The groundbreaking actor died two days after the release of her memoir in 2021 at age 96. Born in New York City to immigrant parents from Nevis in the West Indies, Tyson was raised in a strict religious home. She had a daughter at 18, married and divorced within 18 months. She started a career in modeling at age 30 and starred on the stage and in film.

Her list of films and TV shows in her more than 60-year career include Sounder, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Roots, and How to Get Away with Murder. The actress talks about her mother’s opposition to her acting, the turbulent relationship with her former husband jazz legend Miles Davis, and her dedication to civil rights.

Noah grew up in apartheid South Africa. The biracial child of a South African mother and Swiss-German father, he would play hide and seek when the police were in the area. Noah’s existence was proof of his parents’ illegal relationship, and in segregated South Africa, that meant imprisonment. The comedian charts his steady but ambitious path from poverty in Soweto to becoming the host of The Daily Show.

His biggest inspiration is his mother. In talking about her with Oprah, he said: “Most people would have a sign to protest government oppression—my mother had me. In writing this book, I never thought it was about my mom; most of us believe we’re the hero of our own story. But I realized I was always my mother’s sidekick. She stood up at a time when many people were afraid to—when a country was being punished for standing up. She said, ‘I will live the way I believe,’ and she did. She’s the example I live my life by. For me, she’s one of the most gangster human beings.”

The Measure of a Man was chosen as an Oprah’s Book Club pick in 2007. Poitier passed on January 6th this year, at age 94. In a tribute to her friend, Oprah said, “I treasured him. I adored him. He had an enormous soul I will forever cherish.”

In this “spiritual autobiography,” Poitier discusses his experience growing up on Cat Island in the Bahamas amid poverty. His mother was a great influence on him.“I believe that my mother was a very special human being, and I think that much that has happened to me is the continuance of her soul and her spirit and her gift. All that she was, all that she could never articulate, that she could never say to people…well, she felt far more than she could speak, and she lived, and she had children, and somehow the best of her found its way beyond her, beyond the bounds of her own life. I feel that whatever is good in me is that energy that she was. She put it into her last child.”

Poitier describes the first time he encountered segregation, and how he worked to break down racial barriers throughout his career, carefully picking and choosing roles that would counter prejudice and always remaining active in promoting civil rights. In conversation with Oprah about the book, he shared that he thought of himself as “an ordinary person who’s had an extraordinary life,” and that that the factors that led him to achieve what he had were “parents, providence, and serendipity.”

In the actress, author, and activist’s most recent book following her bestselling 2017 essays, We’re Going to Need More Wine, Union updates us on her relationship with husband Dwayne Wade, who retired from professional basketball in 2019.

Like in her previous book, Union is vulnerable and open. She discusses fertility, her surrogacy journey, and being a mother to two daughters —Kaavia James and Zaya—who came out as transgender.

Though Rhimes is successful beyond any measure, the writer, producer, and showrunner of several long-running hit shows—including Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, and Bridgerton—is an introvert who always said no to social invitations until her sister Delores noted: “You never say yes to anything.”

Rhimes, who has admits to having anxiety about connecting with people outside work, challenged herself to venture beyond her borders and to say yes for a year. She learned a lot, gaining confidence and making major decisions on friendships and whether to get married, among other crossroad points–not unlike those Rhimes through in the path of Olivia Pope.

The Empire actress spoke with Oprah Daily in 2018. Henson has starred in several films, including Think Like a Man and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for which she received an Academy Award nomination; she won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Hidden Figures and will be starring in and producing a movie on Emmett Till.

In her book, the Oscar-nominated star recounts what it was like growing up with a father suffering from addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder after returning home from the Vietnam War. And if that weren’t deep enough, she also addresses the devastating murder of her son’s father.

From being broke and shaking loose change in order to afford two slices of pizza and a drink, to starring in the HBO series Insecure, Orji takes us on a journey of faith and belief in the midst of struggle.

“It’s certainly been a process, but I’ve learned that when we rush the process or don’t trust the roller coaster, when we give up too soon, or refuse to even try, we choke the umbilical cord attached to our purpose and ultimately destroy, delay, or downgrade our destinies,” she writes.

The Jamie Foxx Show star was born in Haiti and moved to Massachusetts with her mother after her parents’ divorce. At 16, Beauvais relocated to Miami and, later, New York to pursue a modeling career.

Beauvais went on to star in Coming to America, The Jamie Foxx Show, NYPD Blue, and recently, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and to cohost The Real talk show. The twice-divorced Beauvais dishes on her brief dalliances with Michael Jordan and Will Smith and contemplates her ever-present desire to please others, often putting her own best interests aside until eventually realizing she needed to make a change.

Jenifer Lewis’s outsize personality is on full display in her 2017 memoir. From poverty and a bipolar disorder diagnosis to stardom, Lewis’s personal essays and photographs invite us into her world and give us a deeper understanding of the mother of Black Hollywood.

A new collection of the Black-ish star’s essays on living life to the fullest, Walking in My Joy: In These Streets, will be published in August.

Issa Rae is a producer, a writer, a director and an overall powerhouse ever since gaining recognition with her award-winning YouTube series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.

Her essays on being socially inept, her Senegalese roots, and the politics of Black hair are told in Rae’s signature comic style. In them, the Insecure creator and actor tackles race, relationships, and dating with an unflinching honesty that will crack you up and touch your soul.

Before the Slap Heard Round the World, there was the memoir. Oprah told Will Smith that it was “the best memoir I’ve ever read.” The West Philadelphia–born rapper, Oscar-winning actor, and producer’s success is enviable, but for his family, fame was a strain and came with a cost. From his youth as a shy child and his collaborations with friend Jazzy Jeff to becoming one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Smith offers wisdom and humor, telling anecdotes of his journey to personal growth, and inspiring the reader to take a similar journey of transformation.

“You make it so funny that it’s clearly your voice. Who in the hell knew you were a writer? You’re a writer, too?” Oprah prodded on The Oprah Conversation.

Phoebe Robinson’s third book, published under her imprint, Tiny Reparations, is a collection of stories told with humor and wisdom. As on her podcast-turned-TV show 2 Dope Queens with Jessica Williams, Robinson’s voice is full of piss and vinegar. She is insightful when discussing cultural issues. From her parents’ advice to experiences as a Black woman and choosing to not have children, Robinson’s essays span serious and timely topics.

“A woman can be achieving her goals, which people swear is one of the tenets of feminism, but if those goals are not in line with what the world at large has deemed as the ultimate objective—settling down and becoming a mother—she might conclude she’s completely missed the point of being an adult. Worse than that, she is made to feel that she chose to fail at being a woman, a failure that is not an individual one, but an attack on the greater good.”

Amen, Phoebe!