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Biography and Memoir October 2026 |
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Black Woman Runner: A Memoir
by Tiffany Gayle Chenault
One Black woman's transformative journey of running through grief In the wake of profound grief at the loss of her mother, Tiffany Gayle Chenault decided, at age 40, to run a half-marathon in all 50 states. Black Woman Runner explores running as a space of survival, healing, joy, while also shedding light on the experiences of Black women who participate in the largely white-dominated world of recreational running. Chenault unpacks her own lived experience in order to contemplate the racial space of running: not just the physical neighborhoods where casual runners might run, but also where races are held, what the market for products for runners looks like, and how and to whom running is marketed. Deconstructing the stereotype of the strong Black woman, Chenault investigates the meaning of identity and the embodiment of being a runner, particularly a Black woman runner. In what she calls her twenty-first-century Green Book, Chenault offers vivid insights into current-day racial realities while traveling to all 50 states. Ultimately, this is a story about movement -- through space, emotion, and identity. It's about the culture of running, but more urgently, about who runs and why it matters.
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All That's Unseen: An Appalachian Memoir
by Emilee Hackney
After a devastating betrayal that called her Pentecostal faith into question, debut memoirist Emilee Hackney left her small Appalachian town in Virginia for Harvard. Amidst the culture shock, Hackney realized that leaving home was the right move for her. But it also made her see that home in a new light, and she found herself defending the land of her birth against those quick to dismiss and stereotype the South and its people. For another coming-of-age memoir about feeling pulled in opposite directions, try Between Two Trailers by J. Dana Trent.
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Jungle Red!: The Making of Mgm's the Women
by Illeana Douglas
The year 1939 produced such outstanding film classics as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Wuthering Heights. No less critically acclaimed that year was The Women. A largely forgotten masterpiece, The Women is a glamorous but stinging satire about women forced by society to be defined by men. Jungle Red The Making of MGM's The Women restores this classic to its rightful place in Hollywood history, and its lasting legacy as a template for later female-driven projects like Sex and The City, and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Four MGM screenwriters, including a failing F. Scott Fitzgerald and an on-the-rise Donald Ogden Stewart, fought over their vision of The Women. Jane Murfin was completing her script when Anita Loos was brought in to work with her on a new draft for George Cukor, then recently fired from Gone with the Wind and determined to use The Women to get his career back on track. He became, as one newspaper called him, the lion tamer to the ladies. With sophisticated direction by Cukor, lavish fashions by Adrian, and gorgeous sets by Cedric Gibbons, its all-star cast was led by Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, and Joan Fontaine. Not a single male actor appeared, proving that women didn't need men to rule the box office. Gossip columns were filled with stories about fierce on-set rivalries, which proved fairly combustible, leading one columnist to refer to the set as a female kennel, with behind the scenes antics as fierce and flamboyant as the film itself. The Los Angeles Times wrote, The Women is a vitriolic masterpiece Now, it's time to fall in love with The Women all over again In Jungle Red The Making of MGM's The Women, and using never-before-seen photographs, memos, and script notes, Douglas writes not only how the film came together, but captures how the lives of the people who made it intersected before, during and after, and how the conflicts on-set and off resulted in the greatest film ever made about women . . . by a man
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| The Wound Is Where the Light Enters: A Memoir of Resilience by Chris YoungFor a teenaged Chris Young, selling drugs was the only available escape from his poverty-stricken and violent domestic life. Upon being handed a mandatory life sentence after multiple felony arrests, Young startled everyone at his hearing by advocating for himself armed with nothing but his extensive reading of the books in the prison library, a speech that eventually secured his early release. Young’s story of overcoming tremendous odds is a “resonant, inspirational tale of redemption” (Booklist) that underscores the racism and injustice corrupting the penal system. |
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| The People's Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn by Dave ZirinRevisionist historian and liberal activist Howard Zinn’s sense of justice began developing early. Journalist Dave Zirin’s inspiring biography shows how Zinn’s experiences as a teenaged labor organizer and a young WWII airman were instrumental in forming his perspective as a history scholar, anti-war agitator, and author of The People’s History of the United States -- the book that made Zinn famous and earned him many enemies for its radical retelling. Try this next: Francis Fukuyama’s In the Realm of the Last Man. |
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| Edgar Allan Poe: A Life by Richard KopleyEnglish professor Richard Kopley offers a detailed account of Edgar Allan Poe’s brief life mixed with close readings of the author and poet’s work. With the latter, Kopley makes a persuasive case for Poe as the godfather of both the horror and detective genres, though his achievements were undermined by his demons -- namely, alcohol; grief at the death of his young wife, Virginia; and frustration at his failure to gain financial success for his writing. In a crowded field, this biography “can well be called definitive” (Kirkus Reviews). |
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Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers
by Mary Rodgers
The memoirs of Mary Rodgers--writer, composer, Broadway royalty, and a woman who tried everything. What am I, bologna? Mary Rodgers (1931-2014) often said. She was referring to being stuck in the middle of a talent sandwich: the daughter of one composer and the mother of another. And not just any composers. Her father was Richard Rodgers, perhaps the greatest American melodist; her son, Adam Guettel, a worthy successor. What that leaves out is Mary herself, also a composer, whose musical Once Upon a Mattress remains one of the rare revivable Broadway hits written by a woman. Shy is the story of how it all happened: how Mary grew from an angry child, constrained by privilege and a parent's overwhelming gift, to become not just a theater figure in her own right but also a renowned author of books for young readers (including the classic Freaky Friday) and, in a final grand turn, a doyenne of philanthropy and the chairman of the Juilliard School. But in telling these stories--with copious annotations, contradictions, and interruptions from Jesse Green, the chief theater critic of The New York Times--Shy also tells another, about a woman liberating herself from disapproving parents and pervasive sexism to find art and romance on her own terms. Whether writing for Judy Holliday or Rin Tin Tin, dating Hal Prince or falling for Stephen Sondheim over a game of chess at thirteen, Rodgers grabbed every chance possible--and then some. Both an eyewitness report from the golden age of American musical theater and a tale of a woman striving for a meaningful life, Shy is, above all, a chance to sit at the feet of the kind of woman they don't make anymore--and never did. They make themselves.
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All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs
by Elie Wiesel
From his early years with his loving Jewish family to the horrors of Auschwitz to his life as a Nobel Prize-winning novelist, Elie Wiesel tells his story. Passionate and poignant, All Rivers Run to the Sea is an unforgettable book of love and rage, doubt and faith, despair and trust, and ultimately, of wisdom. of photos. From the Trade Paperback edition.
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| It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror by Joe Vallese, editorPut together by NYU writing professor Joe Vallese, It Came from the Closet is an essay anthology featuring 26 queer or trans writers reflecting on the excitement, revulsion, and sense of belonging they found in horror cinema and literature. The feelings of comfort and validation the contributors describe were often not to be found in a society that ironically viewed them as “monsters.” This thought-provoking collection, while touching on disturbing themes, is shot through with humor, wit, and original ideas. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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