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Biography and Memoir October 2022 |
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| Dinners With Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships by Nina TotenbergWhat it's about: the five-decade friendship between NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who bonded over shared hardships in their male-dominated fields.
Why you might like it: Totenberg's compelling account offers revealing insights on Ginsburg's life beyond her work (she officiated Totenberg's wedding; the pair once skipped a work function to go shopping). |
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| Solito by Javier ZamoraWhat it's about: In 1999, nine-year-old Javier Zamora migrated unaccompanied from El Salvador to the United States, a journey that spanned over two months and three thousand miles.
Book buzz: This Read with Jenna Book Club pick offers a heart-wrenching account of found family, second chances, and survival.
For fans of: Children of the Land, written by Zamora's fellow Undocupoets Campaign founder Marcelo Castillo Hernandez. |
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Scenes From My Life
by Michael Kenneth Williams
Who it features: Written by the late, iconic actor before his death, this candid and moving memoir of hard-won success, struggles with addiction and a lifelong mission to give back tells the story of his whole life in his own voice, in his own words, as only he could.
Critics say: "Williams's cool rasp leaps off every page, his story told in the direct yet impassioned language that defined his greatest characters."--Vulture
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A Man of the World: My Life at National Geographic
by Gilbert M. Grosvenor
Who it's about: Gilbert Melville Grosvenor is the former president and chairman of the National Geographic Society, after having served as the editor of National Geographic magazine from 1970 to 1980. This biography of the man who led National Geographic for six decades looks at the publishing empire he helped create as well as inspiring exploration feats such as the successful hunt for the Titanic.
What it's about: The captivating inside story of the man who helmed National Geographic for six decades is a front-row seat to audacious feats of exploration, from the successful hunt for the Titanic to Jane Goodall's field studies. Offering a rare portrait of one of the world's most iconic media empires, this revealing autobiography makes an impassioned argument to know--and care for--our planet.
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Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor
by Andrew Kirtzman
Who it's about: Rudy Giuliani, who was hailed after 9/11 as "America's Mayor," a singular figure who at the time was more widely admired than the pope. He was brilliant, accomplished--and complicated.
What it's about: The author explores how the once-beloved leader fell from grace.
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Game
by Grant Hill
Who it's about: Grant Hill is a 2018 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, Olympic gold medalist, and philanthropist. Hill starred in three championship games at Duke, claiming two national titles, and he was drafted third overall by the Detroit Pistons in the 1994 NBA draft.
What it is: The full, frank story of a remarkable life's journey to the pinnacle of success as a basketball player, icon, and entrepreneur, to the depths of personal trauma and back, to a place of flourishing and peace made possible above all by a family's love.
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Holding the Line
by Ronny Jackson
Who it features: Ronny Jackson, a controversial figure who is the current U.S. representative for Texas's 13th congressional district.
What it's about: A behind-the-scenes political memoir written by a prominent White House physician.
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Listening Well: Bringing Stories of Hope to Life
by Heather Morris
Who it's about: Heather Morris, a native of New Zealand, who now lives in Australia.
What it features: The best-selling author of Cilkas Journey shares the story behind her inspirational writing journey and the defining experiences of her life. It explores how she learned to really listen to the stories people told-a skill she believes we can all learn.
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Tasha: A Son's Memoir
by Brian Morton
Who it's about: Brian Morton delivers a superb, darkly funny memoir of his mother Tasha's vibrant life and the many ways in which their tight, tumultuous relationship was refashioned in her twilight years.
What makes it unique: In this surprising portrait of an unforgettable woman, her son explores the lessons he learned from his mother. He presents a stark look at caring for an elderly parent and offers a meditation on the business of trying to honor ourselves without forsaking our parents.
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Just Tyrus
by Tyrus
Who it's about: Tyrus is an entertainer with a sly sense of humor. Following his initial calling to football, he became a bouncer at numerous establishments in Los Angeles where he caught the attention of Snoop Dogg and became his bodyguard.
Critics say: "I loved Just Tyrus. I read it in one day and cheered for him when I got to the end. Tyrus has written a book that is at once raw, tender, intelligent, candid, and hilarious. What a triumph!" -Dana Perino, former White House Press Secretary
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Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?
by Séamas O'Reilly
What it features: Séamas O'Reilly's mother died when he was five, leaving him, his ten (!) brothers and sisters, and their beloved father in their sprawling bungalow in rural Derry. It was the 1990s; the Troubles were a background rumble, but Séamas was more preoccupied with dinosaurs, Star Wars, and the actual location of heaven than the political climate.
Folks are saying: Northern Ireland in the time of the Troubles is often cast into a narrative that doesn’t allow room for joy or delight. O'Reilly, a seasoned writer and columnist for the Observer and Irish Times, turns the era into a touchstone of his youth and, so doing, brings it out of the shadows.
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This Is Not a Pity Memoir
by Abi Morgan
Who it's about: Award-winning Welsh playwright and screenwriter Abi Morgan
What makes it unique: After rushing through a seemingly normal day in her busy life Morgan arrived home to find her partner collapsed on the bathroom floor and their lives changed forever. In this emotional memoir, Morgan poetically writes about her husband’s long illness, her own battle with breast cancer, and how she learned to hang on to what matters most. Beautifully weaving the past with the present, she reveals the deep truths and challenging moments of caring for a partner that at times doesn't recognize her.
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Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature
by Zibby Owens
Who it's about: The creator and host of the award-winning podcast Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books- Zibby Owens.
What it features: Owens recounts falling in love again after divorce and offers encouragement and advice to mothers and women trying to get it all done. Her insights into dealing with grief are touching, and readers experiencing loss may find solace in her story.
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The Only Woman in the Room: Golda Meir and Her Path to Power
by Pnina Lahav
What it is: A feminist biography of the only woman to become prime minister of Israel.
Why you might like it: Reexamining the life of Golda Meir, the only female prime minister of Israel, through a feminist lens. This authoritative biography explores the tensions between her personal and political identities while also illuminating the difficulties all women face as they try to ascend in male-dominated fields.
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George Michael
by James Gavin
Who it's about: George Michael was an extravagantly gifted, openhearted soul singer whose work was true craft and substance, and his music swept the world, starting in the mid-1980s.
Critics say: Though some of the author’s descriptions of the 1980s music scene are only serviceable, his first-rate reporting makes this biography sing. Gavin’s real stories of triumphs and tragedies poignantly explain one of pop’s most enigmatic stars. -Kirkus Reviews
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One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World
by Michael Frank
Who it's about: The story of 99-year-old Stella Levi whose conversations with the writer Michael Frank over the course of six years bring to life the vibrant world of Jews in Rhodes, Greece before German occupation and German troops rounded up her entire Jewish community and transported them to Auschwitz.
What makes this story different: In Frank’s elegant rendering, Levi restricts herself to family stories—her father’s successful coal and wood business, the sibling who was the first among her sisters to be educated at the Italian high school for girls—before discussing the Fascists who introduced racial laws, disinterred Jewish cemeteries, and “set in motion a series of events that would in time lead to the destruction of this same community, which had lived in relative peace in Rhodes for nearly half a millennium.”
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Walking in My Joy
by Jenifer Lewis
Who it features: The one and only, super hilarious Jenifer Lewis
Book buzz: In this entertaining essay collection, the author of The Mother of Black Hollywood and the costar of ABCs hit sitcom Black-ish looks back on some of her memorable adventures and experiences, showing us how to be present in the moment and reject being a victim of circumstance.
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The Man Who Could Move Clouds
by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
How it began: After a bicycle accident spurred a brief bout of amnesia, author Ingrid Rojas Contreras learned that her Mami had also suffered from amnesia as a child, and that after the latter's recovery, she had the ability to see ghosts.
What happened next: Rojas Contreras and Mami returned to their native Colombia to disinter the remains of Rojas Contreras' grandfather, Nono, a curandero whose gifts they now shared.
What sets it apart: This moving blend of family history and Colombian history offers lyrical reflections on trauma, healing, and the power of storytelling.
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Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President
by Jonathan Darman
Who it's about: An illuminating account of how Franklin D. Roosevelt's struggles with polio steeled him for the great struggles of the Depression and of World War II.
What is includes: Becoming FDR traces the riveting story of the struggle that forged Roosevelt's character and political ascent.
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Rough Draft
by Katy Tur
What it is: MSNBC anchor Katy Tur's account of her life and journalism career, told with equal parts humor and candor.
Topics include: Tur supporting her father, helicopter journalist Zoey Tur, during her transition despite the pair's fraught history; becoming tabloid fodder in her early 20s during her relationship with Keith Olbermann; her marriage to CBS Mornings co-anchor Tony Dokoupil, with whom she has two children.
Want a taste? "Journalism is the world's best career for avoiding your own problems."
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Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence
by Ken Auletta
Who it features: Harvey Weinstein is an American (former) film producer and convicted sex offender.
What makes this unique: A vivid biography of Harvey Weinstein--how he rose to become a dominant figure in the film world, how he used that position to feed his monstrous sexual appetites, and how it all came crashing down, from the author who has covered the Hollywood and media power game for The New Yorker for three decades
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The Man Who Broke Capitalism
by David Gelles
Who it's about: Jack Welch, who in 1981 took over General Electric and quickly rose to fame as the first celebrity CEO.
What makes it unique: Gelles chronicles Welch's campaign to vaporize hundreds of thousands of jobs in a bid to boost profits, eviscerating the country's manufacturing base and destabilizing the middle class. Welch's obsession with downsizing--he eliminated 10% of employees every year--fundamentally altered GE and inspired generations of imitators who have employed his strategies at other companies around the globe. Welch pioneered the dark arts of "financialization," transforming GE from an admired industrial manufacturer into what was effectively an unregulated bank. But ultimately, financialization undermined GE and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies.
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Uncultured
by Daniella Mestyanek Young
Who it features: Daniella Mestyanek Young, who was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members.
Why you might like it: In the vein of Educated and The Glass Castle, Daniella Mestyanek Young's Uncultured is more than a memoir about an exceptional upbringing, but about a woman who, no matter the lack of tools given to her, is determined to overcome.
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Books You Might Have Missed
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| My Life: Growing Up Asian in America by Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (editor); with an introduction by SuChin PakWhat it is: a thought-provoking and intimate anthology offering 30 diverse firsthand accounts of the Asian American experience.
Featuring: poetry, comics, essays, monologues, and more.
Further reading: Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy; Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now by Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, and Philip Wang. |
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| This Body I Wore by Diana GoetschWhat it is: poet Diana Goetsch's lyrical memoir chronicling her late-in-life coming out and transition: "How can you spend your life face-to-face with an essential fact about yourself and still not see it?"
What's inside: candid reflections on the evolution of the trans community from the 1980s to the present.
Try this next: For another moving memoir written by an author who transitioned in their 50s, read P. Carl's Becoming a Man. |
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Red Paint: An Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk
by Sasha taqwšeblu LaPointe
Who it's about: Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe, a Coast Salish author from the Nooksack and Upper Skagit Indian tribes.
What makes this unique: An Indigenous artist blends the aesthetics of punk rock with the traditional spiritual practices of the women in her lineage in this bold, contemporary journey to reclaim her heritage and unleash her power and voice while searching for a permanent home.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Michigan City Public Library
100 E. 4th Street
Michigan City, Indiana 46360
219-873-3044mclib.org/ |
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