Six memoirists share their experiences of transforming memory and truth, joy and pain, into captivating stories. Read our reviews of all six memoirs, as well as Q&As with their authors, and discover your next favorite first-person narrative.

Blindfold: A Memoir of Capture, Torture, and Enlightenment by Theo Padnos

Read the review:
Theo Padnos recounts being kidnapped and imprisoned by operatives of al-Qaida.

Read our Q&A with Theo Padnos:
"Some people will have difficulty believing I wasn’t killed."

Floating in a Most Peculiar Way: A Memoir by Louis Chude-Sokei

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Louis Chude-Sokei captures the prejudices and tensions, pain and promise of being African in Jamaica and the United States.

Read our Q&A with Louis Chude-Sokei:
"There is often great hostility toward those who refuse conventional racial expectations."

Raceless: In Search of Family, Identity, and the Truth About Where I Belong by Georgina Lawton

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Georgina Lawton was born to a white mother and father. And yet, as we learn in the first pages of her eloquent memoir, Lawton is not white.

Read our Q&A with Georgina Lawton:
"No one prepares you for the emotional time travel that a memoir necessitates."

Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir by Elizabeth Miki Brina

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Elizabeth Miki Brina searches for whether love can heal a family traumatized by racism and colonization.

Read our Q&A with Elizabeth Miki Brina:
"I grew up trying to believe that race, family history and cultural history were inconsequential. I’m glad I don’t believe that anymore."

Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure by Menachem Kaiser

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As Menachem Kaiser searches for the story of his Polish Holocaust survivor relatives, he wanders deep into the shadowy realm of Nazi treasure hunters.

Read our Q&A with Menachem Kaiser:
"It is so hugely rewarding to investigate your story. It is so much stranger, more complicated, more beautiful, more tragic than you thought."

Spilt Milk: Memoirs by Courtney Zoffness

Read the review:
Courtney Zoffness uses layered storytelling to plait her life experiences with larger observations about society.

Read our Q&A with Courtney Zoffness:
"When I revisited these experiences years later, I saw them all through the lens of motherhood. It’s a thread that binds Spilt Milk."