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Biography and Memoir October 2017
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| Rescued from ISIS: The Gripping True Story of How a Father Saved His Son by Dimitri BontinckIn 2013, author Dimitri Bontinck, a former Belgian Army soldier, learned that his 18-year-old son Jay had gone to Syria to join ISIS. This gripping and astonishing memoir chronicles what Dimitri learned about Jay's conversion to Islam in the context of the intense level of Islamic radicalization occurring in Belgium. Bontinck then details his risky efforts to trace his son in Syria, and the conclusion of his odyssey. The "loving and revealing tribute to the father-son bond" (Publishers Weekly) adds inspiration to his sobering account. |
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| The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine... by Jason FagoneCOMING SOON! During World War I, Elizebeth Smith, a brilliant Shakespeare scholar, met her future husband, William Friedman, at the Riverbank research facility in Chicago. Both became highly successful codebreakers, breaking German codes during the war, cracking liquor smugglers' communications during Prohibition, and deciphering Nazi signals in World War II. Elizebeth's work was so top-secret, it was easy for male officials (notably J. Edgar Hoover) to take credit for her work, but journalist Jason Fagone has stripped away the secrecy that had obscured her contributions. If you enjoyed The Woman Who Smashed Codes, check out Liza Mundy's recently published Code Girls. |
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| The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek by Howard MarkelBrothers John Harvey and Will Kellogg made Battle Creek, Michigan famous for their work in promoting health (and healthy breakfast cereal) from the 1870s to the mid-20th century. Ironically, they hated each other! In The Kelloggs, Dr. Howard Markel, a professor of the history of medicine, details the brothers' lives, careers, and intra-family warfare. Business history, medical history, and legal history combine in this "superb warts-and-all" (Kirkus Reviews) presentation of two radically different personalities whose success depended on their sibling rivalry. |
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| Playing Hurt: My Journey from Despair to Hope by John Saunders with John U. BaconCOMING SOON! Sports journalist John Saunders started his professional life in hockey, but switched to sportscasting in his early twenties and was acclaimed for his work on ABC and ESPN television. In Playing Hurt, he reveals his abusive childhood, his struggles with addiction, and his battle with major depression. Introducing his affecting life story, he states his goal of breaking a major taboo: "the taboo that tells men they must never confess that they suffer from mental illness." Saunders died in 2016 of natural causes shortly after completing the first draft of this book. |
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Award-Winning Biographies and Memoirs
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| Jack London: An American Life by Earle LaborWidely celebrated American author Jack London was also a social activist who included some of his views on workers' rights in his stories and novels. In this Spur Award-winning biography, Earle Labor, curator of the Jack London Museum in Shreveport, Louisiana, explores London's life and philosophy in addition to his writing. Drawing on London's personal papers and those of his wife, as well as on interviews with people who were close to London, Labor distinguishes the legends about the larger-than-life man from the facts (which are equally impressive). Fans of American literature won't want to miss this impressive life study. |
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| The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom ReissIf you've ever wondered where the 19th-century French novelist Alexandre Dumas, père learned to swashbuckle, biographer Tom Reiss has the answer in The Black Count. The novelist's father, called Alex, was born in Santo Domingo to a black slave and a French aristocrat. Later brought to France, Alex rose through the ranks in the French Army and eventually served in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. However, he was captured by enemies, languished in prison, and died before his son was four. Alexandre idolized his father and used parts of his life's story in his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo. Reiss' Pulitzer Prize-winning biography completes the picture of Alex's actual life. |
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Why be happy when you could be normal?
by Jeanette Winterson
The author of the best-selling Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit traces her life-long search for happiness as the adopted daughter of Pentecostal parents who raised her in a north England industrial town through practices of fierce control and paranoia, an experience that prompted her to search for her biological mother and turn for solace to the literary world.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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