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Biography and Memoir November 2020
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| I'll Be Seeing You by Elizabeth BergWhat it's about: bestselling novelist Elizabeth Berg's (The Story of Arthur Truluv) relationship with her aging parents, whom she helped care for during their final years.
Is it for you? Berg's candid and insightful memoir will resonate with readers who are caring for older family members.
Food for thought: "The failing of an aging parent is one of those old stories that feels abrasively new to the person experiencing it." |
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Betsey. : a memoir by Betsey JohnsonWhat it is: A memoir by the internationally famous fashion designer and style icon Betsey Johnson. What's inside: Betsey will take the reader behind the tutu and delve deeply into what it took to go from a white picket fence childhood in Connecticut to becoming an internationally known force in a tough, competitive business. She will discuss that business's ups and downs, and her thoughts on body image, love, divorce, men, motherhood, and her bout with breast cancer. Is it for you? Betsey is richly illustrated with many of her landmark clothes, fashion sketches, and personal photos--making the book the perfect memento and gift for every girl (of any age) for whom Betsey is, as a recent New York Times profile noted, "a role model still'"
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Greenlights by Matthew McConaugheyWhat it is: Drawing on the Academy Award-winning actor's journals and diaries from the last 40 years, this book presents a uniquely McConaughey approach to achieving success and satisfaction. Description by Matthew: "I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops." Reviewers say: “McConaughey’s own story is arguably more interesting than any character he has embodied on the silver screen over the decades.”—USA Today
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A promised land by Barack ObamaWhat it is: A deeply personal account of history in the making—from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy. What's inside: In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency--a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil. Reviewers say: This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama's conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.-Random House
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What it's about: Explores the songs that have defined her journey and contains rare photos and memorabilia that share additional insights into classic Parton lyrics. Reviewers say: "A splashy, entertaining guide to the lyrics of one of the most popular musicians of our time."-Kirkus Reviews
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Focus on: National Book Awards
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| The Yellow House by Sarah M. BroomWhat it's about: author Sarah M. Broom's upbringing as the youngest of 12 children raised in a New Orleans East shotgun house that was later destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
Why you might like it: Broom's lyrical family history explores the painful reality of redefining "home" following displacement.
Want a taste? "Without that physical structure, we are the house that bears itself up. I was now the house." |
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Between the world and me by Ta-Nehisi CoatesWhat it is: Framed as a letter to his teenage son, Coates's account of race in America works as both memoir and meditation. What it's about: The author presents a history of racial discrimination in the United States and a narrative of his own personal experiences of contemporary race relations, offering possible resolutions for the future. Reviewers say: There is awesome beauty in the power of his prose and vital truth on every page.-Booklist
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What it is: A reassessment of Jefferson's life and character points up to the many contradictions in Jefferson's nature Reviewers say: "Elegant, lively, and provocative."- The Chicago Tribune
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| If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Qur'an by Carla PowerHow it began: Friends for years, secular journalist Carla Power and Islamic scholar Mohammad Akram Nadwi had become frustrated by the name-calling among and between their communities.
What happened next: Hoping to improve her understanding of Islam, Power undertook extensive study of the Qur'an, meeting with Akram Nadwi weekly for private lessons and observing his lectures at Oxford.
Why you might like it: This engaging Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist offers compelling insight into difficult religious topics. |
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| Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah SmarshWhat it's about: the cycle of rural poverty that blighted author Sarah Smarsh's Kansas farming family for generations.
Who it's for: readers looking for a thought-provoking rejoinder to J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy.
Reviewers say: "a searing indictment of how the poor are viewed and treated in this country" (Library Journal). |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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