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New Biographies & MemoirsSeptember 2020
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A very punchable face : a memoir by Colin JostIn these humorous essays, the Saturday Night Live head writer and Weekend Update co-anchor tells the story of his life so far. For every accomplishment (hosting the Emmys), there is a setback (hosting the Emmys). For every absurd moment (watching paramedics give CPR to a raccoon), there is an honest, emotional one (recounting his mother's experience on the scene of the Twin Towers' collapse on 9/11.) Here he reveals the brilliant mind behind some of the dumbest sketches on tv and lays bare the heart and humor of a hardworking guy - with a face you can't help but want to punch.
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The smallest lights in the universe : a memoir by Sara SeagerIn this luminous memoir, an MIT astrophysicist must reinvent herself in the wake of tragedy as she discovers the power of connection on this planet, even as she searches our galaxy for another Earth. Always in love with the stars and now a pioneering planetary scientist, she searches for exoplanets--especially that distant, elusive world that sustains life after the unexpected death of her husband, when the purpose of her own life becomes hard for her to see.
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Bluffing Texas style : the arsons, forgeries, and high-stakes poker capers of rare book dealer Johnny Jenkins by Michael VinsonVinson examines the life, career, and mysterious demise of rare book dealer, gambler, and forger John Jenkins: How Jenkins, a onetime president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, came to an unseemly end is one of the mysteries the author pursues in this spirited account of a tragic American life. Entrepreneur, con man, connoisseur, forger, and self-made hero, Jenkins was a Texan who knew how to bluff but not when to fold.
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The names of all the flowers : a memoir by Melissa ValentineThis debut memoir recounts how the author lost her older brother Junior - first to a system that criminalizes Black boys and men, and then to an act of gun violence in 1990s Oakland. At 18, Junior Valentine was in prison. At 19, a week after his release, he was dead, a victim of gang violence. Behind those two bare statements is the story of a complex family and a young life cut short by societal failures on multiple levels.
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Like crazy : life with my mother and her invisible friends by Dan MathewsA PETA Director of Campaigns describes how his elder care for his characteristically outlandish mother was shaped by haphazard home renovations, his mother’s late-in-life diagnosis of schizophrenia and their community’s compassionate support.
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The divine Miss Marble : a life of tennis, fame, and mystery by Robert WeintraubThe biggest tennis star of the 1930s, famous for overcoming serious illness to win the biggest tournaments, Alice Marble was also a fashion designer and trendsetter, a contributor to a pioneering new comic called Wonder Woman and friend to the biggest names in Hollywood and society. She helped integrate tennis and even coached two young women who became stars in their own right despite a provocative private life that heaped legend upon reality.
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Niche : a memoir in pastiche by MomusNick Currie, AKA Momus - named for the ancient Greek god of mockery, and described by The Guardian as "the David Bowie of the art-pop underground" - has recorded over thirty albums, published half a dozen works of speculative fiction and written articles for The New York Times, Wired, ArtForum, Frieze and The Wire. This is his story - or, rather, stories...
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Filthy beasts : a memoir by Kirkland HamillA writer for Salon and The Advocate lovingly and perceptively relates how his newly-divorced mother moved her family to her native Bermuda, leaving him and his young brothers home to fend for themselves while she chased nightlife and suitors, drowning her sorrows of a failed marriage in alcohol.
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Life of a Klansman : a family history in white supremacy by Edward BallThe author of Slaves in the Family presents a trenchant exploration of a family’s legacy of white supremacy, detailing how his great-great grandfather, a Confederate soldier and militant member of the White League, promoted fanatical racism in post-Civil War America and participated in at least one bloody street insurrection against Louisiana's Reconstruction government and its antiracist policies.
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When they call you a terrorist : a Black Lives Matter memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors A lyrical memoir by the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement urges readers to understand the movement's position of love, humanity and justice, challenging perspectives that have negatively labeled the movement's activists while calling for essential political changes - co-written by the award-winning author of The Prisoner's Wife.
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The mystery of Charles Dickens by A. N. WilsonIn focusing on what he calls the "mysteries of Charles Dickens" - mysteries surrounding his childhood, his charity, his wildly popular public readings, and his relationship with his mistress, actress Ellen Ternan - Wilson explores Dickens' "divided self." Blending perceptive analysis of the novels with parallel experiences in Dickens' life, the author argues convincingly that "the gallery of characters" who buzzed about inside the author's head "had not come from a calm, happy place, but from a cauldron of self-contradiction and self-reproach, a bubbling confusion of moral centres."
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This is the night our house will catch fire : a memoir by Nick FlynnThis searing memoir reveals how childhood spills into parenthood: With the spare lyricism and dark irony of his classic, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, Flynn excavates the terrain of his traumatic upbringing and his mother's suicide. Now a parent himself, he returns with his young daughter to the landscape of his youth, reflecting on how his "feral childhood" has him still in its reins. Alternating literary analysis and philosophy with intimate memoir and the bedtime stories he tells his daughter, Flynn probes his deepest ethical dilemmas.
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His truth is marching on : John Lewis and the power of hope by Jon MeachamThe Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hope of Glory presents a portrait of veteran congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis that details the life experiences that informed his faith and shaped his practices of non-violent protest. From the age of twenty-five, when he marched in Selma and was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Lewis was inspired by the Bible, his mother's unbreakable spirit, his sharecropper father's tireless ambition, and his teachers in nonviolence, Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The biggest bluff : how I learned to pay attention, master the odds, and win by Maria KonnikovaKonnikova's story is more than about how a New York Times bestselling author and New Yorker contributor parlayed a strong grasp of the science of human decision-making and a woeful ignorance of cards into a life-changing run as a professional poker player, under the wing of a legend of the game. The biggest bluff of all, she learned, is that skill is enough. Bad cards will come our way, but keeping our focus on how we play them and not on the outcome will keep us moving through many a dark patch, until the luck once again breaks our way.
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The growing season : how I saved an American farm--and built a new life by Sarah FreyThe “Pumpkin Queen of America” proprietor of Frey Farms, Illinois’ largest H-2A visa employer, describes her tenacious journey to escape poverty and create a billion-dollar farming business without abandoning the rural land of her childhood in this energetic, inspiring memoir, which will appeal to small business owners and anyone who likes a bootstrapping success story.
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The journalist : life and loss in America's secret war by Jerry A. RoseA collaboration between Lucy Rose Fischer and her late brother, The Journalist relates the story of Jerry Rose, a young journalist and photographer who exposed the secret beginnings of America's Vietnam War in the early 1960s when he interviewed Vietnamese villagers, embedded himself with soldiers, and wrote the first major article about American troops fighting in Vietnam.
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Inferno : a memoir of motherhood and madness by Catherine ChoIn an eerie, unsettling debut memoir about postpartum psychosis, Cho delves into her 2018 breakdown after the birth of her son as she traces her identity-shattering experience, describing her commitment into a New Jersey psychiatric ward and her efforts to reconstruct her sense of self as a London wife and daughter of Korean immigrants. This piercing narrative about motherhood and a fraying human mind will slowly and creepily pull the reader in and leave a chill.
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