Unstoppable: Stories of Persistence & Resilience for Adults

Check out these recently published titles

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Alford, Natasha S.

When Alford goes from an underfunded public school system to Harvard University surrounded by privilege and pedigree, she wrestles with more than her own ethnic identity, as she is faced with imposter syndrome, a shocking medical diagnosis, and a struggle to define success on her own terms. A study abroad trip to the Dominican Republic changes her perspective on Afro-Latinidad and sets her on a path to better understand her own Latin roots.

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Black Thought

In vivid vignettes, Black Thought, the platinum-selling, Grammy-winning co-founder of The Roots, and one of the most exhilaratingly skillful and profound rappers the culture has ever produced, tells the dramatic stories of the four powerful relationships that shaped him-with community, friends, art, and family-each a complex weave of love, discovery, trauma, and loss.

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Brown, Jasmine

No real account of black women physicians in the US exists, and what little mention is made of these women in existing histories is often insubstantial or altogether incorrect. In this work of extensive research, Jasmine Brown offers a rich new perspective, penning the long-erased stories of nine pioneering black women physicians beginning in 1860, when a black woman first entered medical school. 

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Choy, Mylo

This sports memoir recounts Mylo's history with running, and how their love for that famously solitary sport pushed them to grow over time. As Middle Distance grapples with themes of resilience, identity, and self-care, Mylo leads us along the middle way between motion and rest, hurt and healing, fear and joy. 

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Chung, Nicole

When Nicole Chung graduated from high school, she couldn't hightail it out of her overwhelmingly white Oregon hometown fast enough. As a scholarship student at a private university on the East Coast, no longer the only Korean she knew, she found a sense of community she had always craved as an Asian American adoptee - and a path to the life she'd long wanted. But the middle class world she begins to raise a family in - where there are big homes, college funds, nice vacations - looks very different from the middle class world she thought she grew up in, where paychecks have to stretch to the end of the week, health insurance is often lacking, and there are no safety nets. 

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DiGiulian, Sasha

World champion climber Sasha DiGiulian tells her story-from coming of age under the scrutiny of social media, navigating a male-dominated sport, and tackling her most heart-stopping climbs-and shares the power of perseverance and positivity. 

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Fujiwara, Maki

In 1981, Fujiwara Maki began a picture diary about daily life with her son and husband, the legendary manga author Tsuge Yoshiharu. Drawn in a simple, personable style, and covering the same years fictionalized in Tsuge's final masterpiece The Man Without Talent, Fujiwara's journal focuses on the joys of daily life amidst the stresses of childrearing, housekeeping, and managing a depressed husband. 

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Hill, Jemele

An empowering, unabashedly bold memoir by the Atlantic journalist and former ESPN SportsCenter co-anchor about overcoming a legacy of pain and forging a new path, no matter how uphill life's battles might be.

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Hoja, Gulchehra

An award-winning Uyghur journalist based in the United States, whose own family members disappeared into concentration camps, exposes the systematic destruction of culture and human rights by the Chinese government in the East Turkestan region.

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Jacobellis, Lindsey

Unforgiving recounts Lindsey's journey from disappointment to triumph. It is an honest account of one life-altering misstep and its aftermath, and a reflection on what it means to come of age as an athlete in the spotlight, the weight of expectations, falling short, and ultimately fulfilling your dreams. 

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Lifton, Robert Jay

When the people of Hiroshima experienced the unspeakable horror of the atomic bombing, they responded by creating an activist “city of peace.” Survivors of the Nazi death camps took the lead in combating mass killing of any kind and converted their experience into art and literature that demonstrated the resilience of the human spirit. Drawing on the remarkably life-affirming responses of survivors of such atrocities, Lifton, “one of the world’s foremost thinkers on why we humans do such awful things to each other” (Bill Moyers), shows readers how we can carry on and live meaningful lives even in the face of the tragic and the absurd.

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LoMenzo, Angela

Writer, makeup artist, and creative director Angela LoMenzo combines stunning photography and powerful real stories to shine a light on the wild and wondrous journeys of twenty-five extraordinary and deeply creative women.

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Nance, Sarafina

In a beautifully written, science-packed debut memoir, Egyptian-American astrophysicist Sarafina El-Badry Nance shares her personal story of resilience and liberation by grounding herself in her lifelong love of the stars. Starstruck sits at the intersection of the study of our cosmos - itself constantly changing - and the messy and transformative experience of pursuing one's passion through life's inevitable challenges.

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Ndopu, Eddie

Global humanitarian Eddie Ndopu's rousing memoir about being both profoundly disabled and profoundly successful without trading one for the other. Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw follows Eddie as he scales the mountain of success only to find exclusion, discrimination, and neglect still lying in wait on the other side. Written with his one good finger, Eddie's vibrant prose delivers a clarion call to underdogs everywhere to stop climbing mountains and start moving them instead.

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Nguon, Chantha

Chantha Nguon recounts her life as a Cambodia refugee who lost everything and everyone - her house her country, her parents, her siblings, her friends - everything but the memories of her mother's kitchen, the tastes and aromas of the foods her mother made before the dictator Pol Pot tore her country apart.

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Nietfeld, Emi

A brilliant, funny, generation-defining memoir about the double bind of crafting perfect adversity narratives for highly selective institutions, while fumbling through the far murkier reality of actual life in foster care and inpatient mental health treatment. Emi's story is a harsh illumination of the near-impossible challenge set by societal expectations of coming from nothing, the brokenness of our child welfare system, and the reality that congratulatory letters from top schools couldn't keep her safe. Her reflections on her unlikely history, and her journey in confronting trauma and injustice, hold powerful lessons. 

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Semenya, Caster

Thrust into the spotlight at just eighteen years old after winning the Berlin World Championships in 2009, Semenya's win was quickly overshadowed by criticism and speculation about her body, and she became the center of a still-raging firestorm about how gender plays out in sports, our expectations of female athletes, and the right to compete as you are.

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Thompson, Lisa

More than a climbing memoir, Finding Elevation is a deeply personal examination of motivation and the human spirit. It is a story of what can happen when we finally stop letting others define our limits and instead trust that we are capable of more. In this inspiring book, Thompson reaches beyond the mountain to tell a story of heartbreak, resilience, and the discovery that we are responsible for defining our own boundaries, finding our own happiness, and facing our fears head-on.

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Willis, Raquel

In The Risk It Takes to Bloom, Raquel Willis, a trailblazing Black transgender activist, recounts with passion and candor her experiences straddling the Obama and Trump eras, the possibility of transformation after tragedy, and how complex moments can push us all to take necessary risks and bloom toward collective liberation.

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Wolf, Brandon J.

Growing up in rural Oregon, Brandon Wolf grappled with the devastating loss of his supportive mother and with the embedded racism and homophobia of a community that made him feel like an unwelcome stranger. After the lack of connection and role models led him down a spiral of risky behavior, Wolf escaped to survive. In this unforgettable coming-of-age memoir, Wolf shares his transformative journey from young outsider to galvanizing activist. Marshaling the compassion and strength of a community, Wolf explores how to get through the darkest times with healing, hope, and resistance.

Summaries provided by DPL's catalog unless otherwise noted. Click on each title to view more information.