|
|
|
|
Biography and Memoir March 2026 |
|
|
|
| Upside-Down Love: A Memoir in Two Voices by Sari BashiIsraeli American human rights lawyer Sari Bashi tells the story of how she met her Palestinian Arab husband in a candid and moving memoir. Osama was a professor who needed to obtain a permit to work outside of the West Bank when he became Bashi’s client, and their attraction to each other was immediate. The two would overcome family pressures, bureaucracy, and racism to build a family together. Bashi’s inspiring “real-life love story brings welcome humanity to a fraught subject” (Publishers Weekly).
|
|
| Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America by Howard BryantSports journalist Howard Bryant's affecting history details how trailblazing Black actor Paul Robeson and Major League Baseball player Jackie Robinson's differing political ideologies often put them at odds with each other, culminating in Robinson's 1949 appearance at the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), where he testified against Robeson. For fans of: The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. by Peniel E. Joseph.
|
|
| Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself and China by Jung ChangIn Fly, Wild Swans, Chinese British memoirist and historian Jung Chang channels harrowing memories of her childhood during China’s Cultural Revolution. Years later she was banished from her native country after publishing an unsparing biography of Mao Zedong, a ruling which prevents her from returning to visit her dying mother. Readers may wish to pair this book with Chang’s previous bestselling memoir Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China.
|
|
| Bernie for Burlington: The Rise of the People's Politician by Dan ChiassonPoet, journalist, and Burlington, Vermont native Dan Chiasson remembers growing up in the small city that a young Brooklynite named Bernie Sanders adopted as his hometown. Chiasson recalls that Sanders was seen as a tad eccentric when he first ran for mayor, yet he was able to garner support on complex local issues while earning a reputation as a fearless underdog’s champion. For fans of: Pete Buttigieg’s Shortest Way Home: One Mayor’s Challenge and a Model for America’s Future.
|
|
| The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza GriffithsNovelist and poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths (Promise) grapples with the twin tragedies of the highly publicized and near-fatal attack on her new husband Salman Rushdie and, less than a year earlier, the sudden death of her closest friend, poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who ironically passed away on Griffiths’ wedding day. For another emotional memoir about enduring wrenching loss, try Elizabeth Gilbert’s All the Way to the River.
|
|
| Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hollywood by William J. MannBiographer William J. Mann's (Bogie & Bacall) well-researched true crime account offers fresh insights on the 1947 murder of actress Elizabeth Short, who posthumously came to be known by the moniker "Black Dahlia." Further reading: Sisters in Death: The Black Dahlia, the Prairie Heiress, and Their Hunter by Eli Frankel.
|
|
|
|
There's Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift by Kevin EversWith the same thoughtful analysis usually devoted to iconic founders, game-changing innovators, and pioneering brands, Evers chronicles the business and creative decisions that have defined each phase of Swift's career. Mixing business and art, analysis and narrative, and pulling from research in innovation, creativity, psychology, and strategy, There's Nothing Like This presents Swift as the modern and multidimensional superstar that she is--a songwriting savant and a strategic genius. Swift's fans will see their icon from a fresh perspective. Others will gain more than a measure of admiration for her ability to stay at the top of her game. And everyone will come away understanding why, even after two decades, Swift keeps winning.
|
|
|
|
Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts
by Margaret Atwood
In Book of Lives, Canadian author Margaret Atwood brings readers a long-awaited, “marvelously witty” (Kirkus Reviews) memoir. Writing as much about her craft as her life story, Atwood reveals how both have influenced one another, for instance explaining how the dystopian setting for The Handmaid’s Tale was in part inspired by a stint in 1980s Berlin. For another memoir that ruminates on the writing life, try Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami.
|
|
|
|
Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America
by Beth Macy
Author Beth Macy tells her life story framed within a recent visit to her hardscrabble Midwestern hometown. Although Macy’s childhood was marked by trauma, she remembers Urbana, Ohio, as a place where neighbors had each other’s backs, a situation since compromised by declining opportunities, opioid addiction, and social polarization. Try this next: Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild.
|
|
Contact your librarian for more great books! |
|
Book Clubs at the Library We host a number of book clubs at our Main and Grand Ave libraries! Come for discussion, community, and finding your next read! Check out our calendar for exact dates and times.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|