#BrownPeopleProblems in Essay Form

#BrownPeopleProblems in Essay Form Is it just me, or is the sudden wave of not-quite-memoirs  by actors of South Asian descent weighing down your TBR pile? Granted, there have been a lot of celebrity confessionals  in recent years. Everyone from Lena Dunham to Tina Fey has done a book (or three) of essays, and we can expect upcoming insights from Gabourey Sidibe, Anna Kendrick, and  Amy Schumer whose book reportedly fetched $8 to 10 million soon enough. But with the brown folks in Hollywood, its almost like their Desi parents said, Yeah, sure, youre on TV and all. But my friends wont think my kids a success until you have a book out, too. (Trust me, I feel their pain. You are never good enough.) And so what do they do? Essays, of course. We rounded em up with a few universal truths brown folks hold to be self-evident. Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling The follow-up to her 2011 collection,  Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, this new collection picks up where the other one left off, talking about female friendships, dating dilemmas, cultivating a creative career (career being the operative word there!), and, of course, body image, because no one will let the girl slide without talking about that. And hence, this  Confessional Quote:  â€œPeople sometimes sweetly say that I have child-bearing hips, but what they really mean is that I have hips that will definitely knock over your drink if you are sitting next to me on a plane and I have to get up to use the bathroom.” Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari Parks And Recreation star Ansari who has a Netflix original series,  Master of None,  debuting in November is expectedly angsty and self-deprecating in this book of dating advice for generation Tinder. But sadly, Ansari seems just as lost as the rest of us. He just has a funnier story to tell at the end of that date from hell.  Case in point,  his take on the perils of online dating while famous:  â€œAs a public figure, I have never considered doing any online dating. I always figured there was a chance someone who was a stalker type would use it as an opportunity to kidnap and murder me… Maybe my stalker (probably an Indian dude) sees my profile and thinks,  Oh, here’s that comedian guy on OkCupid. FINALLY, I have a way to reach out to him and slowly plot his murder.  He sends me a message pretending to be a woman. I see the profile. ‘She’ likes tacos and  Game of Thrones. I’m very excited.” Yes, My Accent Is Real by Kunal Nayyar Nayyar, whos played the female-phobic astrophysicist Raj on  The Big Bang Theory for eight years now, delves deep into the immigrant  experience he came to the United States as a undergrad business student in his memoir, which digs into dating, his days as a theater kid, his rise to fame, meeting his beauty queen wife (who thought  Big Bang was a porno), and even that Indian head bobble he taught Conan OBrien about last year on the  Late Show. Lets take a second and talk about the Indian Head Bobble. Yes, Im going to go there. Because yes, its true that Indians bobble their heads all the time. Thats not a racist thing to say because a) I am Indian, and b) bobbling our heads is a very important and sophisticated form of communication. When you bobble your head, youre not really saying yes, and youre not really saying no. So much is communicated and so much is not communicated by the bobble. It could mean: Im full. Im hungry. Im confused. Im happy. I understand. Talk to me. Stop talk ing. Never talk to me again. Okay, so perhaps the book meanders a bit. Still, some fun dating dramas here and there. And for good measure, heres a brown celebrity  confessional wed like to see, STAT. Geeks, Girls and X-Files Underoos by Kumail Nanjiani Stand-up comic Nanjiani best known as Dinesh on Silicon Valley  has a lot to say, as evidenced by the video game and  X-Files themed  podcasts he runs with his writer-producer wife Emily Gordon. But his stand-up hits closer to home, whether you call it his native Pakistan, or stateside, in LA or in Iowa, where he went to school. Hed have plenty to expound on. Case in point? Bonding with his now-wifes parents at the hospital while she was in a coma, an experience he and Gordon are immortalizing in script form. I  hung out with her parents while she was in a coma for eight days! That’s when I  told my parents, Hey! Good news/bad news. Actually, for you guys, bad news/good news? I  dunno, anyway: I’m in love with a white girl and she’s in a coma. I  don’t know how you’re going to take either of those.' I mean, how could you  not want to read that? Sign up for True Story to receive nonfiction news, new releases, and must-read forthcoming titles. Thank you for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox.