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Biography and Memoir June 2020 Some of the titles in this newsletter are available to check out from Forsyth County Public Library in eBook format through OverDrive or in eAudiobook format through RBDigital or OverDrive. Some titles may be available in both eBook and eAudiobook. Please Ask a Librarian if you need any assistance getting started with OverDrive or RBDigital.
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A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss...
by Melissa Fleming
What it's about: After civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, 19-year-old Doaa Al Zamel and her family fled to Egypt. As the political situation there deteriorated, she and her new husband undertook a risky sea crossing to Europe, but their boat wrecked and many passengers drowned. Al Zamel's story was widely reported after she rescued a young child from the water.
Further reading: For additional accounts of the risks and dangers that Middle Eastern refugees are facing, check out Patrick Kingsley's The New Odyssey.
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| Hollywood Park by Mikel JollettWhat it's about: Indie musician Mikel Jollett's traumatic 1970s childhood in the Synanon cult; after escaping, his family battled poverty, mental illness, addiction, and abuse, and Jollett later found solace in music.
Read it for: Jollett's richly detailed account of self-discovery and healing.
For fans of: Candid memoirs of surviving cults (like Ruth Wariner's The Sound of Gravel) and family dysfunction (like Tara Westover's Educated). |
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A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal
by Jen Waite
What it's about: Author Jen Waite movingly reveals the disintegration of her relationship with her husband, which began when she confronted him about a disturbing email from another woman.
What sets it apart: Alternating chapters either depict her idyllic life with him before she realized he wasn't the person he claimed to be, or portray the anguish of her gradual discoveries about his personality.
Reviewers say: Waite's memoir offers a "frank and visceral" (Kirkus Reviews) warning to others who may have a tendency to dismiss potential red flags.
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Books You Might Have Missed
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A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash
by Sylvia Nasar
What it's about: In this powerful and dramatic biography, Sylvia Nasar vividly re-creates the life of a mathematical genius whose career was cut short by schizophrenia and who, after three decades of devastating mental illness, miraculously recovered and was honored with a Nobel Prize.
Starring: A Beautiful Mind traces the meteoric rise of John Forbes Nash, Jr., a prodigy and legend by the age of thirty, who dazzled the mathematical world by solving a series of deep problems deemed "impossible" by other mathematicians.
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A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz
by Göran Rosenberg
What it's about: Swedish journalist Göran Rosenberg recounts his father's struggles to live a hopeful life after surviving the Holocaust and settling in a bustling Swedish town.
What's inside: The contrast between the way the Nazi past continually haunts his father and the optimism of postwar Sweden prompts Göran, as an adult, to explore the locations mentioned in his parents' wartime letters.
Reviewers say: Rosenberg's discoveries, recounted in this book, provide a "sobering reminder of the long shadows of the Holocaust." (Kirkus Reviews)
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A Curious Man: The Strange & Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It or Not!" Ripley
by Neal Thompson
Who it's about: Eccentric playboy and cartoonist Robert Ripley, who parlayed his curiosity for all things weird into the successful multimedia empire "Believe It or Not!"
What's inside: Chapter breaks interspersed with fun "Believe It!" facts.
Did you know? In his lifetime Ripley visited 150 countries, amassing oddities such as torture devices from around the world.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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