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Biography and Memoir April 2021
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| The Soul of a Woman: On Impatient Love, Long Life, and Good Witches by Isabel AllendeWhat it is: beloved author Isabel Allende's intimate and lyrical reflections on the role that feminism has played in her life.
Topics include: Allende's career beginnings as a journalist in 1960s Chile; the roadblocks she encountered while attempting to publish her first novel, 1982's The House of the Spirits; aging, sex, and family life.
Who it's for: fans of Allende's work will appreciate this empowering memoir/manifesto and the lessons shared within. |
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| Speak, Okinawa by Elizabeth Miki BrinaWhat it's about: Raised in suburban New York by her white American soldier father and Japanese war bride mother, Elizabeth Miki Brina felt like an outsider, taking her feelings of self-loathing out on her mother.
Why you should read it: Tackling themes of trauma and resilience, Brina's moving portrait of her complicated family life pays tribute to the heritage she longed to distance herself from in childhood.
Reviewers say: "A can't-miss memoir that will stay with readers after they finish the last page" (Library Journal). |
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| Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City by Rosa BrooksWhat it's about: In 2016, to the dismay of her family and colleagues, Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks enrolled in the Washington, D.C. police academy, becoming a reserve officer upon her graduation.
Why she did it: Brooks hoped to gain a firsthand understanding of the complex issues surrounding police reform, eventually creating a fellowship program to educate her fellow officers on issues like racial discrimination and implicit bias.
Is it for you? No matter where you stand on policing, Brook's nuanced and well-researched account offers plenty of food for thought. |
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| Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob by Russell ShortoWhat it is: historian Russell Shorto's engaging family memoir chronicling his Italian American grandfather's rise as a small-town mobster in post-World War II Pennsylvania.
Read it for: a fast-paced and thoughtful exploration of the limitations of the American Dream; the family secrets Shorto unearths along the way.
What's inside: photographs; family recipes; interviews with mob connections and other family members. |
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| Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight by Julia SweigWhat it is: a well-researched biography of First Lady Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson that offers fresh insights on her life and legacy.
What sets it apart: This revisionist account positions Johnson as a key player in husband Lyndon B. Johnson's presidential administration, revealing the role she played in shaping his political strategies and ambitions.
Featuring: diary entries the First Lady recorded during her time in the White House. |
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Heart of fire : an immigrant daughter's story
by Mazie Hirono
An intimate biography of the first Asian-American woman and only immigrant serving in the U.S. Senate describes her upbringing in rural Japan and Hawaii, firsthand experiences with economic insecurity and dedicated advocacy of progressive change. Illustrations.
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Ethel Rosenberg : an American tragedy
by Anne Sebba
"New York Times bestselling author Anne Sebba's moving biography of Ethel Rosenberg, the wife and mother whose execution for espionage-related crimes defined the Cold War and horrified the world. In June 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a couple with two young sons, were led separately from their prison cells on Death Row and electrocuted moments apart. Both had been convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union, despite the fact that the US government was aware that the evidence against Ethel was shaky at best and based on the perjury of her own brother. This book is the first to focus on one half of that couple for more than thirty years, and much new evidence has surfaced since then. Ethel was a bright girl who might have fulfilledher personal dream of becoming an opera singer, but instead found herself struggling with the social mores of the 1950's. She longed to be a good wife and perfect mother to her two small boys, while battling the political paranoia of the McCarthy era, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and a mother who never valued her. Because of her profound love for and loyalty to her husband, she refused to incriminate him, despite government pressure on her to do so. Instead, she courageously faced the death penalty for a crime she hadn't committed, orphaning her two young sons. Seventy years after her trial, this is the first time Ethel's story has been told with the full use of the dramatic and tragic prison letters she exchanged with her husband, her lawyer and her psychotherapist over a three-year period, two of them in solitary confinement. Hers is the resonant story of what happens when a government motivated by fear tramples on the rights of its citizens"
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Broken (in the best possible way) : (In the Best Possible Way)
by Jenny Lawson
The award-winning humorist and author of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened shares candid reflections on such topics as her experimental treatment for depression, her escape from three bears and her business ideas for Shark Tank. 350,000 first printing. Illustrations.
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I Am a Girl from Africa
by Elizabeth Nyamayaro
The award-winning humanitarian and former United Nations Senior Advisor on Gender Equality describes how an aid volunteer saved her life and inspired her work as an advocate for positive change in communities throughout the world. 100,000 first printing.
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| Notes on a Silencing by Lacy CrawfordWhat it's about: In 1990, 15-year-old Lacy Crawford was sexually assaulted by two male classmates at her New Hampshire boarding school, an act that school administrators tried to cover up.
Is it for you? Crawford's powerful account of the trauma she endured offers an unflinching examination of rape culture and the institutions that condone it.
Food for thought: "I believe, in fact, that the slur slut carries within it, Trojan-horse style, silence as its true intent." |
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| A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa; translated by Risa Kobayashi and Martin BrownWhat it's about: Born in Japan to a Korean father and a Japanese mother, a teenaged Masaji Ishikawa and his family moved to North Korea in 1960 as part of the country's repatriation program.
What happened next: Ishikawa spent three decades enduring poverty, starvation, and ostracism under Kim Il-Sung's totalitarian rule before making a daring escape back to Japan.
Reviewers say: "[a] painful story with sardonic humor and unwavering familial love even in the depths of despair" (Booklist Reviews). |
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| We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy PearlmanWhat it is: a sobering yet hopeful oral history of Syrian refugees' experiences in the aftermath of 2011's Arab Spring protests.
Book buzz: Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal, this eye-opening collection offers a diverse array of perspectives from "a population that meets with too few opportunities to represent itself."
Further reading: For more intimate firsthand insights into the Syrian civil war, pick up Alia Malek's The Home That Was Our Country. |
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| Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body by Rebekah TaussigWhat it is: a witty and engaging memoir about author Rebekah Taussig's life as a wheelchair user, with frank discussions of how disability intersects with issues like sex, dating, self-image, relationships, the media, and more.
Why you should read it: Sitting Pretty is a refreshingly candid and welcome voice in the growing body of literature about disability written by disabled people themselves. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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