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Biography and Memoir October 2019
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| Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin MoserWhat it is: an admiring biography of "America's last great literary star" and provocative multi-hyphenate intellectual Susan Sontag.
Why you might like it: With insights gleaned from private archival materials and more than 300 interviews, Sontag has been touted as the definitive portrait of a complicated figure.
Topics include: Sontag's struggles with her sexuality and later happiness with long-term partner Annie Leibovitz; her private insecurities in the face of celebrity; her battles with cancer (to which she succumbed in 2004). |
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A dream about lightning bugs : a life of music and cheap lessons
by Ben Folds
The genre-defying musician offers reflections on art, life, and music in a memoir that chronicles his artistic coming of age, from his working class childhood in North Carolina to the challenges of sustaining a multidecade career in the music business.
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Year of the monkey
by Patti Smith
From the National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids and M Train comes a memoir in which dreams and reality are vividly woven into a tapestry of one transformative year.
Taking us from California to the Arizona desert; to a Kentucky farm as the amanuensis of a friend in crisis; to the hospital room of a valued mentor; and by turns to remembered and imagined places, this haunting memoir blends fact and fiction with poetic mastery.
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Diamond Doris : The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief
by Doris Payne
The culprit and larger-than-life personality behind jewel heists that remained unsolved for years shares her story, describing how a young black woman from West Virginia pulled off diamond robberies and used nuns to break out of prison.
A rip-roaringly fun and exciting story as audacious as Catch Me if You Can and Can You Ever Forgive Me?—Diamond Doris is the portrait of a captivating anti-hero who refused to be defined by the prejudices and mores of a hypocritical society.
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The soul of care : the moral education of a husband and a doctor
by Arthur Kleinman
A memoir by an eminent Harvard psychiatrist who recounts his experiences while caring for his wife after her diagnosis with early-onset Alzheimer’s.
Kleinman delivers a deeply humane and inspiring story of his life in medicine and his marriage to Joan, and he describes the practical, emotional and moral aspects of caretaking. He also writes about the problems our society faces as medical technology advances and the cost of health care soars but caring for patients no longer seems important.
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Grace : Based on the Jeff Buckley Story
by Tiffanie Debartolo
A moving graphic biography for music lovers, Grace: The Jeff Buckley Story is painstakingly researched and created in collaboration with Jeff Buckley's estate.
Written by Tiffanie DeBartolo and with art by Pascal Dizin and Lisa Reist, this graphic novel biography uses archival material provided by Jeff’s mother, Mary Guibert, to reveal the young songwriter in the process of becoming a legend.
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Grass
by Keum Suk Gendry-kim
Grass is a powerful antiwar graphic novel, telling the life story of a Korean girl named Okseon Lee who was forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War—a disputed chapter in twentieth-century Asian history.
The cartoonist Gendry-Kim’s interviews with Lee become an integral part of Grass, forming the heart and architecture of this biographical graphic novel and offering a holistic view of how Lee’s wartime suffering changed her.
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Persepolis
by Marjane Satrapi
The great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor and the daughter of ardent Marxists describes growing up in Tehran in a country plagued by political upheaval and vast contradictions between public and private life.
Marjane’s child’s-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of Iran and of her own extraordinary family.
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| Something New: Tales From a Makeshift Bride by Lucy KnisleyWhat it is: a breezy account of Lucy Knisley's DIY-wedding planning, featuring tips and how-tos for crafty nuptials-bound readers.
Art alert: Knisley's bright and charming full-color illustrations underscore her conflicted feelings about weddings and her desire to shake up tradition for her own ceremony.
For fans of: Adrian Tomine's Scenes from an Impending Marriage. |
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| The Arab of the Future 3: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1985-1987 by Riad SattoufWhat it's about: Young Riad Sattouf grapples with life during Hafez al-Assad's regime and the dueling cultural expectations placed upon him by his Syrian father and French mother.
Art alert: Cartoony, minimally colored graphics starkly complement the disturbing and darkly humorous narrative.
Series alert: The 4th installment of Sattouf's acclaimed series, spanning the years 1987-1992, is out next month. |
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“Vietnam Photographs from North Carolina Veterans: The Memories They Brought Home.” Award-winning photojournalist, documentary filmmaker and Vietnam-era veteran Martin Tucker will present on his recently published book. This event is sponsored by the Walkertown Area Historical Society. Walkertown Branch Library Tuesday, Nov. 19 at 6:30 p.m. Call for more info 336-703-2990.
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Forsyth County Public Library 660 W 5th Street Winston Salem, North Carolina 27101 336-703-3030www.forsythlibrary.org |
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