloved only child the best chance for success. Rice also discusses the challenges of being a precocious child who was passionate about music, ice skating, history, and current affairs. Her memoir reveals with vivid clarity how her early experiences sowed the seeds of her political beliefs and helped her become a vibrant, successful woman. Condoleezza Rice: A Memoir of My Extraordinary, Ordinary Parents and Me is a fascinating and inspirational story for young people, adapted from Condoleeza Rice’s adult sensation Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family. Includes a 16-page photo insert. Praise for Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family: “An origins story . . . memoir is teeming with fascinating detail.” —The New York Times “A thrilling, inspiring life of achievement.” —Publishers Weekly “Surprisingly engrossing . . .” —Daily Beast “Vivid and heartfelt writing . . . Highly recommended.”—Library Journal
Download or read book The Race to Be Myself Young Readers Edition written by Caster Semenya and published by WW Norton. This book was released on 2024-05-28 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this memoir for young readers, Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya reflects on her groundbreaking career and her fight for identity in professional sports. Caster Semenya is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a three-time world champion in track from South Africa. Since her first spectacular performance at the 2009 World Championship in Berlin, she has been at the center of a growing debate about female eligibility rules in professional athletics because of her naturally high testosterone levels. After she was forced to take devastating hormone-altering drugs in order to continue competing, this debate has moved to center stage in the future of inclusivity for professional athletes. In this middle grade adaptation of her debut adult memoir, Caster recounts her childhood growing up in a small village in South Africa, the love for and acceptance of her identity from her community, and her trailblazing fight for the right to compete in professional sports. The Race to Be Myself is an illuminating and necessary story of identity and self-acceptance that will resonate with young readers.
Download or read book Waking Up White written by Debby Irving and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One aha moment launches a journey of discovery and insight that shifts long held beliefs and attitudes about race.
Download or read book Talk to Me written by Qasim Rashid and published by . This book was released on 2015-12-15 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #TalkToMe: Changing the narrative on race, religion, and education is a non-fiction memoir from inspiring thought leaders on how the power of dialogue can overcome racism, xenophobia, intolerance, and violence. It is the real life story of how ordinary Americans are rising beyond the forces that seek to drive us apart, and instead finding paths to peace and understanding. These are the stories you won't hear in the media because the fact is, good news just doesn't sell newspapers. They are stories that remain untold because bigotry sells more than unity. Terror, more than tolerance. Instead, I want to give these powerful stories of pluralism the platform they deserve. I wrote #TalkToMe because I believe that our differences are a source of strength, not division. I believe things aren't hopeless and I believe we can repair the damage done. We must work together, and it all begins with dialogue. But we can't sit idle and we can't waste another day. So come on, #TalkToMe.
Download or read book Hola Papi written by John Paul Brammer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The popular LGBTQ advice columnist and writer presents a memoir-in-essays chronicling his journey growing up as a queer, mixed-race kid in America's heartland to becoming the "Chicano Carrie Bradshaw" of his generation.
