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Biography and Memoir June 2019
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| Mama's Boy: A Story from Our Americas by Dustin Lance BlackWhat it's about: Dustin Lance Black's conservative Mormon upbringing in Texas and his complicated relationship with his mother, a headstrong polio and abuse survivor.
Author alert: LGBTQIA activist Black is the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Milk.
Reviewers say: "terrifically moving" (Kirkus Reviews); "belongs in every library" (Booklist). |
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| All That You Leave Behind by Erin Lee CarrWhat it is: a poignant elegy for Erin Lee Carr's late father, New York Times journalist David Carr, who died from lung cancer in 2015; an incisive look at the ravages of multigenerational addiction.
What's inside: texts, emails, and letters exchanged between Carr and her father that offer an insightful view into the pair's relationship.
Further reading: David Carr's award-winning 2008 memoir Night of the Gun, which chronicles his own struggles with addiction and his life as a single father. |
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| What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence by Michele Filgate (editor)What it is: a diverse collection of essays that illuminate the complicated relationships between the authors and their mothers.
Contributors include: Kiese Laymon, Alexander Chee, Carmen Maria Machado, and Nayomi Munaweera.
Is it for you? Haunting and lyrical, this anthology unflinchingly explores topics like abuse, estrangement, and mental illness. |
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| Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination by Brian Jay JonesWhat it is: a comprehensive and entertaining biography of ad man-turned-beloved children's book author and cartoonist Dr. Seuss.
Don't miss: the balanced appraisal of Seuss' legacy -- though he was known for championing causes like environmentalism, he also employed racial stereotypes in his works.
Who it's for: Seuss fans and lovers of page-turning biographies. |
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| African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan by Thomas Lockley and Geoffrey GirardWho it's about: Yasuke, the 16th-century African slave who served as a vassal to powerful warlord Oda Nobunaga and became Japan's first foreign-born samurai.
Read it for: the action-packed narrative; the evocative depiction of feudal Japan.
Movie buzz: Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman is set to play Yasuke in a forthcoming film. |
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| Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the... by James R. Doty, MDWhat it's about: how James Doty survived a childhood of abuse to become a revered neurosurgeon and the director of Stanford University's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE).
Featuring: well-researched mindfulness and visualization techniques.
Is it for you? Squeamish readers may want to steer clear of Doty's graphic descriptions of brain surgery. |
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| Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian, My Story of Rescue, Hope, and Triumph by Yusra MardiniWhat it is: a moving account of swimmer Yusra Mardini's flight from war-torn Syria in 2015 and her subsequent asylum in Germany.
About the author: At age 18, Mardini was a member of the Refugee Olympic Athletes Team at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Reviewers say: "A rousing, exciting true story of remarkable resilience" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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Molly McClain tells the remarkable story of Ellen Browning Scripps (1836-1932), an American newspaperwoman, feminist, suffragist, abolitionist, and social reformer who used her fortune to support women's education, the labor movement, and public access to science, the arts, and education. Born in London, Scripps grew up in rural poverty on the Illinois prairie. She went from rags to riches, living out that cherished American story in which people pull themselves up by their bootstraps with audacity, hard work, and luck. She and her brother E.W. Scripps built America's largest chain of newspapers, linking Midwestern industrial cities with booming towns in the West. Less well known today than the papers started by Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, Scripps newspapers transformed their owners into millionaires almost overnight. By the 1920s Scripps was worth an estimated $30 million, most of which she gave away. She established the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, and appeared on the cover of Time magazine after founding Scripps College in Claremont, California. She also provided major financial support to organizations worldwide that promised to advance democratic principles and public education. McClain brings to life an extraordinary woman who played a vital role in the history of women, California, and the American West.
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Not pretty enough : the unlikely triumph of Helen Gurley Brown
by Gerri Hirshey
A deeply researched portrait of the famed author of Sex and the Single Girl examines her role in advancing civil-rights feminism, tracing her rags-to-riches story, transformation of Cosmopolitan and relationships with such figures as Liz Smith, Gloria Vanderbilt and Barbara Walters.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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