Biography & Autobiography

A collection of personal stories, history, poetry, and art

A Land With a People is a book of stories, photographs and poetry which elevates rarely heard Palestinian and Jewish voices and visions. Eloquently framed with a foreword by the dynamic Palestinian legal scholar and activist, Noura Erakat, this book began as a storytelling project of Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City and subsequently transformed into a theater project performed throughout the New York City area.

Stories touch hearts, open minds, and transform our understanding of the “other”—as well as our comprehension of own roles and responsibilities— and A Land With a People emerges from this reckoning. It brings us the narratives of secular, Muslim, Christian, and queer Palestinians who endure the particular brand of settler colonialism known as Zionism. It relays the transformational journeys of Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, queer, and Palestinian Jews who have come to reject the received Zionist narrative. Unflinching in their confrontation of the power dynamics that underlie their transformation process, these writers find the courage to face what has happened to historic Palestine, and to their own families as a result. Contextualized by a detailed historical introduction and timeline charting 150 years of Palestinian and Jewish resistance to Zionism, this collection will stir emotions, provoke fresh thinking, and point to a more hopeful, loving future—one in which Palestine/Israel is seen for what it is in its entirety, as well as for what it can be.

From one of California’s most celebrated librarians and public historians, a coming-of-age memoir about the thirst for knowledge and hometown pride.

A Best Book of the Year, Oakland Public Library

2023 Bronze Winner for the Foreword INDIES Award, Autobiography & Memoir

"What You Don’t Know will inspire for its grace, zest and courage." —Joan Frank, San Francisco Chronicle

Dorothy Lazard grew up in the Bay Area of the 1960s and ’70s, surrounded by an expansive network of family, and hungry for knowledge. Here in her first book, she vividly tells the story of her journey to becoming “queen of my own nerdy domain.” Today Lazard is celebrated for her distinguished career as a librarian and public historian, and in these pages she connects her early intellectual pursuits—including a formative encounter with Alex Haley—to the career that made her a community pillar. As she traces her trajectory to adulthood, she also explores her personal experiences connected to the Summer of Love, the murder of Emmett Till, the flourishing of the Black Arts Movement, and the redevelopment of Oakland. As she writes with honesty about the tragedies she faced in her youth—including the loss of both parents—Lazard’s memoir remains triumphant, animated by curiosity, careful reflection, and deep enthusiasm for life.

How do we find a way to exist equitably in the world without exhausting our natural and cultural resources? Exploring how to create belonging, among both human and nonhuman animals, is our essential work. Parents have the added responsibility of conveying this charge to their children in a way that centers hope and empowerment over guilt and fear.

In Satellite, Simmons Buntin delves into the idea of belonging—in place, time, family, and community—in sixteen essays written over nearly two decades. The pieces range throughout the desert Southwest, on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, and as far afield as Mount Saint Helens, eastern Montana, northern Vermont, Sweden, and even the moon (if a telescope atop Kitt Peak counts). Buntin examines the beauty and challenges of raising a family and creating more sustainable communities in the Sonoran Desert—and, more broadly, in any of America’s diverse cultural and ecological landscapes. How should community be defined? How do we protect heritage in an age of globalization? How do we find renewal following personal and place-based trauma? What forms may grace take, and how can parents pass that dignity on to their children?

Fortunately, it is a responsibility both shared and rewarding, funny and phenomenal, for at every turn there is a new discovery, a new insight, a new integration between ourselves and the world that culminates, when we succeed, in a vibrant sense of place. Buntin searches for a balance between the built and natural environments and the beings that inhabit them in a way that enables us not only to survive but to thrive together.

Now in paperback and newly expanded, this gripping memoir is hailed as essential by Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, and ELLE magazine—among others.

Bad Indians—part tribal history, part lyric and intimate memoir—is essential reading for anyone seeking to learn about California Indian history, past and present. Widely adopted in classrooms and book clubs throughout the United States, Bad Indians—now reissued in significantly expanded form—plumbs ancestry, survivance, and the cultural memory of Native California.

In this best-selling, now-classic memoir, Deborah A. Miranda tells stories of her Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen family and the experiences of California Indians more widely through oral histories, newspaper clippings, anthropological recordings, personal reflections, and poems. This expanded edition includes several new poems and essays, as well as an extensive afterword, totaling more than fifty pages of new material. Wise, indignant, and playful all at once, Bad Indians is a beautiful and devastating read, and an indispensable book for anyone seeking a more just and accurate telling of American history.

Out There recounts one man’s search to lead an authentic life, an adventure that takes him all over the world and through some of the biggest societal changes of recent history. From a distance, this could be a typical American story: boy grows up in a religious home, joins the military to defend his country, returns home to attend university, then becomes a firefighter. That would be typical if it weren’t for the fact that he’s gay and was open in places that historically excluded people like him.

As a nineteen-year-old from a fundamentalist family, Lance Garland worked hard to qualify for Navy SEAL training, then sailed across the Pacific on a warship where he met his first boyfriend. After his partner was sexually assaulted by a superior, the two men became witnesses in a court-martial that was complicated by the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. After he was discharged from the Navy, Garland discovered time in nature as a way to heal from the experiences of his youth. While sailing, backpacking ,and climbing in the Pacific Northwest, he navigates the challenges of becoming a first-generation college student, equal rights activist, and the first openly gay fireman in the Seattle fire department.

Out There is a memoir of a man out in the wilderness, both physically and socially, on a journey to find a place to call his own. It is for anyone who has felt like an outsider or hasn’t found their place yet.

In 1524, a man named David Reubeni appeared in Venice, claiming to be the ambassador of a powerful Jewish kingdom deep in the heart of Arabia. In this era of fierce rivalry between great powers, voyages of fantastic discovery, and brutal conquest of new lands, people throughout the Mediterranean saw the signs of an impending apocalypse and envisioned a coming war that would end with a decisive Christian or Islamic victory. With his army of hardy desert warriors from lost Israelite tribes, Reubeni pledged to deliver the Jews to the Holy Land by force and restore their pride and autonomy. He would spend a decade shuttling between European rulers in Italy, Portugal, Spain, and France, seeking weaponry in exchange for the support of his hitherto unknown but mighty Jewish kingdom. Many, however, believed him to favor the relatively tolerant Ottomans over the persecutorial Christian regimes. Reubeni was hailed as a messiah by many wealthy Jews and Iberia's oppressed conversos, but his grand ambitions were halted in Regensburg when the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, turned him over to the Inquisition and, in 1538, he was likely burned at the stake.

Diary of a Black Jewish Messiah is the first English translation of Reubeni's Hebrew-language diary, detailing his travels and personal travails. Written in a Hebrew drawn from everyday speech, entirely unlike other literary works of the period, Reubeni's diary reveals both the dramatic desperation of Renaissance Jewish communities and the struggles of the diplomat, trickster, and dreamer who wanted to save them.

P.G. ‘Plum’ Wodehouse is the greatest humorous writer England produced in the 20th century. 

The creator of Jeeves and Bertie, the Blandings saga, Ukridge, Mr Mulliner, Psmith and Uncle Fred, his output totalled almost 100 volumes of peerless comic invention. But where did all that material come from? Not just out of his head, no matter how large his hat size: in Wodehouse’s case, much arrived courtesy of his voracious reading habits, everything from Shakespeare to W.S. Gilbert via the Bible, Tennyson, Sherlock Holmes, gung-ho schoolboy fiction, gory pulp thrillers, the gloopiest romances and literally hundreds of other writers - even T.S. Eliot. No other writer had a broader range of influences.

In his latest groundbreaking study, Paul Kent, author of the Pelham Grenville Wodehouse trilogy of literary biographies teases out Plum’s literary roots, and how he expertly blended elements from all these writers and genres into the heady cocktail that keeps the world laughing over a hundred years on from when he first created it. It’s an alternative history of English Literature that will also make you laugh out loud.

Now in paperback: a gripping, witty travel memoir that offers "a fascinating look at voluntourism from an Indigenous perspective" (Book Riot)

"Ursula Pike's memoir is unlike any other I've read, with her perceptive, always-seeking, and lovely narrative voice." —Susan Straight, author of Mecca

"This book is alive with a spirit that welcomed mine to meet it." —Elissa Washuta, author of White Magic

When she was twenty-five, Ursula Pike boarded a plane to Bolivia and began her term of service in the Peace Corps. A member of the Karuk Tribe, Pike sought to make meaningful connections with Indigenous people halfway around the world. But she arrived in La Paz with trepidation as well as excitement, "knowing I followed in the footsteps of Western colonizers and missionaries who had also claimed they were there to help." In the following two years, as a series of dramatic episodes brought that tension to a boiling point, she began to ask: What does it mean to have experienced the effects of colonialism firsthand, and yet to risk becoming a colonizing force in turn? An Indian Among los Indígenas, Pike's memoir of this experience, upends a canon of travel memoirs that has historically been dominated by white writers. It is a sharp, honest, and unnerving examination of the shadows that colonial history casts over even the most well-intentioned attempts at cross-cultural aid. With masterful deadpan wit, it signals a shift in travel writing that is long overdue.

Alexandra Chan thinks she has life figured out until, in the Year of the Ram, the death of her father—her last parent—brings her to her knees, an event seemingly foretold in Chinese mythology.

A left-brained archaeologist and successful tiger daughter, Chan finds her logical approach to life utterly fails her in the face of this profound grief. Unable to find a way forward, she must either burn to ash or forge herself anew.

Slowly, painfully, wondrously, Chan discovers that her father and ancestors have left threads of renewal in the artifacts and stories of their lives. Through a long-lost interview conducted by Roosevelt’s Federal Writers’ Project, a basket of war letters written from the Burmese jungle, a box of photographs, her world travels, and a deepening relationship to her own art, the archaeologist and lifelong rationalist makes her greatest discovery to date: the healing power of enchantment.

In an epic story that travels from prerevolution China to the South under Jim Crow, from the Pacific theater of WWII to the black sands of Reynisfjara, Iceland, and beyond, Chan takes us on a universal journey to meaning in the wake of devastating loss, sharing the insights and tools that allowed her to rebuild her life and resurrect her spirit. Part memoir, part lyrical invitation to new ways of seeing and better ways of being in dark times, the book includes beautiful full-color original Chinese brush paintings by the author and fascinating vintage photographs of an unforgettable cast of characters. In the Garden Behind the Moon is a captivating family portrait and an urgent call to awaken to the magic and wonder of daily life.

"This soulful collection is perfect for fans of The Moth or Humans of New York." — Publishers Weekly

People in San Antonio love to tell stories. Worth Repeating: San Antonio Stories is a collection of forty true tales, epic adventures, and intimate revelations from the heart of one of America’s fastest growing and most culturally diverse cities.

There is the hilarious chronicle of being crowned Turkey Queen of Cuero, as well as stories of finding one’s place as an immigrant or refugee, the heartbreak of being on the AIDS epidemic’s front lines, and the redemption in writing My Little Pony fan fiction. From the birth of a Freedom Rider to the origins of a literary legend, from the search for a murdered mother’s memories to passing our abilities and disabilities along to our children, the pieces here are as varied and nuanced as the city its authors have called home at one time or another.

They might not all take place in Texas, but every story has roots in its streets, suburbs, and history. Whether it’s an account of being stranded in Uganda, growing up in a Mexican border barrio, catching swine flu in Thailand, being among Harvard University’s first Black architecture students, growing up in Iran, or leaving India for a new life in Texas, each story has a soul that is puro San Antonio. From last chances to first tries, all of these personal narratives were originally performed in front of an audience at Worth Repeating, Texas Public Radio’s live storytelling series.

Writers include Heather Armstrong, Tanveer Arora, Jennie Badger, Kiran Kaur Bains, Marion Barth, Sheila Black, Barbara Bowie, Norma Elia Cantú, Kelly Grey Carlisle, Cary Clack, Jess Elizarraras, Georgia Erck, Tiffany Farias-Sokoloski, Elizabeth Fauerso, Everett L. Fly, Larry Garza, Lorenzo Gomez III, Mike Knoop, David W. Lesch, Rey Lopez, Vanessa Martinez, Collin McGrath, Joaquin Muerte, Sanford Nowlin, Tori Pool, Wendy Rigby, Alex Rubio, Jonathan Ryan, Yara Samman, John Phillip Santos, Burgin Streetman, Whitley Strieber, Barbara S. Taylor, Michael Taylor, Kirsten Thompson, Clay Utley, Cristina Van Dusen, Eddie Vega, Ayon Wen-Waldron, and Bria Woods.

2025 Recipient of THE ANNE FRANK AWARD FOR HUMAN DIGNITY AND TOLERANCE, from the Dutch Government
2024 Recipient of THE OFFICER'S CROSS OF THE ORDER OF MERIT of the Federal Republic of Germany, Germany's highest civilian medal
NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST

“Irene Butter’s book is a triumph of clarity and concision, written with a passionate intent to inform and with not a shred of self-pity. It is by turns profound and intimate, and bears witness to the resilience of a family who drew strength from one another even through the darkness of the Holocaust. It is a shockingly honest and hopeful book.”--Andrew Solomon, National Book Award Winning AuthorThe Noonday Demon and author ofFar From The Tree Parent's Children, And The Search For Identity

“Irene Butter’s story is not your standard holocaust memoir. Instead, it recounts what happened to one family both during and after the war, and captures vividly the time from release from concentration camp to greeting a life back. It is compelling reading, and makes one realise how what happened in the immediate aftermath may have overshadowed the rest of Irene Butter’s life...”--Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger

Irene Butter’s memoir of her experiences before, during and after the Holocaust is not a recounting of misery and tragedy; rather it is the genuine story of a girl coming to terms with a terrible event and choosing to view herself as a survivor instead of a victim. When the Dutch police knock on their door, Irene and her family are forced to leave their home and board trains meant for cattle. They are taken to Nazi-controlled prison camps and finally to Bergen-Belsen, where Irene is a fellow prisoner with Anne Frank.

With limited access to food, shelter, and warm clothing, Irene’s family needs nothing short of a miracle to survive. Irene’s memoir tells the story of her experiences as a young girl before, during, and after the Holocaust, highlighting how her family came to terms with the catastrophe and how she, over time, came to view herself as a survivor rather than a victim. Throughout the book, her first-person account celebrates the love and empathy that can persist even in the most inhumane conditions.

Printer and publisher, author and educator, scientist and inventor, statesman and philanthropist, Benjamin Franklin was the very embodiment of the American type of self-made man. In 1771, at the age of 65, he sat down to write his autobiography, "having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity." The result is a classic of American literature.

On the eve of the tercentenary of Franklin's birth, the university he founded has selected the Autobiography for the Penn Reading Project. Each year, for the past fifteen years, the University of Pennsylvania has chosen a single work that the entire incoming class, and a large segment of the faculty and staff, read and discuss together. For this occasion the University of Pennsylvania Press will publish a special edition of Franklin's Autobiography, including a new preface by University president Amy Gutmann and an introduction by distinguished scholar Peter Conn. The volume will also include four short essays by noted Penn professors as well as a chronology of Franklin's life and the text of Franklin's Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania, a document resulting in the establishment of an institution of higher education that ultimately became the University of Pennsylvania.

No area of human endeavor escaped Franklin's keen attentions. His ideas and values, as Amy Gutmann notes in her remarks, have shaped the modern University of Pennsylvania profoundly, "more profoundly than have the founders of any other major university of college in the United States." Franklin believed that he had been born too soon. Readers will recognize that his spirit lives on at Penn today.

Essay contributors: Richard R. Beeman, Paul Guyer, Michael Weisberg, and Michael Zuckerman.

An innovative reassessment of the last writings and final years of Karl Marx.

In the last years of his life, Karl Marx expanded his research in new directions—studying recent anthropological discoveries, analyzing communal forms of ownership in precapitalist societies, supporting the populist movement in Russia, and expressing critiques of colonial oppression in India, Ireland, Algeria, and Egypt. Between 1881 and 1883, he also traveled beyond Europe for the first and only time. Focusing on these last years of Marx's life, this book dispels two key misrepresentations of his work: that Marx ceased to write late in life, and that he was a Eurocentric and economic thinker fixated on class conflict alone.

With The Last Years of Karl Marx, Marcello Musto claims a renewed relevance for the late work of Marx, highlighting unpublished or previously neglected writings, many of which remain unavailable in English. Readers are invited to reconsider Marx's critique of European colonialism, his ideas on non-Western societies, and his theories on the possibility of revolution in noncapitalist countries. From Marx's late manuscripts, notebooks, and letters emerge an author markedly different from the one represented by many of his contemporary critics and followers alike. As Marx currently experiences a significant rediscovery, this volume fills a gap in the popularly accepted biography and suggests an innovative reassessment of some of his key concepts.

Winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award * 2022 Nautilus Book Awards Gold Winner * Shortlisted for the John Burroughs Medal * Finalist for the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize * Shortlisted for a Reading the West Book Award

Instant New York Times Bestseller * A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Year * 2021 Summer Reading Pick by Buzzfeed * New York Times Book Review * Kirkus * Time * Good Morning America * People * Washington Post

“The book everyone will be talking about. . . . Full of tenderness and understanding.”—New York Times

An “extraordinary” (Oprah Daily) memoir about the friendship between a solitary woman and a wild fox.

When Catherine Raven finished her PhD in biology, she built herself a tiny cottage on an isolated plot of land in Montana. She was as emotionally isolated as she was physically, but she viewed the house as a way station, a temporary rest stop where she could gather her nerves and fill out applications for what she hoped would be a real job that would help her fit into society. In the meantime, she taught remotely and led field classes in nearby Yellowstone National Park.

Then one day she realized that a mangy-looking fox was showing up on her property every afternoon at 4:15 p.m. She had never had a regular visitor before. How do you even talk to a fox? She brought out her camping chair, sat as close to him as she dared, and began reading to him from The Little Prince. Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphize animals, yet as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself and they became friends.

From the fox, Catherine learned the single most important thing about loneliness: we are never alone when we are connected to the natural world. Friends, however, cannot save each other from the uncontained forces of nature.

Fox and I is a poignant and remarkable tale of friendship, growth, and coping with inevitable loss—and of how that loss can be transformed into meaning. It is both a timely tale of solitude and belonging as well as a timeless story of one woman whose immersion in the natural world will change the way we view our surroundings—each tree, weed, flower, stone, or fox.

In 1821, at the age of seventy-seven, Thomas Jefferson decided to "state some recollections of dates and facts concerning myself." His ancestors, Jefferson writes, came to America from Wales in the early seventeenth century and settled in the Virginia colony. Jefferson's father, although uneducated, possessed a "strong mind and sound judgement" and raised his family in the far western frontier of the colony, an experience that contributed to his son's eventual staunch defense of individual and state rights.

Jefferson attended the College of William and Mary, entered the law, and in 1775 was elected to represent Virginia at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, an event that propelled him to all of his future political fortunes. Jefferson's autobiography continues through the entire Revolutionary War period, and his insights and information about persons, politics, and events—including the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, his service in France with Benjamin Franklin, and his observations on the French Revolution—are of immense value to both scholars and general readers. Jefferson ends this account of his life at the moment he returns to New York to become secretary of state in 1790.

Complementing the other major autobiography of the period, Benjamin Franklin's, The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, reintroduced for this edition by historian Michael Zuckerman, gives us a glimpse into the private life and associations of one of America's most influential personalities. Alongside Jefferson's absorbing narrative of the way compromises were achieved at the Continental Congress are comments about his own health and day-to-day life that allow the reader to picture him more fully as a human being. Throughout, Jefferson states his opinions and ideas about many issues, including slavery, the death penalty, and taxation. Although Jefferson did not carry this autobiography further into his eventual presidency, the foundations for all of his thoughts are here, and it is in these pages that Jefferson lays out what to him was his most important contribution to his country, the creation of a democratic republic.

Now in paperback: a gently powerful memoir about deepening your relationship with your homeland.

"A fascinating and evocative memoir in essays."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Tribal chairman and celebrated storyteller Greg Sarris—whose novels are esteemed alongside those of Louise Erdrich and Stephen Graham Jones—invites us into intimate and contemplative scenes from his own life in Becoming Story. With this memoir-in-essays he asks: What does it mean to be truly connected to the place you call home—to walk where innumerable generations of your ancestors have walked? And what does it mean when you dedicate your life to making that connection even deeper?

Moving between his childhood and the present day, Sarris creates a kaleidoscopic narrative about the forces that shaped his early years and his eventual work as a tribal leader. He considers the fathomless past, historical traumas, and possible futures of his homeland. His acclaimed storytelling skills are in top form here, and he charts his journey in prose that is humorous, searching, and profound. Described as "jewellike" by the San Francisco Chronicle, Becoming Story is also a gently powerful guide in the art of belonging to the place where you live.

A role model tells her story—and that of the nation and the church.

Hallelujah, Anyhow! is the long-awaited memoir of the Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris, the first woman bishop in the Anglican Communion. Edited by Kelly Brown Douglas, Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Seminary and an author and noted theologian in her own right, the book offers previously untold stories and glimpses into Bishop Harris’ childhood and young adult years in her native Philadelphia, as well as her experiences as priest and bishop, both active and actively-retired. A participant in Dr. Martin Luther King’s march from Selma to Montgomery and crucifer at the ordination of the “Philadelphia 11,” Bishop Harris has been eyewitness to national and church history.

In the book, she reflects on her experiences with the “racism, sexism, and other ‘isms’ that pervade the life of the church,” while still managing to say, “Hallelujah, Anyhow.” Photographs accompany the text and round out this portrait of a pioneer, respected outside as well as inside the church for her fierce, outspoken, and life-long advocacy for peace and justice.

While many famous writers – Balzac, Proust, Oscar Wilde – are buried at Paris’s Père Lachaise Cemetery, “there are also writers, many more of them in fact, buried there who have been completely forgotten, not necessarily because they were not good but because cultural memory is necessarily limited.”

In eight chapters, the inimitable Anthony Daniels dilates on some forgotten writers of Père Lachaise, exploring their literary merit and the amusing byways of history,  aiming “to entertain while illustrating the inexhaustible depth of our past.”

“Mark Matousek has produced [a] riveting account of his search–at age 38, with the help of a private detective–for the father who abandoned him at age four. A searing meditation on the psychic harm suffered by men and women without fathers, this wise odyssey wrestles with questions of life and death and the search for the meaning of one’s existence.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“I was four years old when my father came back to kidnap me,” begins this gripping memoir about Matousek’s search for James Matousek, the drifter father he never knew. Matousek chronicles his compelling search for his own father by hiring a detective and reveals his own life as he follows the hard-bitten investigator from one dead-end to the next.

Described by the New York Times as “ part reminiscence, part detective story, part spiritual musing,” this memoir is more than the story of one man’s search for his father; it is also a look at the meaning of life and how fathers contribute to that meaning.

The stable atmosphere of Peter Lindenfeld’s childhood in Vienna is destroyed by the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, and the young boy and his mother flee to North America. This forced exodus leads him to Vancouver, then New York, and finally, the academic world in New Jersey. Molded by his original Austrian-Jewish culture and carved by his new environment as an immigrant, Peter, a physicist, crosses paths with Jewish social societies and scientists shaping the new atomic world. Through the microcosm of one man’s life, Peter unfolds the story of immigration, assimilation, destruction and rebirth of home and relationships in post war North America.

Peter Lindenfeld turned 100 years old in March 2025, editing and revising this book right up to his hundredth birthday. Retired from a storied academic career at Rutgers University, Peter lives with his partner in a retirement home only a few blocks from the house that was his home for many decades.

A woman's fight to reclaim her body after a paralysis-inducing cycling accident

In the early evening on October 1, 2003, Christina Crosby was three miles into a seventeen mile bicycle ride, intent on reaching her goal of 1,000 miles for the riding season. She was a respected senior professor of English who had celebrated her fiftieth birthday a month before. As she crested a hill, she caught a branch in the spokes of her bicycle, which instantly pitched her to the pavement. Her chin took the full force of the blow, and her head snapped back. In that instant, she was paralyzed.

In A Body, Undone, Crosby puts into words a broken body that seems beyond the reach of language and understanding. She writes about a body shot through with neurological pain, disoriented in time and space, incapacitated by paralysis and deadened sensation. To address this foreign body, she calls upon the readerly pleasures of narrative, critical feminist and queer thinking, and the concentrated language of lyric poetry. Working with these resources, she recalls her 1950s tomboy ways in small-town, rural Pennsylvania, and records growing into the 1970s through radical feminism and the affirmations of gay liberation.

Deeply unsentimental, Crosby communicates in unflinching prose the experience of "diving into the wreck" of her body to acknowledge grief, and loss, but also to recognize the beauty, fragility, and dependencies of all human bodies. A memoir that is a meditation on disability, metaphor, gender, sex, and love, A Body, Undone is a compelling account of living on, as Crosby rebuilds her body and fashions a life through writing, memory, and desire.

This is the story of Gandhi’s spiritual evolution – the turning points and choices that made him not just a great political leader but also a timeless icon of nonviolence.

Eknath Easwaran grew up in India and witnessed how Gandhi inspired people of all races, backgrounds, and religions to turn anger into compassion and hatred into love.

How had Gandhi transformed himself from an ineffective young lawyer into the Mahatma, the “great soul” who led 400 million ordinary men and women in their nonviolent struggle for independence? To find out, Easwaran visited Gandhi’s ashram and watched the Mahatma absorbed in meditation on the Bhagavad Gita – the wellspring of Gandhi’s spiritual strength.

Easwaran, a leading authority on the Bhagavad Gita and on spiritual living, explains the principles underlying Gandhi’s nonviolence. He highlights how we can all use Gandhi’s teachings to make our families, workplaces, and communities more peaceful in the world today.

More than 70 photographs illustrate his life, and a detailed chronology provides historical context.

Over several terrifying summers, deadly wildfires raged across Colorado. Lives were lost, and the flames destroyed thousands of homes. When the smoke cleared and only rubble remained, survivors were left trying to find a way forward against devastating loss. The aftermath of that destruction would span many years, and its effects are still felt today.

In "Phoenix Rising", twenty women share their stories of fire, the terror they felt as flames engulfed their communities, and the dark desperation that followed. And how---in the ensuing weeks and months---they worked to recreate a life from the ashes. Their tales of fear and bravery, of deep compassion and heart-rending grief, offer an uplifting chronicle of human courage and resilience.

In "Phoenix Rising" written by women united by wildfire, they have the privilege of stepping into those moments to stand in the hallways of their shock and fear, grief and disorientation, and then, armed with the wisdom of retrospection, walking out into whatever comes next.

“Here’s the thing with kissing: it matters intensely or not at all.”

Mid-kiss, do you ever wonder who you are, who you’re kissing, where it’s leading? It can feel luscious, libidinal, friendly, but are we trying to make out something through our kissing? For Kathryn Bond Stockton, making out is a prism through which to look at the cultural and political forces of our world: race, economics, childhood, books, and movies. Making Out is Stockton’s memoir about a non-binary childhood before that idea existed in her world. We think about kissing as we accompany Stockton to the bedroom, to the closet, to the playground, to the movies, and to solitary moments with a book, the ultimate source of pleasure.

Avidly Reads is a series of short books about how culture makes us feel. Founded in 2012 by Sarah Blackwood and Sarah Mesle, Avidly—an online magazine supported by the Los Angeles Review of Books—specializes in short-form critical essays devoted to thinking and feeling. Avidly Reads is an exciting new series featuring books that are part memoir, part cultural criticism, each bringing to life the author’s emotional relationship to a cultural artifact or experience. Avidly Reads invites us to explore the surprising pleasures and obstacles of everyday life.

The page-turning, definitive guide to beloved ska musician Mike Park and his iconic indie label Asian Man Records.

Sourced from over a hundred hours of interviews with musicians, producers, booking agents, label owners, writers, fans, employees, volunteers, friends and family, Elvis is Dead, I’m Still Alive tells the singular story of Asian Man Records.

In its first thirty years, Asian Man Records released over 400 albums, all from the garage at Mike Park’s parents’ house. Founded when Park was in his early twenties, the label has started and supported the careers of musicians across many generations, all free from the pressures of the larger music industry. It seemed things could even stay that way forever, until an unexpected email arrived…

Spanning early releases by breakout artists like Less Than Jake and Alkaline Trio, to albums that went viral on TikTok, every record has its own story. All of them connect back to Mike Park, the record label founder, who went from struggling with racism as a Korean American in an overwhelmingly white town, to his current status as international underground inspiration.

Written by Mike Huguenor, a musician who has seen the label from inside and out, this music biography documents thirty years in the life of a record label unlike any other—the one and only Asian Man Records.

"A candid, autobiographical scrapbook from a young woman navigating manic depression.…A fever dream of darkly personal memories and musings from the shadowy corners of sexual violence and mental illness."
—Kirkus Review

As Elissa Washuta makes the transition from college kid to independent adult, she finds herself overwhelmed by the calamities piling up in her brain. When her mood-stabilizing medications aren’t threatening her life, they’re shoving her from depression to mania and back in the space of an hour. Her crisis of American Indian identity bleeds into other areas of self-doubt; mental illness, sexual trauma, ethnic identity, and independence become intertwined. Sifting through the scraps of her past in seventeen formally inventive chapters, Washuta aligns the strictures of her Catholic school education with Cosmopolitan’s mandates for womanhood, views memories through the distorting lens of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and contrasts her bipolar highs and lows with those of Britney Spears and Kurt Cobain. Built on the bones of fundamental identity questions as contorted by a distressed brain, My Body Is a Book of Rules pulls no punches in its self-deprecating and ferocious look at human fallibility.

This debut memoir from the independent publisher Red Hen Press isn't for the faint of heart. Washuta's honest and lyrical language as well as her subject matter — her struggles with bipolar disorder and coping with the effects of rape — will gut you, but it's the rawness of this work that makes it worth reading. Washuta's form, including revised psychiatrists' notes, annotated research papers on the use of the term "hooking up," summaries of prescription medications, and a Match.com profile, is inventive and invites the reader into the author's chaotic brain. The book perfectly articulates the difficulties navigating the path toward adulthood while coping with trauma and mental illness.
—Melissa Duclos for Bustle

Featured in Seattle Reading List: https://www.seattlemet.com/arts-and-culture/a-big-seattle-reading-list-of-washington-books#fiction

The Kennedys may well be the most photographed, written about, talked about, admired, hated, and controversial family in American history. But for all the words and pictures, the real story was not told until Peter Collier and David Horowitz spent years researching archives and interviewing both family members and hundreds of people close to the Kennedys.

An immediate classic, The Kennedys combines intimate knowledge with a perspective free of obligations to family loyalties and myths, bringing the story of four generations of “America’s family” fully into view. Collier and Horowitz capture the strain of ambition; the dynastic ebb and flow; the invention of a mythic identity; the corrosive underside of the dream of Camelot—developed over four generations—that led one young Kennedy to say, “We broke the rules and in turn we were broken by them.”

The Kennedys: An American Drama is a fascinating and brilliantly comprehensive history that brings together, for the first time, all the complex strains of the story of the Kennedys’ rise and fall. The authors have added new material showing the effect of the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., and the other family tragedies of the last few years, on the Kennedys and their mythic role in American life.

In addition to The Kennedys, Peter Collier and David Horowitz are the authors of dynastic biographies of the Fords, Roosevelts, Rockefellers, and Fondas.

In 1869, Hayyim Habshush, a Yemeni Jew, accompanied the European orientalist Joseph Halévy on his archaeological tour of Yemen. Twenty years later, Habshush wrote A Vision of Yemen, a memoir of their travels, that provides a vivid account of daily life, religion, and politics. More than a simple travelogue, it is a work of trickster-tales, thick anthropological descriptions, and reflections on Jewish–Muslim relations. At its heart lies the fractious and intimate relationship between the Yemeni coppersmith and the "enlightened" European scholar and the collision between the cultures each represents. The book thus offers a powerful indigenous response to European Orientalism.

This edition is the first English translation of Habshush's writings from the original Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew and includes an accessible historical introduction to the work. The translation maintains Habshush's gripping style and rich portrayal of the diverse communities and cultures of Yemen, offering a potent mixture of artful storytelling and cultural criticism, suffused with humor and empathy. Habshush writes about the daily lives of men and women, rich and poor, Jewish and Muslim, during a turbulent period of war and both Ottoman and European imperialist encroachment. With this translation, Alan Verskin recovers the lost voice of a man passionately committed to his land and people.

Theresa Bonpane’s memoir Sister Rebel is an inspiring and powerful read for anyone interested in the world of activism and social justice. The book charts Bonpane’s journey from a young Irish American woman, to a Maryknoll sister working in Chile, to a dedicated peace activist and director of the Office of the Americas. Along the way, she shares her experiences working alongside notable figures such as Howard Zinn and Martin Sheen, and how they helped shape her beliefs and actions in the fight for peace and justice. Through her personal anecdotes and reflections, Bonpane offers an insightful and thought-provoking look at the inner workings of the peace movement and the challenges faced by activists on the frontlines. This memoir is not only a testament to the power of one person’s commitment to change, but also a call to action for readers to join the fight for a better world.

A modern prophet looks back on seven decades of activism.

Ask an expert who are the 5 most influential American Jewish leaders of the last century and Rabbi Arthur Waskow will make most of the lists. The author of the original Freedom Seder and legendary social justice activist is now in his 90s, and has recorded significant memories, relationships, and events of the last seventy years. Beginning with an anecdote about Gloria Steinem and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, Waskow plunges the reader into the counter-culture that has defined his life and work.

“But in the summer of 1968, I didn’t have the language of Spirit,” Waskow writes, and this becomes a chronicle of blending active resistance to tyranny with a gradual discovery of what Waskow calls very simply “Love.” Thus comes the title of this memoir, as these are personal accounts and encounters of Spirit rising—in an extraordinary life.

Amie Souza Reilly bought an old house in the suburbs. She had just gotten remarried and was looking forward to a new start with her new husband and her six-year-old son. But immediately after moving in, the next-door neighbors began a crusade to push them out. The two brothers followed her, peered in her windows, stood in her yard, trapped her inside her car. As they broke boundary after suburban boundary, she found herself implicated in their violence.

Human/Animal merges personal narrative and cultural criticism to unleash the complicated relationship between instinct and action, violence and regret. This bestiary-in-essays wrestles American colonialism, horror films, feminism, and gender studies to confront the intrusive neighbors the author could not. Ultimately, this book asks larger questions about proximity, care, and the line between human and animal.

Illustrated with the author’s own sketches, Human/Animal: A Bestiary in Essays grapples not only with Reilly’s place in her neighborhood, but with America’s past and current political climate.

Tasha Y. Berry’s first memories are of painful hospital visits to treat a skin condition that left her back marked forever. Enduring more than a decade of surgeries and treatments, Tasha didn’t know it at the time, but she was building the strength and character that she would need to go on to do great things with her life and in the lives of others. For most, these struggles would have defined them. Not Tasha. She took the struggles and turned them into her passions and purpose. With raw transparency and grit, Finding My Why chronicles Tasha’s rise from medical struggles and trials at home to finding her place in the world.

Life Among the Paiutes (1883) is a book by Sarah Winnemucca. Written toward the end of a lifetime of advocacy on behalf of Native Americans, Life Among the Paiutes is a hybrid work of history and memoir by Sarah Winnemucca, who witnessed firsthand the dangers of unchecked occupation by US government and military forces. Intended as a rallying cry to white Americans, Life Among the Paiutes is considered the first autobiographical work written by a woman of Native American heritage. Oh my dear good Christian people, how long are you going to stand by and see us suffer at your hands?” First and foremost, Winnemucca’s groundbreaking text is intended for an Anglo-American audience, whose political status the author hopes to use as a means of bringing her message to the halls of Congress. In the memoir section, Winnemucca describes her upbringing among the Northern Paiute in Nevada, whose lives were irrevocably disrupted by incursions from white settlers and military raids. After the murder of her mother and several members of her family by the US Cavalry, Winnemucca dedicated herself to social work and activism, using her knowledge of the English language to reach a larger audience. Weaving her own story into the story of her people, Winnemucca makes a compelling case for the reparation of land and sovereignty to the Northern Paiutes, who had been devastated and dispersed for decades after making contact with American settlers. This edition of Sarah Winnemucca’s Life Among the Paiutes is a classic work of Native American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

2025 SLA One Book, One Province Selection

Awarded Gold at the 2022 Taste Canada Award


The lyricism of Bread & Water interweaves culinary insights and literary essays to pose fundamental questions about how we live––and how we feed––the larger hungers that motivate our lives.



“When I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it...” —MFK Fisher



When chef and writer dee Hobsbawn-Smith left the city for rural life on a farm in Saskatchewan, she planned to replace cooking and teaching with poetry and prose. But—as begin the best stories—her next adventure didn’t quite work that way.



Food trickled into her poems, her essays, her fiction. And water poured into her property in both Saskatchewan and Calgary during two devastating floods.



Bread & Water uses lyrical prose to examine those two fundamental ingredients, and to probe the essential questions on how to live a life. Hobsbawn-Smith uses food to explore the hungers of the human soul: wilder hungers that loiter beyond cravings for love. She kneads themes of floods and place, grief and loss; the commonalities of refugees and Canadians through common tastes in food; cooking methods, grandmothers and mentors; the politics of local and sustainable food; parenting; male privilege in the restaurant world; and the challenges of aging gracefully.



It is an elegant collection that weaves joy into exploring the quotidian in search for larger meaning.

A collection of letters exchanged between the author and four “outriders”—artists, writers, and activists who risk everything to confront censorship, injustice, and the constraints of convention

In More Letters from the Edge, Margaret Randall continues her exploration of the power of correspondence, revealing the intimate and unguarded exchanges that define lives lived at the margins of convention. Through letters, interviews, and fragments of memory, she invites us into conversations with four fearlessly radical writers, artists, and activists: Arturo Arango, Kathy Boudin, Jane Norling, and Robert Schweitzer. Their voices—translated, remembered, and preserved—offer urgent reflections on risk, resistance, and the act of making meaning in a world that, now more than ever, seeks to silence dissent. More than historical artifacts, these conversations bridge past and present, proving that the fight for creative and political integrity is never confined to a single era. More Letters from the Edge is a testament to those who push against the edges, opening doors for all who follow.

Explores Jackie Robinson’s compelling and complicated legacy

Before the United States Supreme Court ruled against segregation in public schools, and before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, Jackie Robinson walked onto the diamond on April 15, 1947, as first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, making history as the first African American to integrate Major League Baseball in the twentieth century. Today a national icon, Robinson was a complicated man who navigated an even more complicated world that both celebrated and despised him.

Many are familiar with Robinson as a baseball hero. Few, however, know of the inner turmoil that came with his historic status. Featuring piercing essays from a range of distinguished sportswriters, cultural critics, and scholars, this book explores Robinson’s perspectives and legacies on civil rights, sports, faith, youth, and nonviolence, while providing rare glimpses into the struggles and strength of one of the nation’s most athletically gifted and politically significant citizens. Featuring a foreword by celebrated directors and producers Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, this volume recasts Jackie Robinson’s legacy and establishes how he set a precedent for future civil rights activism, from Black Lives Matter to Colin Kaepernick.

Winner of the 2023 Nautilus Book Awards Gold Prize for Memoir

This luminous memoir combines the hardscrabble setting of Appalachia with the spiritual wisdom of Shunryu Suzuki’s classic Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.

“Amazing and intense. A unique, entertaining, and valuable contribution to the Dharma literature, Appalachian Zen addresses a part of the Western Dharma world that hasn’t received much attention: class.” —Rev. Sumi Loundon Kim, Yale University, author of Blue Jean Buddha and Sitting Together

Appalachian Zen describes a journey we all take, one that Buddhism calls “seeking our true home.” Edgy, lyrical, and lovingly rendered, this book recounts how a kid from a Pennsylvania mill-town trailer park grew up—surrounded by backwoods farms and amid grief, violence, and passionate yearning—to become something improbable: a Buddhist minister teaching Zen. Author Steve Kanji Ruhl takes readers on an adventure of discovery, roving far from the Appalachian Mountains of central Pennsylvania on a footloose Zen pilgrimage to Japan and beyond.

Featuring vivid firsthand accounts of spiritual seeking and teaching in Japanese temples, as well as forays to Tokyo and Hiroshima, the alleys of Kyoto, Amish cornfields near the Susquehanna, and a monastery in the Catskills, Appalachian Zen includes robust historical sketches, rapt nature passages, and cultural references ranging from Proust to punk rock. Throughout the book, Ruhl engages Buddhist themes of awakening and the death of the self by confronting the lives and deaths, including two by suicide, of his loved ones. This provocative memoir tells how it feels to practice Zen, and to move toward a life of hard-won forgiveness, healing, and freedom.

“A must-read for anyone on the path of awakening.” —Roshi Joan Halifax

A raw and revelatory spiritual memoir that chronicles a woman’s quest for love, healing, and awakening across multiple continents.

From the emotional barrenness of a postwar German childhood to the false promise of guru culture, the ecstasy of mystical experience, and the crucible of human intimacy, Annette Knopp’s unflinchingly honest account illuminates both the pitfalls and rewards of the spiritual path and her work as a teacher assisting others in navigating the path to wholeness.

Struggling with depression and lack of meaning prompts the author to leave her fiancé and successful career in Spain to travel to the Osho ashram in Pune. Her journey takes her further to the Dalai Lama in Northern India, the nightclubs and Shinto shrines in Japan, facing a female Buddha in New Zealand, working nightshifts in an opal mine in Australia’s outback, diving into somatic therapy and Tibetan Buddhism in Amsterdam, shamanism in Peru, teaching in the US, until the opening of a retreat center with her husband in Costa Rica.

Annette experiences profound shifts of spiritual awakening and the shattering of illusions in her encounters with various teachers and traditions. Her path takes a dark turn when she is sexually assaulted by a trusted spiritual mentor, plunging her into a crisis of faith and a deep descent into unresolved trauma. With unflinching honesty and vulnerability, she illuminates the complexities of the teacher-student relationship, the dangers of spiritual bypassing, and the importance of personal empowerment and discernment on the spiritual path. Sharing her healing and integration process, Knopp weaves insights from Eastern contemplative traditions, Western psychology, earth-based wisdom practices, and somatic approaches to trauma resolution.

When World War I began, Karnig Panian was only five years old, living among his fellow Armenians in the Anatolian village of Gurin. Four years later, American aid workers found him at an orphanage in Antoura, Lebanon. He was among nearly 1,000 Armenian and 400 Kurdish children who had been abandoned by the Turkish administrators, left to survive at the orphanage without adult care.

This memoir offers the extraordinary story of what he endured in those years—as his people were deported from their Armenian community, as his family died in a refugee camp in the deserts of Syria, as he survived hunger and mistreatment in the orphanage. The Antoura orphanage was another project of the Armenian genocide: its administrators, some benign and some cruel, sought to transform the children into Turks by changing their Armenian names, forcing them to speak Turkish, and erasing their history.

Panian's memoir is a full-throated story of loss, resistance, and survival, but told without bitterness or sentimentality. His story shows us how even young children recognize injustice and can organize against it, how they can form a sense of identity that they will fight to maintain. He paints a painfully rich and detailed picture of the lives and agency of Armenian orphans during the darkest days of World War I. Ultimately, Karnig Panian survived the Armenian genocide and the deprivations that followed. Goodbye, Antoura assures us of how humanity, once denied, can be again reclaimed.

A memoir by a disability rights activist

Such a Pretty Girl is Nadina LaSpina's story—from her early years in her native Sicily, where still a baby she contracts polio, a fact that makes her the object of well-meaning pity and the target of messages of hopelessness; to her adolescence and youth in America, spent almost entirely in hospitals, where she is tortured in the quest for a cure and made to feel that her body no longer belongs to her; to her rebellion and her activism in the disability rights movement.

LaSpina’s personal growth parallels the movement’s political development—from coming together, organizing, and fighting against exclusion from public and social life, to the forging of a common identity, the blossoming of disability arts and culture, and the embracing of disability pride.

While unique, the author's journey is also one with which many disabled people can identify. It is the journey to find one's place in an ableist world—a world not made for disabled people, where disability is only seen in negative terms. La Spina refutes all stereotypical narratives of disability. Through the telling of her life’s story, without editorializing, she shows the harm that the overwhelming focus on pity and on a cure that remains elusive has done to disabled people. Her story exposes the disability prejudice ingrained in our sociopolitical system and denounces the oppressive standards of normalcy in a society that devalues those who are different and denies them basic rights.

Written as continuous narrative and in a subtle and intimate voice, Such a Pretty Girl is a memoir as captivating as a novel. It is one of the few disability memoirs to focus on activism, and one of the first by an immigrant.

After beating breast cancer in her late forties, Eva Saulitis again faces the shadow, knowing this time the result will not end well. Saulitis revels in the nostalgia and secret pleasures that come from knowing it's all fleeting. She searches for answers from European poets and Buddhist scholars, from women in treatment chat rooms, from family, from routine; she looks out into the wilderness, at the salmon dying in the river without the ease of morphine, at stone structures broken from water freezing, expanding inside. Becoming Earth is the account of a woman living life in the presence of death, trying to make sense of a world that will keep going, even though she won't.

A Son of the Forest (1829) is an autobiography by William Apes. An indentured servant, soldier, minister, and activist, Apes lived an uncommonly rich life for someone who died at just 41 years of age. Recognized for his pioneering status as a Native American public figure, William Apes was an astute recorder of a life in between. His autobiography explores the psychological effects of oppression, addiction, and cultural change from the viewpoint of a man who experienced them all. “[T]he great fear I entertained of my brethren, was occasioned by the many stories I had heard of their cruelty towards the whites—how they were in the habit of killing and scalping men, women and children. But the whites did not tell me that they were in a great majority of instances the aggressors—that they had imbrued their hands in the life blood of my brethren, driven them from their once peaceful and happy homes…” While out on a berry picking expedition as a boy, William—by then living as an indentured servant with a local white family—spots a group of Native women. From the reaction of his foster family, he realizes for the first time in his life the inherent racial biases he has absorbed despite recognizing his own Pequot heritage. A Son of the Forest is a groundbreaking autobiography from a pioneering author and activist of the early nineteenth century. This edition of William Apes’ A Son of the Forest is a classic of Native American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Winner of the 2024 Michel Déon Prize for Non-Fiction

A lyrical portrait of a young Irish woman reinventing herself at the turn of the twentieth century in America

Ellen O’Hara was a young immigrant from Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century who, with courage and resilience, made a life for herself in New York while financially supporting those at home. Hereafter is her story, told by Vona Groarke, her descendant, in a beautiful blend of poetry, prose, and history.

In July 1882, Ellen O’Hara stepped off a ship from the West of Ireland to begin a new life in New York. What she encountered was a world of casual racial prejudice that characterized her as ignorant, dirty, and feckless, the butt of many jokes. From the slim range of jobs available to her she, like, many of her kind, found a position as a domestic servant, working long hours and living in to save on rent and keep. After an unfortunate marriage, Ellen determined to win financial security on her own, and eventually opened a boarding house where her two children were able to rejoin her.

Vona Groarke builds this story from historical fact, drawing from various archives for evidence of Ellen. However, she also considers why lives such as Ellen’s seem to leave such a light trace in such records and fills in the gaps with memory and empathetic projection. Ellen—scrappy, skeptical, and straight-talking—is the heroine of Hereafter, whose resilience animates the story and whose voice shines through with vivid clarity. Hereafter is both a compelling account of an incredible figure and a reflection on how one woman’s story can speak for more than one life.

An homage to the life of poet, writer, and teaching artist Judith Tannenbaum and her impact on incarcerated and marginalized students.

The Book of Judith honors Judith Tannenbaum but also reflects, through both form and content, on the complexities of seeing both the parts and the whole. The book presents different aspects of Judith—poet, teaching artist, friend, mentor, colleague—through a collection of original poetry, prose, essay, illustration, and fiction from 33 contributors. In so doing, it echoes her own determination to perceive contradiction without judgment. For the next generation of teaching artists in Corrections and elsewhere, the book serves as an inspiration on the qualities needed to survive and thrive in a multi-faceted, ever-changing environment.

The book is divided into four sections, separated by riveting black and white pencil drawings inspired by the lives of those serving life in prison without possibility of parole. In Unfinished Conversations, contributors share their bond with Judith Tannenbaum through prose and excerpts from letters both real and imagined. In the second section, After December, poets reflect on the life, artistry, and legacy of Judith. The third section, Looking and Listening, focuses on the truth-seeking qualities that Judith brought to her work. The fourth section, Legacy, features work from winners of an award and a fellowship bestowed in her name.

"[Jonathan Taplin] was the one who made Mean Streets and The Last Waltz possible, for which I will always be grateful. We had quite a few adventures on both projects, and they’re all chronicled in this memoir of his colorful life in show business." —Martin Scorsese

"The Magic Years reads like a Magical Mystery Tour of music, loss, beauty, family, justice, and social upheaval." —Rosanne Cash

Jonathan Taplin’s extraordinary journey has put him at the crest of every major cultural wave in the past half century: he was tour manager for Bob Dylan and the Band in the ’60s, producer of major films in the ’70s, an executive at Merrill Lynch in the ’80s, creator of the Internet’s first video-on-demand service in the ’90s, and a cultural critic and author writing about technology in the new millennium. His is a lifetime marked not only by good timing but by impeccable instincts—from the folk scene to Woodstock, Hollywood’s rebellious film movement, and beyond. Taplin is not just a witness but a lifelong producer, the right-hand man to some of the greatest talents of both pop culture and the underground.

With cameos by Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Martin Scorsese, and countless other icons, The Magic Years is both a rock memoir and a work of cultural criticism from a key player who watched a nation turn from idealism to nihilism. Taplin offers a clear-eyed roadmap of how we got here and makes a convincing case for art’s power to deliver us from “passionless detachment” and rekindle our humanism.

In 1995, after hearing Madeleine Albright say on national television that she felt sacrificing 500,000 children to punish Saddam Hussein was “worth it,” Quaker pacifist Joseph Olejak became a political activist. As a form of civil disobedience, he refused to pay income tax, since his tax dollars would go to fund a war he opposed. This was the beginning of a twenty-year journey towards peace–initially by non-compliance with the military industrial complex. Sentenced to 26 weekends in the country jail for failure to pay income taxes, Olejak kept a journal and wrote about his experiences, as well as his growing awareness of peace, justice, and the U.S. prison system. 

Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen is a moving personal portrait of a girl who grew up to become Hawaii’s first and only queen, a beloved monarch who fought for the rights of her people.

Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen is an autobiography by Queen Lili‘uokalani. Published in 1898, the book was written in the aftermath of Lili‘uokalani’s attempt to appeal on behalf of her people to President Grover Cleveland, a personal friend. Although it inspired Cleveland to demand her reinstatement, the United States Congress published the Morgan Report in 1894, which denied U.S. involvement in the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen appeared four years later as a final effort by Lili‘uokalani to advocate on behalf of Hawaiian sovereignty, but it unfortunately came too late. That same year, President McKinley and the United States Congress approved the annexation of Hawaii.

In Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen, Lili‘uokalani reflects on her experiences as a young girl growing up on Oahu, where she was raised as a member of the extended royal family of King Kamehameha III. Born in Honolulu, she was educated among her fellow royals from a young age. In addition to her studies, Lili‘uokalani developed an artistic sensibility early on, and was fond of both writing and music. She crafted the lyrics to the popular song “Aloha ‘Oe” (1878), just one of the more than 100 songs she would write in her lifetime.

Although her book was unsuccessful as an attempt to advocate for Hawaiian sovereignty and the restoration of the monarchy, it has since been recognized as a moving personal portrait of a girl who grew up to become Hawaii’s first and only queen, a beloved monarch who fought for the rights of her people.

With a professionally designed cover and manuscript, this edition of Lili‘uokalani’s Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen is a classic of Hawaiian literature designed for the modern audience. Add this beautiful edition to your bookshelf, or enjoy the digital edition on any e-book device.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

She Flies On is not really a critique of organized religion, but rather Carter Heyward’s effort to think theologically, politically, socially, and autobiographically about the world and the church in which she has lived and worked. A Christian feminist “theologian of liberation,” Episcopal priest, lesbian, Southerner, and socialist Democrat, Heyward writes about the church, but more about the people—and creatures—of God going about their lives and attempting to love one another.

This unique collection of writings by Verna Dozier, eloquent prophet and teacher of the Bible, features selections from all her available work, including The Authority of the Laity, Equipping the Saints, her unfinished manuscript on the Bible, sermons, and interviews. Many of these materials, designed to give the unique flavor of Verna Dozier's wit and wisdom, have never appeared before in print.

Beginning with a short biography of Verna's life in order to place the writings in context, the book consists of six chapters organized both autobiographically and thematically. Beginning chapters cover her early life and family--her parents and sister, growing up African-American and Baptist in the segregated city of Washington DC, the influence of Howard Thurman and other theologians at Howard University, and her dual career, shaped by one set of values, teaching English literature and teaching the Bible. Subsequent chapters cover her approach and method of studying Scripture, teaching on Bible stories, her challenge to the church, and questions of ambiguity, morality, and faith.

The definitive biography of a distinguished public servant, who as US Secretary of Labor, Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary of State, was pivotal in steering the great powers toward the end of the Cold War.

Deftly solving critical but intractable national and global problems was the leitmotif of George Pratt Shultz's life. No one at the highest levels of the United States government did it better or with greater consequence in the last half of the 20th century, often against withering resistance. His quiet, effective leadership altered the arc of history. While political, social, and cultural dynamics have changed profoundly since Shultz served at the commanding heights of American power in the 1970s and 1980s, his legacy and the lessons of his career have even greater meaning now that the Shultz brand of conservatism has been almost erased in the modern Republican Party.

This book, from longtime New York Times Washington reporter Philip Taubman, restores the modest Shultz to his central place in American history. Taubman reveals Shultz's gift for forging relationships with people and then harnessing the rapport to address national and international challenges, under his motto "trust is the coin of the realm"—as well as his difficulty standing up for his principles, motivated by a powerful sense of loyalty that often trapped him in inaction. Based on exclusive access to Shultz's personal papers, housed in a sealed archive at the Hoover Institution, In the Nation's Service offers a remarkable insider account of the behind-the-scenes struggles of the statesman who played a pivotal role in unwinding the Cold War.

The rise and successes, the travails, and the eventual demise of the German Democratic Republic told in personal detail by activist and writer Victor Grossman

The circumstances that impelled Victor Grossman, a U.S. Army draftee stationed in Europe, to flee a military prison sentence were the icy pressures of the McCarthy Era. Grossman – a.k.a. Steve Wechsler, a committed leftist since his years at Harvard and, briefly, as a factory worker – left his barracks in Bavaria one August day in 1952, and, in a panic, swam across the Danube River from the Austrian U.S. Zone to the Soviet Zone. Fate – i.e., the Soviets – landed him in East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic. There he remained, observer and participant, husband and father, as he watched the rise and successes, the travails, and the eventual demise of the GDR socialist experiment. A Socialist Defector is the story, told in rare, personal detail, of an activist and writer who grew up in the U.S. free-market economy; spent thirty-eight years in the GDR’s nationally owned, centrally administered economy; and continues to survive, given whatever the market can bear in today’s united Germany.

Having been a freelance journalist and traveling lecturer – and the only person in the world to hold diplomas from both Harvard and the Karl Marx University – Grossman is able to offer insightful, often ironic, reflections and reminiscences, comparing the good and bad sides of life in all three of the societies he has known. His account focuses especially on the socialism he saw and lived – the GDR’s goals and achievements, its repressive measures and stupidities – which, he argues, offers lessons now in our search for solutions to the grave problems facing our world. This is a fascinating and unique historical narrative; political analysis told with jokes, personal anecdotes, and without bombast.

"Abu Sitta's memoir conveys a still burning sense of outrage at the injustice of the dispossession of the Palestinians and the denial of their rights—a personal and collective Nakba without end."—Ian Black, The Guardian

The only memoir in English by a Palestinian Arab who grew up in the Beersheba district prior to 1948, now with a new afterword

Salman Abu Sitta was just ten years old when the Nakba—the mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1948—happened, forcing him from his home near Beersheba. Like many Palestinians of his generation, this traumatic loss and his enduring desire to return would be the defining features of his life from that moment on.

Abu Sitta vividly evokes the vanished world of his family and home on the eve of the Nakba, giving a personal and very human face to the dramatic events of 1930s and 1940s Palestine as Zionist ambitions and militarization expanded under the British mandate. He chronicles his life in exile, from his family’s flight to Gaza, his teenage years as a student in Nasser’s Egypt, his formative years in 1960s London, his life as a family man and academic in Canada, to several sojourns in Kuwait. Abu Sitta’s long and winding journey has taken him through many of the seismic events of the era, from the 1956 Suez War to the 1991 Gulf War.

This rich and moving memoir is imbued throughout with a burning sense of justice and a determination to recover and document what rightfully belongs to his people, given expression in his groundbreaking mapping work on his homeland. Abu Sitta, with warmth and wit, tells his story and that of Palestine.

Enough with the Secrets, Mama! is the gripping tale, told by the daughter of a difficult yet self-empowered Matriarch, of a family who holds many secrets. 

The story follows Lin’s family as they journey from her mother’s origins in the Dominican Republic, to Puerto Rico, and throughout the east coast of the United States, to find their way in the country they’ve chosen to call home. 

Lin finds herself struggling to live a “normal” childhood, as she’s sandwiched between her drug-addled brother and free-spirited sister, both of whom demand much of their mother’s attention. As a survivor of child molestation, sexual, and emotional abuse, Lin yearns for a close relationship with her mother and tries to earn it by being the “good child.” But as life’s circumstances continue getting in the way, Lin fears that she will lose her grasp on the mother-daughter relationship.

The twists and turns in Lin’s own life motivate her to create a world that is worthy of her existence. Despite the rejection and trauma she’s endured along the way, she’s determined to break generational curses and set a new course for herself and her family. 

Enough with the Secrets, Mama! is written to women who are frustrated by self-perceived emotional neglect, who are looking to spare themselves the grief that comes with developing detrimental relational habits in life and are determined to carve out their own destiny. 

The story of a union organizer who found a second career in community organizing and helped a Jim Crow city become a better place.

Ernest Thompson dedicated his life to organizing the powerless. This lively, illustrated personal narrative of his work shows the great contribution that people’s coalitions can make to the struggle for equality and freedom. Thompson cut his teeth organizing one of the great industrial unions, the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America, and brought his organizing skills and commitment to coalition building to Orange, New Jersey. He built a strong organization and skillfully led fights for school desegregation, black political representation, and strong government in a city he initially thought of as a “dirty Jim Crow town going nowhere.” Thompson came to love the City of Orange and its caring citizens, seeing in its struggles a microcosm of America. This story of people’s power is meant for all who struggle for human rights, economic opportunity, decent housing, effective education, and a chance for children to have a better life.

Ernest Thompson (1906-1971) grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, on a farm that had been given to his family at the end of the Civil War. The family was very poor and oppressed by racist practices. Thompson was determined to get away and to obtain power. He migrated to Jersey City, where he became part of the union organizing movement that built the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO). He became the first African American to hold a fulltime organizing position with his union, the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). He eventually headed UE’s innovative Fair Employment Practices program and fought for equal rights and pay for women and minority workers. Thompson also helped build the National Negro Labor Council, 1951-1956, and served as its director of organizing. In 1956, under the onslaught of the McCarthy era, UE was split in two, and Thompson lost his job. His wife, Margaret Thompson, brought the local school segregation to his attention. Ernie “Home” Thompson organized to desegregate the regional schools, building strong coalitions and political power for the black community that ultimately served all the people of Orange.

American Bastard is a lyrical inquiry into the experience of being a bastard in America. This memoir travels across literal continents—and continents of desire as Beatty finds her birthfather, a Canadian hockey player who’s won three Stanley Cups—and her birthmother, a working-class woman from Pittsburgh. This is not the whitewashed story, but the real story, where Beatty writes through complete erasure: loss of name and history, and a culture based on the currency of gratitude as expected payment from the adoptee. American Bastard sandblasts the exaltation of adoption in Western culture and the myth of the “chosen baby.” This journey into the relationship of place and body compels and unhinges, with the link between identity and blood history as its driving force. Beatty rescripts the order of things: the horizontal world of the birth table where babies are switched, the complex yard of the body where names and blood shift and revolt, and the actual story into the relationship of place and the insurrection of the body erased. Issues of class and struggle run throughout this book, this narrative river between blood and continents, between work and desire.

Winner, Indigenous Voices Award, 2021
Winner, Creative Saskatchewan Publishing Award, 2021
Shortlisted, Saskatchewan Book Award, Nonfiction, 2021
Shortlisted, Saskatchewan Book Award, City of Regina Prize, 2021
Shortlisted, Rasmussen & Co. Indigenous Peoples’ Writing Award, 2021
Shortlisted, Regina Public Library Book of the Year Award, 2021
Shortlisted, Saskatoon Public Library Indigenous Peoples’ Publishing Award, 2021

Genocidal Love delves into the long-term effects of childhood trauma on those who attended residential school and demonstrates the power of story to help in recovery and healing

Presenting herself as “Myrtle,” Bevann Fox recounts her early childhood filled with love and warmth on the First Nation reservation with her grandparents. At the age of seven she was sent to residential school, and her horrific experiences of abuse there left her without a voice, timid and nervous, never sure, never trusting, and always searching.

This is the story of Myrtle battling to recover her voice.

This is the story of her courage and resilience throughout the arduous process required to make a claim for compensation for the abuse she experienced at residential school—a process that turned out to be yet another trauma at the hands of the colonial power.

This is the story of one woman finally standing up to the painful truth of her past and moving beyond it for the sake of her children and grandchildren. In recounting her tumultuous life, Fox weaves truth and fiction together as a means of bringing clarity to the complex emotions and situations she faced as she walked her path toward healing.

Readers familiar with Sallie Bingham’s 1989 memoir, Passion and Prejudice, will remember her provocative chronicle of the Bingham family saga, cited by Gloria Steinem as “a major step toward feminist change and democracy.” 

 In Little Brother, she reflects on just one of her siblings: the youngest son Jonathan and his all-too brief life. The book begins with a count she calls her “dreadful list” of nine close relatives who died by accident, suicide, overdose, exposure to the elements, and electrocution, all before the age of 50. Jonathan was only twenty-two years old when he climbed a pole, hoping to rig up some lighting for a barn party and, by some fluke, grabbed a live wire. But even before his fatal fall to the ground, the boy suffered from insecurity, isolation, and difficulty relating to his large family. Bingham draws from archived material, chief among them the young man’s journal and letters. She writes his short history with obvious affection and tenderness, along with more than a dash of survival guilt. Little Brother is a moving and honest new work.

Famous for leading the Doolittle (or Tokyo) Raid, America's first strike against Japan in World War II, Jimmy Doolittle led a remarkable life as an American pilot. This firsthand account by his granddaughter Jonna Doolittle Hoppes reveals an extraordinary individual:

• An aviation pioneer who was the first to fly across the United States in less than 24 hours and the first to fly “blind” (using only his plane’s instruments).

• A barnstormer well known for aerobatics and a popular racing pilot who won every major air race at least once.

• Recipient of both the Congressional Medal of Honor and Presidential Medal of Freedom.

• A four-star general and commander of both the 8th, 12th, and 15th Air Forces.

• A scientist with a doctorate in aeronautical engineering from MIT.

Calculated Risk provides insights into the public and private world of Jimmy Doolittle and his family, and sheds light on the drives and motivation of one of America's most influential and ambitious aviators.

This updated edition contains a new foreword written by Richard P. Hallion, a new afterword written by Clarence E. “Bud” Anderson, and a new introduction by author Jonna Doolittle Hoppes.

American Indian Stories (1921) is a collection of stories and essays from Yankton Dakota writer Zitkála-Šá. Published while Zitkála-Šá was at the height of her career as an artist and activist, American Indian Stories collects the author’s personal experiences, the legends and stories passed down through Sioux oral tradition, and her own reflections on the mistreatment of American Indians nationwide.

In “My Mother,” Zitkála-Šá remembers the walk she would take with her mother to the river, where they would gather water to use in their wigwam. This simple chore becomes a cherished tradition between the two, allowing Zitkála-Šá’s mother to educate her on the circumstances that led their people to the reservation, depriving them of land and life itself. “The Legends” traces Zitkála-Šá’s childhood experience of learning from the oral tradition passed down from the Dakota elders. In “The Coffee Making,” she remembers the first time she made coffee. While her mother has gone out for the day, an elder pays a visit to their wigwam. Remembering that her mother usually makes coffee for visitors, Zitkála-Šá attempts to play hostess to her visitor, who humors her and takes the time to share stories about his life and their people. American Indian Stories is a charming and politically conscious collection of stories from one of the leading American Indian writers of her generation, a committed activist and true voice for change who saw through her own eyes the lives and experiences of countless others.

This edition of Zitkála-Šá’s American Indian Stories is a classic of American Indian literature reimagined for modern readers.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Taha Hussein's classic autobiographical novel The Days helped usher in the era of modern Arabic writing and remains one of the most influential and best-known works of Arabic literature

"It is difficult to overstate Taha Hussein's contribution to the intellectual renaissance in Egypt during the 20th century."—The Guardian

The monumental three-part autobiography of one of modern Egypt's greatest writers and thinkers is again available in a single paperback in this classic reissue. The first part, An Egyptian Childhood (1929), is full of the sounds and smells of rural Egypt. It tells of Hussein's childhood and early education in a small village in Upper Egypt, as he learns not only to come to terms with his blindness but to excel in spite of it and win a place at the prestigious Azhar University in Cairo. The second part, The Stream of Days: A Student at the Azhar (1939), is an enthralling picture of student life in Egypt in the early 1900s, and the record of the growth of an unusually gifted personality. More than forty years later, Hussein published A Passage to France (1973), carrying the story on to his final attainment of a doctorate at the Sorbonne, a saga of perseverance in the face of daunting odds.

Taha Hussein (1889–1973) is one of Egypt's most iconic figures. A graduate of al-Azhar, Egypt's oldest university, a civil servant and public intellectual, and ultimately Egyptian Minister of Public Instruction, Hussein was central to key social and political developments in Egypt during the parliamentary period between 1922 and 1952. Influential in the introduction of a new secular university and a burgeoning press in Egypt—and prominent in public debates over nationalism and the roles of religion, women, and education in making a modern independent nation—Hussein remains a subject of continued admiration and controversy to this day.

The Last Nahdawi offers the first biography of Hussein in which his intellectual outlook and public career are taken equally seriously. Examining Hussein's actions against the backdrop of his complex relationship with the Egyptian state, the religious establishment, and the French government, Hussam R. Ahmed reveals modern Egypt's cultural influence in the Arab and Islamic world within the various structural changes and political processes of the parliamentary period. Ahmed offers both a history of modern state formation, revealing how the Egyptian state came to hold such a strong grip over culture and education—and a compelling examination of the life of the country's most renowned intellectual.

This is the first comprehensive biography in any language of Russia’s leading statesman in the period following the Revolution of 1905. Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs from 1906 to 1911 (when he was assassinated), P. A. Stolypin aroused deep passions among his contemporaries as well as subsequent historians.

In the twilight of Nicholas II’s reign he was virtually the only man who seemed to have a clear notion of how to reform the socioeconomic and political system of the empire. His efforts in that direction—in agriculture, local administration, religious freedom, social legislation, the legal system—were radically new departures for the Russian state. His detractors disdained him as a power-hungry, coldhearted politician who was unscrupulous in pursuing his own career and would use any means to restore the tsarist autocracy following the frightening turbulence of 1905. Stolypin’s admirers, however, argued that he was a man of vision who pursued policies that would have transformed the country into a modern state with social and political institutions comparable to those of the West.

Lenin’s celebrated denunciation of Stolypin as “hangman-in-chief” set the tone for official Soviet work on his career. In the West, some historians and émigré writers, most notably Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, erred in the opposite direction. By contrast, this book—on the basis of extensive Russian archival documentation only recently available to historians—seeks to provide a balanced portrait of Stolypin that encompasses the complex, even divergent, impulses that motivated him.

Although Stolypin did not shrink from the use of force to stamp out unrest, he lamented the shedding of blood and much preferred nonviolent means to curb the opposition. In foreign affairs, he was uncompromising in his insistence that Russia should avoid entanglements that could lead to military conflict. To be sure, he was deeply committed to monarchical rule, but he did not consider it advisable to abolish the elected legislature or to deprive it of its authority. Stolypin’s program, a blend of reformism, authoritarianism, and nationalism, was more likely than any other to lead Russia toward social and political stability. But Tsar Nicholas II, his entourage, and ultra-conservatives could not bring themselves to yield a portion of their privileges and prerogatives in return for a reduced, though still significant, role in a changed Russia. They succeeded in undermining the Prime Minister’s attempts at fundamental reform and thus scuttled Imperial Russia’s last such attempt before its demise.

Jewish women exiled from Egypt to New York share glimpses of a lost world, by the author of Khul-Khaal: Five Egyptian Women Tell Their Stories

Between 1948 and 1957, a period that witnessed two wars between Egypt and Israel, 60,000 members of Egypt’s 75,000-strong Jewish population left the country, compelled by growing hostility to them because of their presumed links to Zionism, economic insecurity, and after 1956, overt expulsion. Decades later, during the 1980s and 1990s, the personal reminiscences of eight Egyptian Jewish women, presently residents of New York who had left Egypt, were meticulously collected by Nayra Atiya.

While Atiya’s sample of eight narrators represents only a tiny percentage of the Jews who left Egypt, their accounts tell us much about the middle- and upper-class Jews who migrated to the Americas and Europe, giving us a vivid sense of their lives in Egypt before their departure and the dynamic role they played in Egyptian society. They were the children or grandchildren of generations of Jews who migrated to Egypt from around or near the Mediterranean to escape economic hardship and persecution or, in one case, a family conflict.

With one exception, Atiya’s interlocutors resided in relatively upscale neighborhoods in Egypt near other Jewish families. They lived in elegant apartments, with servants, fine foods, memberships in elite clubs, and summers spent near Alexandria or in Europe. In Zikrayat, Atiya movingly captures the essence of these women’s characters and experiences, the fabric of their day-to-day lives, and the complex, many-layered mood of those times in Egypt. In doing so she brings to life the ties that bind all Egyptians, offering a glimpse into a now vanished world—and the heartbreak of exile and migration.

First appearing in 1845 The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, with its painfully vivid depiction of life in bondage, was both a bestseller in its day and one of the most powerful, authoritative texts lending support to the abolitionist movement.

The author traces his life from an infant born into slavery and taken from his mother at birth, to a displaced child hungry for knowledge, to an abused and beaten laborer seeking freedom and a chance to marry the woman he loved. Offering bright, cameo glimpses into a world that should not be forgotten, Douglass chronicles both the cruel violence of a system that saw him as little more than livestock, and the brighter moments of success, of courageous support from friends and allies. Initially greeted by some with doubt that it could have been written by a black man and former slave, the book had a profound effect on American society, making the author something of a celebrity and his cause less an abstract ideal and more of an urgent human concern. Solemn, powerful and passionate The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is more than an important historical document—it is a personal account of striving for human freedom in a world where the author was regarded as neither free nor human.

With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is both modern and readable.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

The authoritative Beethoven biography, endorsed by and produced in close collaboration with the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, is timed for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth.

With unprecedented access to the archives at the Beethoven House in Bonn, renowned Beethoven conductor and scholar Jan Caeyers expertly weaves together a deeply human and complex image of Beethoven—his troubled youth, his unpredictable mood swings, his desires, relationships, and conflicts with family and friends, the mysteries surrounding his affair with the “immortal beloved,” and the dramatic tale of his deafness. Caeyers also offers new insights into Beethoven’s music and its gradual transformation from the work of a skilled craftsman into that of a consummate artist.

Demonstrating an impressive command of the vast scholarship on this iconic composer, Caeyers brings Beethoven’s world alive with elegant prose, memorable musical descriptions, and vivid depictions of Bonn and Vienna—the cities where Beethoven produced and performed his works. Caeyers explores how Beethoven’s career was impacted by the historical and philosophical shifts taking place in the music world, and conversely, how his own trajectory changed the course of the music industry. Equal parts absorbing cultural history and lively biography, Beethoven, A Life paints a complex portrait of the musical genius who redefined the musical style of his day and went on to become one of the great pillars of Western art music.

"One of the greatest music writing and production teams in pop music history" - Smokey Robinson

As the creative force behind Berry Gordy Jr.'s Motown Records in the mid-Sixties, a writing credit from Holland Dozier Holland was virtually a guarantee of chart success. From 'Stop! In The Name Of Love' to 'How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You', they were the songwriting and production dream team responsible for some of the greatest songs of the twentieth century.

In this compelling autobiography, brothers Eddie and Brian Holland share their story, starting with growing up in Detroit raised by a single mother and their grandmother, before shining a light on their early musical careers. A gifted lyricist, Eddie started out as a solo singer with Berry Gordy as his manager before partnering up with Brian and Lamont Dozier, both talented arrangers and producers.

Featuring honest and open first-hand accounts, this remastered edition is more than just a behind-the-scenes look at Motown Records at its peak: Eddie and Brian set the record straight on both their personal and professional lives and offer a revealing slice of pop-music history.

With an introduction by award-winning artist Richard Hawley.

So It Started There chronicles the life and career of drummer Nick Banks, including how he came to be in the iconic and beloved band Pulp.

Beginning with his childhood in Rotherham, England, Nick recounts his personal and musical journey through the genres, first as a punk, then as a goth; how it all started when he was first inspired to pick up the sticks by Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook.

Flash forward to the eighties. Nick spies an ad from his favorite band, Pulp, in a local club. He pays Jarvis Cocker and the gang a visit and the rest is history.

From there, Nick describes his growth as a professional drummer and musician, the trials and tribulations of chasing success in the music industry, touring triumphs and horrors, the band’s journey from relative obscurity to becoming a global sensation, and the process of writing and recording their most famous albums.

Written with warmth, humor, and charm, Nick tells all. And with it, tells the story of a band that defined a generation.

Get to know the first five Black women to be elected diocesan bishops within the Episcopal Church.

During this moment, with the #metoo movement, Black Lives Matter, and the increased feelings of division in our country, Black women clergy in the Episcopal Church have voiced a need to come together, believing that their experiences and concerns may be very different than those of other clergy. That need is answered here in This Band of Sisterhood.

The five Black women bishops featured in this book can provide a compass for how to journey along these new paths. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows, Carlye J. Hughes, Kimberly Lucas, Shannon MacVean-Brown, and Phoebe A. Roaf offer honest, vulnerable wisdom from their own lives that speaks to this time in American life.

Both women and men will find this book invaluable in discerning how God might be calling them to use their own leadership skills.

First published account of the spiritual master who inspired Kripalu, the largest yoga center in the U.S.

“Swami Kripalu, affectionately known as Bapuji (or dear father), was one of the greatest Kundalini yogis of the 20th Century. Scholar, classical musician, composer, playwright, athlete, actor, and consummate story-teller, Bapuji was most renowned for his practice of sahaj or spontaneous yoga and his encyclopedic writings on yoga and classical music. He lived in the western state of Gujarat from 1913 to 1981. Although Bapuji visited the US from 1977-1981, few of his writings have been translated into English. Thus the full impact of his wisdom is yet to be felt in the west. Atma's thoughtful and creative approach to his life and teachings in Pilgrim of Love builds a strong foundation for getting to know this extraordinary master of yoga.” —Stephen Cope, author of Yoga and the Quest for the True Self

Kripalu Yoga, originally pioneered by Yogi Amrit Desai and later developed into a structured practice by key Kripalu teachers, provides an introduction to the life-transforming yogic principles that are Bapuji's legacy to Kripalu Center. With his teachings as its foundation, Kripalu Center is the largest residential yoga center in the world and is located in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. Offering year-round trainings, programs and health services, Kripalu Center provides the means for guests to develop awareness, cultivate health, and embark on a journey of deep spiritual transformation--all through the application of the tools of yoga.

Atma Jo Ann Levitt, M.A., R.N., is a certified yoga teacher, Healing Touch practitioner, and author of three books, including The Kripalu Cookbook: Gourmet Vegetarian Recipes. She pioneered many growth and wellness programs at Kripalu Center. She is coauthor of a book on sibling relationships, Sibling Revelry: 8 Steps to a Successful Adult Sibling Relationship.

The day after she buried her husband, Dr. Liz Fiedler Mergen found out she was pregnant and realized the hardest truth of all: Nobody was coming to save her.

Flowers Bloom Anyway isn’t a book about how to grieve the “right” way.

It’s about grieving messy, living loud, telling the truth even when it hurts, and planting beauty anyway.

When Liz became a widow overnight, grief didn’t come with a guidebook. It came with casseroles, silence, and unsolicited opinions. But through the loss, the loneliness, and the rumors, she kept going. She is raising her daughters, has rebuilt her life, and found glimpses of grace in dirt-covered hands and flower fields.

Part memoir, part rallying cry, Flowers Bloom Anyway is a real and redemptive story about unexpected loss, solo motherhood, rural grit, stubborn hope, and the kind of faith people don’t earn in a church pew but in the aftermath.

Ever wondered, How do I keep going when everything has changed? This is Liz’s answer—a story of heartbreak and healing, and how she turned loss into a thriving life and a million-dollar enterprise. 

«Inicia el segundo piso
de la Cuarta Transformación
y en ello se nos va hasta el último
suspiro y esfuerzo.
¡Viva el pueblo de México!
¡Viva la Cuarta Transformación!
¡Larga vida al presidente
López Obrador!»

«Este es el diario de uno de los momentos más extraordinarios que entrelazan mi vida con la historia de nuestro país, al que he decidido entregarme. También es un reconocimiento a quien transformó la vida pública de México: Andrés Manuel López Obrador, un líder que, con inteligencia, amor y compromiso con la gente, supo encabezar el rumbo de un pueblo decidido a cambiar su destino. […] Entrego esta obra como prenda de mi compromiso, lleva el sello personal de mi convicción, de mi esfuerzo y del amor profundo que siento por mi patria».

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

“The second phase
of the Fourth Transformation begins
and with it goes our last
breath and effort.
Long live the people of Mexico!
Long live the Fourth Transformation!
Long live President
López Obrador!”

“This is the diary of one of the most extraordinary moments that intertwines my life with the history of our country, to which I have decided to dedicate myself. It is also a tribute to the one who transformed public life in Mexico: Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a leader who, with intelligence, love, and commitment to the people, was able to lead the path of a people determined to change their destiny. […] I present this work as a token of my commitment; it bears the personal mark of my conviction, my effort, and the profound love I feel for my homeland.”

En el centenario de su nacimiento, celebremos el legado incomparable de la Reina de la Salsa.

En los años 60, Celia Cruz comenzó una nueva vida lejos de su Cuba natal, el lugar que la vio brillar por primera vez. Exiliada y con el corazón dividido entre la melancolía y la esperanza, Celia decidió conquistar escenarios que antes parecían imposibles. Paso a paso, y a lo largo de más de cuatro décadas, Celia forjó una carrera extraordinaria basada en talento, carácter, visión y su emblemático ¡Azúcar!

Celia en el mundo (1962–2003) es una obra apasionada y meticulosamente investigada que explora la vida profesional de Celia. Desde sus vibrantes años con Fania All Stars y el arrollador éxito de la salsa en Nueva York, hasta sus colaboraciones con gigantes de la música afrocubana, los ritmos latinos y el jazz, este libro es un testimonio de la energía y alegría de Celia.

Fiel a sus raíces, supo ganarse el apoyo del público al permitirles ver la fuerza y resiliencia de una diáspora obligada a reinventarse.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

On the centennial anniversary of her birth, celebrate The Queen of Salsa’s incomparable legacy.

In the 60s, Celia Cruz began a new life away from her native Cuba, the place that saw her shine for the first time. Exiled and with her heart divided between melancholy and hope, Celia decided to conquer stages that had once seemed impossible. Step by step, and spanning over four decades, Celia forged an extraordinary career based in talent, character, vision, and her emblematic Azúcar!

Celia en el mundo (1962–2003) is a passionate and meticulously researched work that explores Celia’s professional life. From her vibrant years with Fania All Stars and the sweeping success of salsa in New York, to her collaborations with music giants of Afro-Caribbean, Latin beats, and jazz, this is a testament to Celia’s energy and joy.

Loyal to her roots, she knew how to earn the public’s support by allowing them to see the strength and resilience of a diaspora forced to reinvent itself.