ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, Kansas City Star.
A profoundly moving and deeply personal memoir by the co-host of National Public Radio’s flagship program All Things Considered.
While exploring the hidden conversation on race unfolding throughout America in the wake of President Obama’s election, Michele Norris discovered that there were painful secrets within her own family that had been willfully withheld. These revelations—from her father’s shooting by a Birmingham police officer to her maternal grandmother’s job as an itinerant Aunt Jemima in the Midwest—inspired a bracing journey into her family’s past, from her childhood home in Minneapolis to her ancestral roots in the Deep South.
The result is a rich and extraordinary family memoir—filled with stories that elegantly explore the power of silence and secrets—that boldly examines racial legacy and what it means to be an American.
- Handmade and Homegrown
- New eBook additions
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Black History and Black Future
- Canada Reads 2025
- Celebrating #LMM150
- Witch, Please
- True North Strong and Well-Read
- Summer Reading List: Recent Canadian books to read this summer
- Hamilton Reads 2024: Pride Month
- Looks Sweet but Could Be Spicy
- Based on a True Story: Page to Screen Edition
- Always Available Fiction
- See all
- Canada Reads 2025
- True Crime: For When You Run Out of Podcasts
- Available now
- Lest We Forget
- Summer Reading List: Recent Canadian books to read this summer
- New audiobook additions
- Looks Sweet but Could Be Spicy
- Most popular
- Hamilton Reads 2024: Chrysalis
- Indigenous History and Voices
- Based on a True Story: Page to Screen Edition
- Entering Our Eclipse Era
- BookTok Made Us Do It
- See all