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Biography and MemoirJune 2015
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"This was his singular vision, conceived in his own imagination, and designed by his own hand. The largest statue ever built." ~ from Elizabeth Mitchell's Liberty's Torch
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New and Recently Released!
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| Off the Radar: A Father's Secret, a Mother's Heroism, and a Son's Quest by Cyrus CopelandAuthor Cyrus Copeland, son of an Iranian mother and an American father, lived in Tehran when he was young, never imagining that his family could be turned inside-out by Iranian politics. In 1979, Revolutionary agents arrested his father, a Westinghouse employee, and charged him with spying for the CIA. In this thoughtful memoir, Copeland relates his multicultural childhood, explores what happened to his father, and portrays his mother's heroic efforts to extricate her husband from the hands of the Revolutionary Court. This insightful account highlights intercultural relationships as it traces the author's discoveries about his family and heritage. |
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| American Warlord: A True Story by Johnny DwyerAmerican-born Chucky Taylor grew up in a Florida suburb during the 1970s and '80s and faced temptations similar to those of many teenaged boys. His coming of age was additionally complicated by the fact that his estranged father was the Liberian warlord Charles Taylor. In 1992, when he was 15, Chucky joined his father in Africa, where the elder Taylor became President of Liberia in 1997. In American Warlord, journalist Johnny Dwyer traces Chucky's life from Florida to his active participation in his father's brutal regime and his eventual prosecution and conviction for torture in the U.S. Kirkus Reviews calls this detailed, compelling, and nuanced biography a "dark triumph." |
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| Words Without Music: A Memoir by Philip GlassWhile striving to achieve recognition for his musical works, award-winning composer Philip Glass installed drywall, moved furniture, drove a New York City cab, and even taught himself plumbing. Glass eventually became known for his innovative approach to composition, which incorporates multicultural musical, literary, and philosophical influences. He reveals himself in Words Without Music as an engaging storyteller, creating a colloquial, vivid, and unpretentious self-portrait that will appeal to any reader -- not just classical music fans. |
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| Billy Martin: Baseball's Flawed Genius by Bill PenningtonIn a sport known for its colorful characters, baseball player and manager Billy Martin was one of the most noticeable. Though acclaimed by many as a baseball genius, he was combative on and off the field, and his personal life was highly dysfunctional. Nevertheless, he led the New York Yankees and several other American League teams to remarkable post-season success. In this thoroughly researched, compelling, and entertaining biography, New York Times sportswriter Bill Pennington covers Martin's life from his shantytown childhood to his unexpected death in an automobile crash. General readers will be fascinated, and baseball fans (especially Yankees devotees) will be enthralled. |
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| Ordinary Light: A Memoir by Tracy K. SmithPoet Tracy Smith, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry collection Life on Mars, grew up in a comfortable California family, one of just a few African Americans in their community. As she came of age, she faced challenges arising from her family's racial legacy and other social issues, including class distinctions and economic disparity. Her greatest struggle came with her devoutly Christian mother's diagnosis of cancer. In Ordinary Light, Smith depicts these concerns as she explores her grief over her mother's illness and death and reveals how she discovered poetry as a path to her own healing. Publishers Weekly praises Smith's "quietly emotional power." |
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Great Books You Might Have Missed
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| The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in... by Kara CooneyWithin a few years of her death, King Hatshepsut's (there was no word in her language for "queen") successor destroyed many of her monuments and other records of her reign. Though she had been king for 22 prosperous years, few Egyptologists considered her to be significant -- until scholar Kara Cooney decided to write The Woman Who Would Be King. Drawing on physical artifacts, historical background about Hatshepsut's era, and well-founded inference, Cooney paints a fascinating portrait of Egypt's first female king. Amateur fans of Egyptology, readers intrigued by feminist history, and scholars of ancient Egypt will want to read this compelling biography. |
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| The Phantom of Fifth Avenue: The Mysterious Life and Scandalous Death... by Meryl GordonFabulously wealthy Huguette Clark grew up in a New York City mansion, married but soon divorced a childhood friend, and began to withdraw from society after several failed romances. Though she was a well regarded painter, she isolated herself for decades in a huge Fifth Avenue apartment and eventually became fearful that others were after her money. After skin cancer treatment in Doctor's Hospital, she remained in a hospital room for over twenty years, although she was no longer ill. The Phantom of Fifth Avenue employs correspondence and journals, memorabilia, and interviews with over 100 relatives and acquaintances to build a "well-rounded portrait of an eccentric and talented woman" (Booklist). |
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| Liberty's Torch: The Great Adventure to Build the Statue of Liberty by Elizabeth MitchellLiberty's Torch details the conception and creation of the Statue of Liberty, but it's not an architectural history: it's a fascinating biography of the statue's French creator, sculptor and entrepreneur Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. Inspired by the colossal monuments he saw on a trip to Egypt, Bartholdi envisioned a giant statue of a woman, which eventually took form in the now familiar figure in New York's harbor. Though earlier accounts (including Yasmin Khan's Enlightening the World) attribute the idea and funding to a group of pro-American Frenchmen, author Elizabeth Mitchell engagingly and convincingly argues that Bartholdi alone conceived the idea and directed all the fundraising and construction work. |
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| The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A Biography by Miriam PawelIn The Crusades of Cesar Chavez, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Miriam Pawel presents an exhaustively researched, balanced portrait of the man who launched a major civil rights movement and labor union. Depicting Chavez' early life as an exploited migrant worker, Pawel details his efforts to gain recognition for the United Farm Workers. She also examines his flaws and failures alongside his saint-like qualities. Booklist, in a starred review, calls Pawel's book "rigorous and captivating." Those interested in social movements or looking for a more complex understanding of this unique leader shouldn't miss this biography. |
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| Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War by Helen ThorpeUntil recently, the U.S. banned women from direct combat, but they have increasingly served in non-combat roles on the front lines ever since deployments to Iraq began in 2002. In Soldier Girls, journalist Helen Thorpe chronicles the experiences of three Indiana women who joined the National Guard before 9/11, not expecting to be sent to a war zone. Describing their different backgrounds, the importance of their friendship throughout their 12 years' service, and the effects of deployment on the women and their families, Thorpe vividly portrays the lives of women in the armed forces. Anyone looking for an absorbing read should pick up this "intimate narrative" (Library Journal) of ordinary American women. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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