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Biography and Memoir February 2020
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| A Bookshop in Berlin: The Rediscovered Memoir of One Woman's Harrowing Escape... by Françoise FrenkelStarring: Berlin-based Polish Jewish bookseller Françoise Frenkel, who fled the Nazis in 1939 and spent the next four years evading capture in occupied France.
Read it for: a nail-biting tale of courage and survival.
What sets it apart: Originally published to little fanfare in 1945 Switzerland, Frenkel's memoir lingered in obscurity until a copy resurfaced in 2010, leading to its English language publication nearly 75 years after its initial release. |
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| The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison by John F. Callahan and Marc C. Conner, editorsWhat's inside: a chronological collection of six decades of correspondence written by National Book Award-winning author Ralph Ellison that offer an intimate glimpse into his life and career.
Why you might like it: Co-edited by Ellison's literary executor John F. Callahan, these previously unpublished letters are supplemented with richly contextualized introductions and footnotes.
Don't miss: Ellison's frequent musings to fellow black intellectuals Richard Wright and Albert Murray about life, work, and politics. |
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What it's about: The story of a woman whose ambition and accomplishments far exceeded the expectations of her time, 18 Tiny Deaths follows the transformation of a young, wealthy socialite into the mother of modern forensics. Reviewer's say: ""Thorough research helps him paint a captivating portrait of a feminist hero and forensic pioneer. " - Booklist Try this next: American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics and the Birth of American CSI by Kate Winkler Dawson
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| Mary Ball Washington: The Untold Story of George Washington's Mother by Craig ShirleyWhat it's about: how "Honored Madam" Mary Ball Washington's prickly relationship with her eldest son George Washington shaped him as a man, politician, and president.
Who it's for: readers seeking fresh perspectives about figures on the periphery of history.
Reviewers say: "a sharp and fully dimensional view of the singular Mary Bell Washington" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman
by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
What it is: a short, conversational biography of heroic Underground Railroad conductor, Union Army spy, and abolitionist Harriet Tubman.
Why you might like it: Filled with photographs and eye-catching illustrations and sidebars, this engaging, pop-culture infused read "will leave even the least historically inclined readers in awe" (Booklist).
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| Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray by Rosalind RosenbergStarring: lawyer, activist, and first black woman Episcopal priest Pauli Murray, who, among other accomplishments, inspired Thurgood Marshall's arguments in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966.
Read it for: a poignant portrait of a complicated figure grappling with identity -- though Murray used she/her pronouns throughout her life, she also unsuccessfully sought hormone therapy in the 1930s and is embraced today as a transgender icon.
Try this next: Readers looking for insights on Murray's life in her own words will want to check out her candid memoir Song in a Weary Throat. |
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Negroland : a memoir by Margo JeffersonWhat is it: A highly personal meditation on race, sex and American culture by the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic traces her upbringing and education in upper-class African-American circles against a backdrop of the Civil Rights era and its contradictory aftermath. About the author: The winner of a Pulitzer Prize for criticism, Margo Jefferson was for years a book and arts critic for Newsweek and The New York Times. Her writing has appeared in, among other publications, Vogue, New York magazine, and The Nation, and Guernica.
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Black Radical : The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter
by Kerri K. Greenidge
What is it: A portrait of the lesser-known, turn-of-the-20th-century civil rights activist explores how he used his influence as an emancipator and the editor of the Guardian to promote gradualist politics and rally black working-class Americans throughout the post-Reconstruction era.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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