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Biography and Memoir March 2019
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| Joy Enough by Sarah McCollWhat it's about: the year Sarah McColl spent grappling with her mother's impending death from cancer and the dissolution of her own marriage.
For fans of: candid memoirs of loss, such as Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed.
Why you might like it: Despite its difficult subject matter, Pushcart Prize nominee McColl's introspective debut is ultimately hopeful. |
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Sounds Like Titanic
by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman
An aspiring violinist leaves her Appalachia home to pursue a career in classical music in New York, only to discover that the ensemble she has joined only pretends to play over CD recordings.
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I.M.
by Isaac Mizrahi
A memoir by the multifaceted pop culture icon includes coverage of his experiences as a gay youth in a Syrian Jewish Orthodox family, his education at LaGuardia High School for Performing Arts and the making of his documentary, Unzipped.
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| Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf by Helene CooperWho it's about: Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the 24th Liberian President and Africa's first female elected head of state.
Topics include: Sirleaf's exile following her failed presidential run during the First Liberian Civil War; her handling of the 2014 Ebola outbreak.
Is it for you? Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Helene Cooper's mostly flattering biography spares her subject from in-depth criticisms. |
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| Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme... by Linda HirshmanWhat it is: an engaging and evenhanded dual biography of the first two female Justices of the United States Supreme Court.
Read it for: the revealing glimpses of how the pair's disparate approaches to law impacted a number of women's rights issues, including workplace sexual harassment and reproductive rights.
Further reading: First: Sandra Day O'Connor by Evan Thomas; Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life by Jane Sherron De Hart. |
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| Rocket Girl: The Story of Mary Sherman Morgan, America's First Female Rocket... by George D. MorganWho it's about: Mary Sherman Morgan, the first (and only) woman employed as a rocket scientist at North American Aviation, where she worked alongside 900 male colleagues during the Space Race era.
Claim to fame: Morgan invented hydyne, the fuel used to launch the Explorer 1 satellite in 1958.
Author alert: George D. Morgan is Mary Sherman Morgan's son; he wrote a 2008 play (also named Rocket Girl) about her. |
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| The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville by Clare MulleyWhat it is: the previously untold story of Polish-born Christine Granville, the first woman to serve as a British intelligence officer during WWII.
Don't miss: Granville's heroic (and suspenseful) feats, which included skiing the Carpathian Mountains to deliver intel, parachuting into occupied France to aid the Resistance, and bribing the Gestapo to release three of her compatriots scheduled for execution.
For fans of: Ian Fleming's James Bond novels; Granville is rumored to be the inspiration for the first Bond Girl, Casino Royale's Vesper Lynd. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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