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Biography and Memoir July 2018
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| The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran by Masih AlinejadWhat it's about: Exiled Iranian journalist and women's rights advocate Masih Alinejad chronicles her life spent resisting the Islamic republic in this captivating and informative memoir. Did you know? Alinejad is the creator of the social media movement My Stealthy Freedom, which encourages women to defy Iran's compulsory hijab laws by sharing photographs of themselves without their head scarves. |
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Jim Brown: Last Man Standing
by Dave Zirin
Presents a portrait of the football legend, Hollywood actor, and controversial activist that includes coverage of Brown's work with Black Power and the allegations of sexual violence that overshadowed his career.
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| There Are No Grown-Ups: A Midlife Coming-of-Age Story by Pamela DruckermanWhat it is: part memoir, part self-help guide, this witty and lighthearted collection of 25 essays explores American expat life in Paris, the realities of aging, and family relationships.
Want a taste? "You know you're a fortysomething parent when you've decided that swimming counts as a shower."
Chapters include: "How to Have a Midlife Crisis;" "How to Plan a Ménage à Trois;" and "How to Think in French." |
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You All Grow Up and Leave Me: A Memoir of Teenage Obsession
by Piper Weiss
A riveting blend of true crime and coming-of-age memoir—The Stranger Beside Me meets Prep—that presents an intimate and thought-provoking portrait of girlhood within Manhattan’s exclusive private-school scene in the early 1990s, and a thoughtful meditation on adolescent obsession and the vulnerability of youth.
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Berenice Abbott: A Life in Photography
by Julia Van Haaften
A portrait of the iconic 20th-century American photographer, documentary modernist, author and inventor traces her rebellious coming-of-age in Ohio, early artistic ventures in Paris and long-term relationship with critic Elizabeth McCausland, offering particular coverage of Abbott's 1930s "Changing New York" series and her documentation of the 1950s space race.
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Air Traffic: A Memoir of Ambition and Manhood in America
by Gregory Pardlo
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, his first work of prose: a deeply felt memoir of a family's bonds and a meditation on race, addiction, fatherhood, ambition, and American culture. The Pardlos were an average, middle-class African American family living in a New Jersey Levittown: charismatic Gregory Sr., an air traffic controller, his wife, and their two sons, bookish Greg Jr. and musical-talent Robbie. But when "Big Greg" loses his job after participating in the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Strike of 1981, he becomes a disillusioned, toxic, looming presence in the household--and a powerful rival for young Greg. Gregory Pardlo gives us a compassionate, loving ode to his father, to fatherhood, and to the frustrating-yet-redemptive ties of family, as well as a scrupulous, searing examination of how African American manhood is shaped by contemporary American life.
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Lady in Red: An Intimate Portrait of Nancy Reagan
by Sheila Tate
A long-awaited collection of behind-the-scenes stories and iconic images of the influential First Lady, compiled by a close confidante and former press secretary, shares insights into her personal life, from her daily routines and diplomatic travels to her friendships and enduring influence in the Reagan White House.
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Tears of Salt: A Doctor's Story
by Pietro Bartolo
What it's about: Physician Pietro Bartolo, head of the only medical clinic on the Italian island of Lampedusa, describes 25 years of caring for the thousands of desperate Middle Eastern and African refugees who have arrived on the island in hopes of a better life.
Why you might like it: Through moving and poignant vignettes, Bartolo recounts the moments of life, hope, illness, and death that are at the heart of the European migrant crisis. Media buzz: Author Bartolo is featured in the 2016 Academy Award-nominated film Fire at Sea.
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Furnishing Eternity: A Father, a Son, a Coffin, and a Measure of Life
by David Giffels
What it's about: With the help of his 81-year-old father, author David Giffels embarks on a surprising endeavor -- to build his own coffin -- only to unexpectedly lose his mother and his best friend. In this moving memoir, Giffels shares the extraordinary events of that year, offering a heartfelt meditation on life, mortality, and his Midwestern roots.
Reviewers say: "Tender, witty and, like the woodworking it describes, painstakingly and subtly wrought" (New York Times Book Review).
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The Lambs: My Father, a Farm and the Gift of a Flock of Sheep
by Carole Shelbourn George
In this touching memoir about the relationship between father, daughter, and animals, Carole explores life after adopting thirteen pet Karakul lambs. Throughout her years with the lambs and her aging father, she comes to realize the distinct personality of each creature, and to understand more fully the almost spiritual bond between man and animals.
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Madame Claude: Her Secret World of Pleasure, Privilege, and Power
by William Stadiem
In post-WWII Paris, Madame Claude ran the most exclusive finishing school in the world. Her alumnae married more fortunes, titles and famous names than any of the Seven Sisters. The names on her client list were epic—Kennedy, Rothschild, Agnelli, Onassis, Niarchos, Brando, Sinatra, McQueen, Picasso, Chagall, Qaddafi, the Shah, and that's just for starters. By the 1950s, she was the richest and most celebrated self-made woman in Europe, as much of a legend as Coco Chanel. She was also one of the most controversial—and most wanted—women in the world. Now, through his own conversations with the woman herself and interviews with the great men and remarkable women on whom she built her empire, social historian and biographer William Stadiem pierces the veil of Claude’s secret, forbidden universe of pleasure and privilege.
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The Girl: Marilyn Monroe, the Seven Year Itch, and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist
by Michelle Morgan
With an in-depth look at the two most empowering years in the life of Marilyn Monroe, The Girl details how The Seven Year Itch created an icon and sent the star on an adventure of self-discovery and transformation from a controlled wife and contract player into a businesswoman and unlikely feminist whose power is still felt today. The ripple effects her personal rebellion had on Hollywood, and in trailblazing the way for women that followed, will both surprise and inspire readers to see the Marilyn Monroe in an entirely new light.
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| Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale HurstonWhat it's about: In 1927, author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston interviewed Cudjo Lewis (c. 1841-1935), one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade; the transcript of their conversation was only recently discovered.
Read it for: Hurston's folkloristic preservation of Lewis's West African vernacular and storytelling.
Is it for you? Lewis' clear account of his capture and enslavement is both graphic and illuminating. |
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| The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers, and Life by Richard RussoWhat it is: a moving and insightful peek into the creative process and everyday life of a prolific writer, leisurely told in a series of nine essays.
About the author: Novelist Richard Russo's Empire Falls won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2002; this is his first essay collection.
Don't miss: The poignant "Imagining Jenny" originally appeared as the afterword to Jennifer Boylan's 2003 memoir She's Not There and discusses how Russo's friendship with Boylan changed after the latter's gender-reassignment surgery. |
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| Young Washington: How Wilderness and War Forged America's Founding Father by Peter StarkWhat it is: a lively chronicle of how George Washington's early career exploits during the French and Indian War shaped him from a volatile young man into an empathetic and respected military leader.
Read it for: adventure writer Peter Stark's thrilling, vivid narrative, supplemented with letters, journal entries, and military documents.
Reviewers say: "a discerning history of pre-Revolutionary America and the man who shaped its future" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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Focus on: Prison and Captivity
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| Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard by Laura BatesWhat it is: a powerful, eye-opening account of a group-study "Shakespeare in Shackles" program at a maximum security prison and the transformative effect it had on both instructor and students.
About the author: Laura Bates is a literature professor at Indiana State University and a graduate of the Shakespeare Institute.
Try this next: Michelle Kuo's Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship. |
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| A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout and Sara CorbettWhat it's about: In 2008, 25-year-old Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout was captured by Somali rebels in Mogadishu and held for ransom for 15 months.
Don't miss: the urgent and evocative prose.
Is it for you? Though the memoir has an upbeat ending, Lindhout's harrowing descriptions of the violence she endured may be too disturbing for some readers. |
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| The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State by Nadia MuradWhat it is: the raw yet inspiring story of Nadia Murad's escape from captivity by the Islamic State, for whom she was forced to serve as a "sabiya" (or sex slave) after her Yazidi village in Iraq was destroyed in 2014.
About the author: Nadia Murad is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. |
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| Guantánamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould SlahiWhat it is: a riveting and reflective account of the human rights abuses perpetuated at the Guantánamo Bay military prison.
What sets it apart: Guantánamo Diary is the first book on the subject to be written by a detainee during his imprisonment.
Book buzz: Written in 2005, Guantánamo Diary remained classified for almost ten years; earlier editions of the book were heavily redacted. This Restored Edition reconstructs previously redacted text and includes a new introduction by Slahi. |
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| Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan StevensonWhat it's about: In 1994, lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative, which provides legal representation to inmates on Alabama's death row -- many of whom face miscarriages of justice.
Further reading: Stevenson provides the foreword to Anthony Ray Hinton's heartwrenching and hopeful memoir (and Oprah's latest Book Club selection) The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row, which chronicles his 30 years of false imprisonment. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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