Books like The Sixth Man

01

Open: An Autobiography

Andre Agassi · Memoir

Andre Agassi's autobiography opens with one of the most famous confessions in sports memoir: he hates tennis.

Shares identity and sports with The Sixth Man.

02

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

Phil Knight · Memoir

Shoe Dog is Phil Knight's account of the first two decades of Nike, from the $50 loan he borrowed from his father in 1964 to fund his first shipment of Japanese running shoes to the company's IPO in 1980.

Both dig into identity.

03

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

Trevor Noah · Memoir

Born a Crime is Trevor Noah's memoir about growing up mixed-race in South Africa during the final years of apartheid and its chaotic aftermath.

A kindred memoir read.

04

Greenlights

Matthew McConaughey · Memoir

Greenlights is Matthew McConaughey's memoir-philosophy hybrid, built around decades of journals he kept starting in his teens.

Both dig into identity.

05

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates · Memoir

Between the World and Me is a letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenage son, Samori, about what it means to live in a Black body in the United States.

Shares race and identity with The Sixth Man.

06

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Isabel Wilkerson · Memoir

Isabel Wilkerson's second book proposes a reframing of American racial hierarchy: rather than thinking of racism primarily as prejudice, she argues that the United States has operated as a caste society, with Black Americans at the bottom of a rigidly maintained hierarchy similar in its structure — though different in its specific mechanisms — to the caste systems of India and Nazi Germany.

Shares race and identity with The Sixth Man.

07

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Barack Obama · Memoir

Barack Obama wrote Dreams from My Father in 1995, before entering politics, after being elected the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review.

Shares race and identity with The Sixth Man.

08

Finding Me: A Memoir

Viola Davis · Memoir

Finding Me is Viola Davis's account of her childhood in extreme poverty in Central Falls, Rhode Island, and her path from that starting point to becoming one of the most decorated actors in the history of American theater and film.

Shares race and identity with The Sixth Man.

09

Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire

Andrew Wilkinson · Memoir

Never Enough is Andrew Wilkinson's memoir about building a small empire of internet companies — Tiny, the holding company he co-founded, has acquired dozens of businesses — and discovering that accumulating wealth at a level he'd once have considered unimaginable didn't resolve the anxiety that had driven him to pursue it.

Shares identity and mental health with The Sixth Man.

10

Spare

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex · Memoir

Spare is Prince Harry's account of his life from childhood through his decision to step back from senior royal duties in 2020.

Shares identity and mental health with The Sixth Man.

11

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother

James McBride · Memoir

James McBride grew up in Brooklyn and Queens as one of twelve children raised by a white Jewish woman who had converted to Christianity and married a Black minister.

Shares race and identity with The Sixth Man.

12

The Warmth of Other Suns

Isabel Wilkerson · Memoir

Isabel Wilkerson's account of the Great Migration — the movement of six million Black Americans from the South to the North and West between 1915 and 1970 — is one of the most important works of narrative nonfiction published in the twenty-first century.

Shares race and identity with The Sixth Man.