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New Biographies at Riverside Public Library |
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Newest Books are at the Top Click on a title for more information or to place a hold. |
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Judy Blume: A Life
by Mark Oppenheimer
In Judy Blume, journalist, historian, and longtime Blume aficionado
Mark Oppenheimer pens a beautiful, multidimensional portrait of the acclaimed author through extensive interviews with Blume herself, invaluable access to her papers and correspondence, and thoughtful analysis of Blume's beloved novels, including early, unpublished works that shed light on the pathbreaking writer she would become. Oppenheimer goes deep, exploring Blume's middle-class 1950s upbringing, complicated childhood, varied relationships and marriages, unabashed sexual experiences, bouts of heartache and loss, and enduring legacy as a champion of free speech and contemporary literature. Oppenheimer peels back the curtain to reveal the woman behind the literary empire in all her complex, multifaceted glory--a
true gift for anyone who grew up reading and loving these
extraordinary books.
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Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's Queen Without a Crown
by Ann Foster
Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, Princess of Brunswick, was born in the northern German town of Braunschweig. Her mother and father, the duke and duchess, instantly knew one thing: there was something irrefutably untamable about their daughter. She grew up a wild child, sequestered from others to protect her family's reputation--an 18th-century Rapunzel. She was freed from this gilded cage by an
unexpected marriage proposal from George Augustus Frederick, Prince
of Wales and the eldest son of George III and Queen Charlotte.
Caroline was entirely unprepared for the backstabbing mean girls of
the royal court. Caroline became the unlikely figurehead of the anti-monarchists, aided by the just-emerging tabloid press. Ann Foster
brings us the riveting story of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's
uncrowned queen, through an empowering examination of
womanhood and autonomy that feels just as relevant today.
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A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power
by Abby Phillip
Focusing on his presidential runs in 1984 and, especially, 1988, Phillip highlights how Jackson built an unlikely coalition that showed how
Black political power could be consolidated. His experience working under Martin Luther King, his organizing the SLCC's Operation Breadbasket in Chicago and beyond, and his roots in the deep South combined into two impactful presidential campaigns. Appealing to the working people of urban enclaves like that of Chicago, young people
on college campuses, and Black people across the South, he created
the modern Democratic coalition--one that has been used by all major Democrats seeking national success from Obama to Biden to Harris.
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American Pontiff: Pope Leo XIV and His Plan to Heal the Church
by Paul Kengor
From New York Times bestselling author and noted Catholic historian
Dr. Paul Kengor: A portrait of Robert Francis Prevost, his background
and life, theological beliefs and teachings, relationship with his predecessors and fellow cardinals and clergy, and surprising rise to become the 267th elected Pontiff and first American Pope. Dr Paul Kengor delivers an engaging and gripping deep dive into the life and times of Robert Francis Prevost, whose election to the Chair of St.
Peter on May 8, 2025, stunned the world. If you want to get to know
this mystery man who became pope--who became the first American
pontiff--this is the book, a must-read for every Catholic and for non-Catholics as well.
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Nothing Random: Bennett Cerf and the Publishing House He Built
by Gayle Feldman
At midcentury, everyone knew Bennett Cerf: witty, beloved,
middle-aged panelist on What's My Line? But they didn't know that
the handsome, driven, paradoxical young man of the 1920s had
vowed to become a great publisher and, a decade later, was. By then, he'd signed Eugene O'Neill, Gertrude Stein, and William Faulkner, and had fought the landmark censorship case that gave Americans the freedom to read James Joyce's Ulysses. With his best friend and
lifelong business partner, Donald Klopfer, he bought the Modern
Library and turned it into an institution. He then founded Random
House, which eventually became a home to Truman Capote, Ralph Ellison, Ayn Rand, Dr. Seuss, Toni Morrison, James Michener, and
many more. Even before TV, Cerf was a bestselling author and
columnist as well as publisher. Using interviews with more than two hundred individuals, deeply researched archival material, and letters from private collections not previously available, this book brings
Bennett Cerf to vibrant life, drawing book lovers into his world.
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Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself and China
by Jung Chang
In this follow-up to Chang's Wild Swans, Jung--twenty-six years old
and unstoppably curious, despite years of brainwashing--became one
of the first Chinese to leave the tightly sealed country and come to the West. Her family story mirrors the ups and downs of China's transformation, right up to today, as it enters another watershed. Chairman Xi Jinping's attempt to return China to the anti-American Maoist past has a devastating impact on Jung's life: she is unable to
go to her mother's deathbed.
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The Flower Bearers
by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
On September 24, 2021, Rachel Eliza Griffiths married her husband, the novelist Salman Rushdie. On the same day, hundreds of miles of away, Griffiths' closest friend and chosen sister, the poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who was expected to speak at the wedding, died suddenly. Eleven months later, as Griffiths attempted to piece together her life as a newlywed with heartbreak in one hand and immense love in the other,
a brutal attack nearly killed her husband. As trauma compounded trauma, Griffiths realized that in order to survive her grief, she would need to mourn not only her friend, but the woman she had been on
her wedding day, a woman who had also died that day.
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Being Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History
by Andrew Burstein
The deepest dive yet into the heart and soul, secret affairs,
unexplored alliances, and bitter feuds of a generally worshipped, intermittently reviled American icon.
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Notes on Heartbreak: A Memoir
by Annie Lord
You never forget your first love--or your first true heartbreak. Annie
Lord is going through a devastating breakup after a five-year
relationship with someone she thought she'd be with forever. Try as
she might, she can't stop reliving the past, obsessively examining every moment that led to this point. Notes on Heartbreak is an engrossing
and emotionally evocative account of love and loss that will resonate with anyone who has ever nursed a broken heart, been in a
codependent relationship, or has come to understand that romantic partnerships are infinitely more complex than what we experience in
the moment.
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Bernie for Burlington: The Rise of the People's Politician
by Dan Chiasson
In this symphonic origin story of an era-defining politician, Dan
Chiasson, a Burlington native who had a ringside seat to Bernie Sanders's development, reconstructs the rise of an American icon. With in-depth reporting and remarkable remembered scenes, Chiasson tracks a faint political signal that traveled from the Vermont communes, hardluck neighborhoods, traditional businesses, and county fairs to the town meetings and ballot boxes of his home state, and finally to Washington, D.C., to transform our national political landscape.
Sanders, insisting on a socialist platform that hasn't changed to this
day, defied a corrupt Democratic machine to find his coalition among Burlington's often feuding communities. Full of Sanders himself, reflecting and raging, hitting his themes, Bernie for Burlington is a mesmerizing portrait of a politician, a place, and a movement that
would change America.
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A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls: Margaret C. Anderson, Book Bans, and the Fight to Modernize Literature
by Adam Morgan
This is the life and times of literary pioneer and queer icon Margaret
C. Anderson, who risked everything to be the first to
publish James Joyce's Ulysses in America. In 1921, Anderson found herself on trial and labeled a danger to the minds of young girls by a government seeking to shut her down. Anderson was now not just a publisher but also a scapegoat for regressives seeking to impose
their will on a world on the brink of modernization. This biography
highlights a feminist counterculture that audaciously pushed for
more during a time of extreme social conservatism and changed
the face of American literature and culture forever.
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Homeschooled: A Read with Jenna Pick: A Memoir
by Stefan Merrill Block
Stefan Merrill Block was nine when his mother pulled him from
school, certain that his teachers were 'stifling his creativity.'
Hungry for more time with her boy who was growing up too
quickly, she began to instruct Stefan in the family's living room.
Beyond his formal lessons in math, however, Stefan was largely
left to his own devices and his mother's erratic whims, such as
her project to recapture her twelve-year-old son's early years by bleaching his hair and putting him on a crawling regimen.
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Ain't Nobody's Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton
by Martha Ackmann
A larger-than-life biography of country music legend and
philanthropist Dolly Parton, [in which] Martha Ackmann chronicles
the life of an American original. From her impoverished childhood
in the Smoky Mountains to international stardom as a singer,
songwriter, actress, businesswoman, and philanthropist, Dolly
Parton has exceeded everyone's expectations--except her own.
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How to Cook a Coyote: The Joy of Old Age
by Betty Fussell
A juicy, sexy, and wise memoir from the gifted essayist and
meditative thinker that captures the urgency of life at the age of
ninety-eight (The New York Times) From telling what it's like to
go blind to confronting the ongoing erosion of time and the
mystery of what's to come, How to Cook a Coyote recounts a
decade of change as the celebrated food writer and critic
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To Rescue the American Spirit: Teddy Roosevelt and the Birth of a Superpower
by Bret Baier
There has never been a president like Theodore Roosevelt. An
iconoclast shaped by fervent ideals, his early life seems ripped
from the pages of an adventure novel: abandoning his place in
the New York aristocracy, he was drawn to the thrill of the West, becoming an honorary cowboy who won the respect of the rough
men of the plains, adopting their code of authenticity and courage.
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Heart Life Music
by Kenny Chesney
In college, [Country Music Hall of Fame member] Kenny Chesney
found himself on a barstool with a guitar and an unexpected
connection between people, life, and songs. His heart caught fire.
With Nashville's vibrant creative scene, characters, legends, and
places now long gone from the city he encountered in those early
days, Chesney explores the quest to find himself as an artist and
a man, as well as a sense of home anywhere there's an ocean.
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Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They're Too Much
by Cynthia Erivo
In this book, Cynthia draws from her experiences running marathons, both real and metaphorical, onstage and onscreen, to show how
each challenge can help us. She urges readers to lean into the
wisdom of their bodies, to understand and strive for a physical
and mental balance. Because when we chase our deepest desires,
each small step leads us closer to where we want to go.
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Vagabond: A Memoir
by Tim Curry
In his memoir, Curry takes readers behind-the-scenes of his rise
to fame from his early beginnings as a military brat with difficult
family dynamics, to his formative years in boarding school and
university, to the moment when he hit the stage for the first time.
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Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
by Virginia Roberts Giuffre
The world knows Virginia Roberts Giuffre as Jeffrey Epstein and
Ghislaine Maxwell's most outspoken victim: the woman whose
decision to speak out helped send both serial abusers to prison,
whose photograph with Prince Andrew catalyzed his fall from grace.
But her story has never been told in full, in her own words--until
now. In April 2025, Giuffre took her own life. She left behind a
memoir written in the years preceding her death and stated unequivocally that she wanted it published.
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100 Rules for Living to 100: An
Optimist's Guide to a Happy Life
by Dick Van Dyke
On the eve of his 100th birthday, national treasure Dick Van Dyke
brings us this autobiographical collection of stories, reflections,
and life advice on how he's maintained a zest for life. Dick Van
Dyke danced his way into our hearts with iconic roles in Mary
Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Now, as he's about to turn 100 years old, Dick is still dancing and approaching life with the twinkle in his eye that we've come to
know and love.
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