Books like The Basketball diaries by Jim Carroll

A nonfiction novel chronicling the adventures of a group of friends on their cross-country journey of discovery, featuring characters like Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty as real-life friends Neal Casady.

In early 1980s Los Angeles, a privileged youth returns home for Christmas, confronting a generation steeped in excess, drugs, and nihilism as he navigates love, friendship, and moral decay.

Kareem Abdul‑Jabbar’s first memoir for young readers traces his rise from a New York City kid to an NBA legend, highlighting the coaches—his father, a high‑school mentor, and legendary Coach Wooden—who shaped his life and values.

A sense of where you are

David Downing’s debut John Russel novel unfolds a tense espionage tale set in wartime Berlin, following American recruiters, journalists, and spies as they navigate the city’s dangerous underground networks during World War II.

This literary companion carries you into the lives and poetic lines of 41 of America's most admired poets from the last century. From popular favorites such as Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg to the more esoteric T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, this handbook also introduces you to living poets, such as Rita Dove, who are still inscribing their places in literary history. The book opens with an approach to analyzing poetry, and each author-specific chapter includes sections devoted to Chief Works, Discussion and Research Topics, and a Selected Bibliography. Complete list of authors covered in this comprehensive guide: Edgar Lee Masters, Edward Arlington Robinson, Robert Frost, Amy Lowell, Carl Sandburg, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle (H. D.), Robinson Jeffers, Marianne Moore, T. S. Eliot, John Crowe Ransom, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Jean Toomer, Louise Bogan, Hart Crane, Allen Tare, Sterling Brown, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, Randall Jarrell, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Lowell, Richard Wilbur, James Dickey, Denise Levertov, A.R. Ammons, Allen Ginsberg, W. S. Merwin, James Wright, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, Amiri Baraka, Wendy Rose, Joy Harjo, Rita Dove, Cathy Song

Teamed with his friends Mickey, Neutron and Pedro, high school student Jim Carroll seems headed for a bright basketball career. But when pressures from his coach, his mom, and school seem to mount, Jim finds solace in all the wrong places, and the dark streets of New York begin to tear him apart.