John Nash is born and raised in Bluefield, West Virginia. As a child, he is introverted and quiet, preferring reading and performing experiments to playing with other children. He is obsessed with codes and patterns and enjoys playing pranks on his sister and schoolmates. Intending to become an engineer like his father, Nash secures a scholarship to study at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. After a year, he abandons engineering to major in mathematics. He... Read A Beautiful Mind Summary

A Chance in the World: An Orphan Boy, a Mysterious Past, and How He Found a Place Called Home is a 2012 memoir by author Steve Pemberton. In three parts, it tells the story of his quest to learn the truth about his past. The book examines themes of identity, abuse, family, racism, and how peoples’ pasts can influence their futures. Part 1 begins with Steve’s recurring memory of the day that his mother abandoned... Read A Chance in the World Summary

Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim in the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation is a book by Eboo Patel. Part memoir, part treatise on the vulnerability of youth who are preyed upon and radicalized by religious zealots, the book examines Patel’s search for his identity, following him from childhood to his time as the founder of the Interfaith Youth Core group. Themes of faith, family, religious doubt, pluralism, and the... Read Acts Of Faith Summary

A Dream Called Home is a memoir published in 2018 by the award-winning Mexican American author Reyna Grande. The book is the sequel to her bestselling 2012 memoir, The Distance Between Us, which addresses Reyna’s experiences crossing the US-Mexico border as a child. The title alludes to the American dream while also gesturing to varied concepts of home. This summary refers to the 2018 English-language edition published by Atria Books.Plot SummaryReyna divides her memoir into... Read A Dream Called Home Summary

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Clive Staples Lewis (1888-1963), known as C.S. Lewis, was a British writer and academic renowned for his works on Christianity and best remembered today as the author of the children’s book series The Chronicles of Narnia, which famously includes the novels The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) and Prince Caspian (1951), among others. He graduated from Oxford University and taught there until 1954 when he became Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at... Read A Grief Observed Summary

A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea is a 2017 book by Melissa Fleming, telling the true story of a young girl named Doaa who fled the Syrian civil war. Made a refugee by the conflict, she travels to Egypt and then attempts to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. The book has won numerous awards.Plot SummaryThe story opens with Doaa Al Zamel floating in the sea amid the wreckage of a ship. Her husband is... Read A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea Summary

Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year was first published in 1722. The novel is written in the first-person and chronicles the spread of the bubonic plague in London in 1665. While the first-person narration and abundant historical detail result in a text that feels like—and masquerades as—nonfiction, Defoe was only 5 years old at the time of the events, while the narrator is an adult man living on his own in London. Despite... Read A Journal Of The Plague Year Summary

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Alive is a nonfiction book published in 1974 by the British author Piers Paul Read. It is based on the true story of a Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes mountains in 1972. The stranded men resorted to cannibalism to survive. The book was adapted into a film of the same name in 1993. Plot SummaryRugby first came to Uruguay via a group of Irish priests hired to educate the children of... Read Alive Summary

This book is a memoir written by a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Rick Bragg, who works for the New York Times. It describes the author’s childhood in rural Alabama,   the middle child of three brothers raised by an almost-always single mother in conditions of extreme poverty. His father was a veteran of the Korean War and an alcoholic, who abandoned his family for long periods of time.The book is dedicated “To my Momma and my brothers.” The author grows... Read All Over but the Shoutin' Summary

All Souls: A Family Story from Southie is a 1999 memoir by Michael MacDonald in which the author examines his experiences of growing up in the Old Colony neighborhood of South Boston, also known as Southie. The memoir contextualizes the MacDonald family’s personal tragedies amid the tumultuous historical events that took place in Boston during the 1970s, with a particular focus on the racist violence that occurred during the desegregation busing crisis. Michael Patrick MacDonald was... Read All Souls Summary

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Esmeralda’s family relocates from Puerto Rico to Brooklyn in 1961, when Esmeralda is 13 years old. On the cusp of womanhood, Esmeralda receives warnings from her family members, and especially her mother, Mami, to watch out for the many algos or dangers lurking in the city. Struggling to adjust to city life in Brooklyn, Esmeralda misses Puerto Rico, and she dreams of the day when she will return. Initially put into remedial classes because she... Read Almost a Woman Summary

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is a memoir published in 2007 by the Sierra Leonean author and activist Ishmael Beah. The book recounts the author’s experiences as a 12-year-old boy in war-torn Sierra Leone. Forced to serve as a child soldier for three years in the 1990s during the Sierra Leone Civil War, Beah wrote the book to highlight the horrific impact of war on children. Nominated for a 2007 Quill... Read A Long Way Gone Summary

A Long Way Home is a 2013 memoir by Saroo Brierley, an Indian-born author who was accidentally separated from his biological family at the age of five and adopted by an Australian couple. The memoir traces Saroo’s remarkable journey from India to Australia and back again 25 years later. The book inspired the 2016 film Lion and became a New York Times Best Seller after the film’s release. This guide refers to the 2015 edition published... Read A Long Way Home Summary

A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy, first published in Germany 2007, is author Thomas Buergenthal's account of his childhood during the Nazi Occupation. Buergenthal was 6 years old when forced to abandon his home and spend the rest of his childhood running from Nazis and struggling to survive the Holocaust. Buergenthal’s horrific journey took him through bombings, labor camps, concentration camps, and “death marches.” He lost most of his... Read A Lucky Child Summary

Always Running is the autobiography of Luis J. Rodriguez, a Mexican-American former gang member who grew up in dangerous East Los Angeles in the 1960s and 70s. Luis’ family moved to Los Angeles from Mexico after Luis’ father was accused of theft, and Luis spends his early years in Watts, a particularly crime-ridden LA neighborhood. Luis’ father struggles to find work, and the family struggles to find adequate shelter and food. After they are evicted... Read Always Running Summary

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America is in the Heart is a semi-autobiographical novel published in 1946 by the Filipino American author Carlos Bulosan. A coming of age narrative told in four parts, the story begins in the Philippines, ends in America, and spans decades. Scholars compare it to other social activism classics like John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, but America is in the Heart is unique in that it portrays the plight of Filipino immigrants in America during... Read America is in the Heart Summary