Read Across America: Adult Biographies, Memoirs, and History

Help us celebrate Read Across America and our Sweetbean Reading Challenge by checking out one of these books about important figures and events in American history!

Updated February 22, 2024
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The 1619 Project : a new American origin story
Hannah-Jones, Nikole
Paper Book
The animating idea of The 1619 Project is that the American story is more accurately told if we begin not on July 4, 1776, but in late August of 1619, when a ship arrived in Jamestown bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival inaugurated a barbaric and...
American Prometheus : the triumph and tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Bird, Kai.
Paper Book
THE INSPIRATION FOR THE ACADEMY AWARD®-WINNING MAJOR MOTION PICTURE OPPENHEIMER * "A riveting account of one of history's most essential and paradoxical figures."--Christopher Nolan #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * The definitive biography of J....
And there was light : Abraham Lincoln and the American struggle
Meacham, Jon
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER . Pulitzer Prize-winning biographerJon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how-and why-he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America. "Meacham has given us...
Crying in H Mart : a memoir
Zauner, Michelle
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American--"in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself" (NPR). * CELEBRATING...
Teacher man
Rice, Chris.
Paper Book
Contemporary / American English When Frank McCourt becomes a teacher in New York, he finds himself standing in front of bored, confused, angry students. Will he fail as a teacher? Or can he use his miserable Irish childhood to help his students? This is the true story of one man's surprising,...
The warmth of other suns : the epic story of America's great migration
Wilkerson, Isabel.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY   "A brilliant and stirring epic . . . Ms. Wilkerson does for the...

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