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Biography and MemoirMarch 2015
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New and Recently Released!
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| Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant by Tracy BormanLord Thomas Cromwell, made more visible to modern readers by Hilary Mantel's novel Wolf Hall, was one of Henry VIII's most trusted advisers, until he was executed for supposedly trying to seize too much power. In this engaging biography, historian Tracy Borman depicts a complex personality -- both a devoted family man and a manipulative power broker. Making use of both primary and secondary sources, Borman relates Cromwell's life and analyzes the reasons for his fall from favor. Thomas Cromwell offers a well researched portrait to accompany the BBC dramatization of Mantel's book, recently aired in the U.K. and soon to appear on PBS. |
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| Resilience: Two Sisters and a Story of Mental Illness by Jessie Close with Pete EarleyIn this candid and moving autobiography, Jessie Close, sister of actress Glenn Close, recounts her life with particular emphasis on her mental illness, which went undiagnosed from her teenage years until she was nearly 50. Resilience depicts Jessie's struggles with mood swings and substance abuse, failed marriages, her son's mental illness, and -- throughout -- the support of her sister Glenn. After bringing her bipolar illness under control, Jessie and Glenn founded Bring Change 2 Mind, an organization devoted to mental health issues. Jessie's memoir is an emotionally intense read, but its conclusion offers hope for the mentally ill. |
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| The Man Who Would Not Be Washington: Robert E. Lee's Civil War and His... by Jonathan HornIn The Man Who Would Not Be Washington, author Jonathan Horn presents a biography of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that portrays his connections to (and admiration for) George Washington and his decision, nevertheless, to lead the rebellion against the Union that Washington helped to found. Providing a portrait of Lee's family, Horn explains why Lee could have followed in Washington's footsteps as an American leader, emphasizing the poignancy of Lee's decision to support Virginia's side in the Civil War. Library Journal, in a starred review, says this interpretation of Lee's life has "significant historiographical value." |
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Anatomies : a cultural history of the human body by Hugh Aldersey-WilliamsThe human body is the most fraught and fascinating, talked-about and taboo, unique yet universal fact of our lives. It is the inspiration for art, the subject of science, and the source of some of the greatest stories ever told. In Anatomies , acclaimed author of Periodic Tales Hugh Aldersey-Williams brings his entertaining blend of science, history, and culture to bear on this richest of subjects. In an engaging narrative that ranges from ancient body art to plastic surgery today and from head to toe, Aldersey-Williams explores the corporeal mysteries that make us human: Why are some people left-handed and some blue-eyed? What is the funny bone, anyway? Why do some cultures think of the heart as the seat of our souls and passions, while others place it in the liver? A journalist with a knack for telling a story, Aldersey-Williams takes part in a drawing class, attends the dissection of a human body, and visits the doctor’s office and the morgue. But Anatomies draws not just on medical science and Aldersey-Williams’s reporting. It draws also on the works of philosophers, writers, and artists from throughout history. Aldersey-Williams delves into our shared cultural heritage—Shakespeare to Frankenstein, Rembrandt to 2001: A Space Odyssey—to reveal how attitudes toward the human body are as varied as human history, as he explains the origins and legacy of tattooing, shrunken heads, bloodletting, fingerprinting, X-rays, and more. From Adam’s rib to van Gogh’s ear to Einstein’s brain, Anatomies is a treasure trove of surprising facts and stories and a wonderful embodiment of what Aristotle wrote more than two millennia ago: “The human body is more than the sum of its parts.”
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| Whipping Boy: The Forty-Year Search for My Twelve-Year-Old Bully by Allen KurzweilWhen author Allen Kurzweil was ten years old, he attended an English-style boarding school in Switzerland, where a 12-year-old student systematically humiliated and physically abused him. Thirty years later, after helping his son deal with a school bully, Kurzweil decided to look for his former tormentor. In Whipping Boy, he recounts his worldwide search, which took him to the Philippines and Switzerland, through crates of legal documents, and eventually to a California prison. In this fast-paced, gripping account, Kurzweil reveals that his bully grew up to be a crook whose fraud makes Bernie Madoff's schemes "look positively banal" (Library Journal). |
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Burn down the ground : a memoir by Kambri CrewsIn this powerful, affecting, and unflinching memoir, a daughter looks back on her unconventional childhood with deaf parents in rural Texas while trying to reconcile it to her present life--one in which her father is serving a twenty-year sentence in a maximum-security prison. As a child, Kambri Crews wished that she'd been born deaf so that she, too, could fully belong to the tight-knit Deaf community that embraced her parents. Her beautiful mother was a saint who would swiftly correct anyone's notion that deaf equaled dumb. Her handsome father, on the other hand, was more likely to be found hanging out with the sinners. Strong, gregarious, and hardworking, he managed to turn a wild plot of land into a family homestead complete with running water and electricity. To Kambri, he was Daniel Boone, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ben Franklin, and Elvis Presley all rolled into one. But if Kambri's dad was Superman, then the hearing world was his kryptonite. The isolation that accompanied his deafness unlocked a fierce temper--a rage that a teenage Kambri witnessed when he attacked her mother, and that culminated fourteen years later in his conviction for another violent crime. With a smart mix of brutal honesty and blunt humor, Kambri Crews explores her complicated bond with her father--which begins with adoration, moves to fear, and finally arrives at understanding--as she tries to forge a new connection between them while he lives behind bars. Burn Down the Ground is a brilliant portrait of living in two worlds--one hearing, the other deaf; one under the laid-back Texas sun, the other within the energetic pulse of New York City; one mired in violence, the other rife with possibility--and heralds the arrival of a captivating new voice.
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March and April Birthdays
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| Gabriel García Márquez: A Life by Gerald MartinMarch 6, 1927. In this thorough and easy-to-read biography of Nobel Prize-winning Gabriel García Márquez, author Gerald Martin details his early life, his career in journalism, his political views, and the substance and impact of his acclaimed and popular magical realist works. Anyone interested in Márquez or in 20th-century literature will find this an "exemplary literary biography" (Kirkus Reviews). For more on the author in his own words, read Living to Tell the Tale, which covers his early life from 1927-1950; those who haven't read his fiction might start with One Hundred Years of Solitude. |
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| The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century by Alan BrinkleyApril 3, 1898. Henry Luce was one of the most prominent publishers of the 20th century. Founder of the popular magazines TIME, Life, and Fortune, he became highly influential both in the publishing world and in politics. He achieved great wealth but also had a troubled personal life, including discordant marriages, extramarital affairs, and often contentious professional relationships. Biographer Alan Brinkley explores his career, his public persona, and his private character in this well researched and compelling book, which will appeal to anyone interested in 20th-century American history. |
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| Da Vinci's Ghost: Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His... by Toby LesterApril 15, 1452. While most recognize Leonardo da Vinci's drawing of the Vitruvian Man -- a nude, four-armed, four-legged man framed by a circle and a square -- few are familiar with its origins. According to Renaissance European beliefs rooted in classical Roman philosophy, the perfectly proportioned human body represented a microcosm of the universe, and da Vinci's image encapsulates this symbolism. In his engaging, well illustrated biography, historian Toby Lester discusses the history of the Vitruvian Man and da Vinci's keen observations of the physical world while exploring his humble origins and dazzling artistic career. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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