|
|
|
|
Biography and Memoir February 2026 |
|
|
|
| Ain't Nobody's Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton by Martha AckmannMartha Ackmann’s biography of country music legend Dolly Parton goes beyond the glamour to reveal the grit that propelled her to international stardom. Parton’s phenomenal talent was discovered while she was a teenager. Her business savvy and philanthropic generosity would be discovered later, namely by sexist Nashville executives trying to control her skyrocketing career. For the story of another feminist music star who refused to be put in a box, try Madonna: A Rebel Life by Mary Gabriel. |
|
|
|
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation
by Scott Anderson
On New Year's Eve, 1977, on a state visit to Iran, President Jimmy Carter toasted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, King of Kings, Light of the Aryans, Shadow of God on Earth, praising Iran as an island of stability due to your leadership and the respect and admiration and love which your people give to you. Iran had the world's fifth largest army and was awash in billions of dollars in oil revenues. Construction cranes dotted the skyline of its booming capital, Tehran. The regime's feared secret police force SAVAK had crushed communist opposition, and the Shah had bought off the conservative Muslim clergy inside the country. In the Middle East, in India, in Southeast Asia, in Europe, and now in the United States, the hatred of economically-marginalized, religiously-fervent masses for a wealthy secular elite has led to violence and upheaval - and Iran was the template. King of Kings is a bravura work of history, and a warning.
|
|
| One Aladdin, Two Lamps by Jeanette WintersonProlific novelist and essayist Jeanette Winterson considers the richness of storytelling traditions using One Thousand and One Nights as a guide. Amidst examples of tales spun by Shahrazad that draw parallels with the author’s experiences and the real world, Winterson holds out hope for humanity, expressed through our seemingly inexhaustible imagination. This is an original, thought-provoking work in the vein of Jane Hirshfield’s Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World. |
|
| Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind by Jason ZengerleJournalist Jason Zengerle offers a discerning summary of conservative pundit Tucker Carlson’s career to date while sounding a sobering critique of today’s TV news landscape. Always right-leaning but once a proponent of nuanced political debate, Carlson seemed to abandon these ideals after signing on with Fox News, instead flirting with agitprop, conspiracies, and white supremacism. For fans of: Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth by Brian Stelter. |
|
Focus on: Black History Month
|
|
|
|
I Identify as Blind: A Brazen Celebration of Disability Culture, Identity, and Power
by Lachi
With style and straight talk, musician and changemaker Lachi flips disability and neurodivergence into an empowering identity, a cultural movement, and an innovation engine What if the most taboo parts of our identity--the parts we're taught to mask--are exactly the ones that hold our greatest power? Lachi is an award-winning singer and leader who awakens the world to this truth: Disability has long shaped our culture and is an identity worth brazenly reclaiming. In this book, Lachi reveals why dropping the stigma is the ultimate glow-up and inspires readers to celebrate the boldest parts of themselves. I Identify as Blind pulses with energy. With punchy humor and radical honesty, Lachi dismantles stereotypes and builds a new narrative of Disability identity. I Identify as Blind is just what the world needs right now an invitation to a cultural movement that celebrates disabilities as a source of power and pride. Come for the laughs, stay for the mic drops.
|
|
|
|
Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler
by Susana M. Morris
A magnificent cultural biography that charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that shaped her work. As the first Black woman to consistently write and publish in the field of science fiction, Octavia Butler was a trailblazer. With her deft pen, she created stories speculating the devolution of the American empire, using it as an apt metaphor for the best and worst of humanity--our innovation and ingenuity, our naked greed and ambition, our propensity for violence and hierarchy. Morris explains what drove Butler: She wrote because she felt she must. Who was I anyway? Why should anyone pay attention to what I had to say? Did I have anything to say? I was writing science fiction and fantasy, for God's sake. At that time nearly all professional science-fiction writers were white men. As much as I loved science fiction and fantasy, what was I doing? Well, whatever it was, I couldn't stop. Positive obsession is about not being able to stop just because you're afraid and full of doubts. Positive obsession is dangerous. It's about not being able to stop at all.
|
|
|
|
Baldwin: A Love Story
by Nicholas Boggs
Drawing on interviews and previously unreleased archival materials, National Humanities Center fellow Nicholas Boggs’ moving and intimate biography of writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin examines how his personal relationships impacted his life and career. Further reading: James Baldwin: Living in Fire by Bill V. Mullen.
|
|
|
|
The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence
by David Waldstreicher
A paradigm-shattering biography of Phillis Wheatley, whose extraordinary poetry set African American literature at the heart of the American Revolution. Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published in London, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led one of the most extraordinary American lives. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, she was sold to a merchant family in Boston, where she became a noted poet at a young age. Mastering the Bible, Greek and Latin translations, and the works of Pope and Milton, she composed elegies for local elites, celebrated political events, praised warriors, and used her verse to variously lampoon, question, and assert the injustice of her enslaved condition. In this new biography, the historian David Waldstreicher offers the fullest account to date of Wheatley's life and works, correcting myths, reconstructing intimate friendships, and deepening our understanding of her verse and the revolutionary era. Throughout The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley, he demonstrates the continued vitality and resonance of a woman who wrote, in a founding gesture of American literature, Thy Power, O Liberty, makes strong the weak / And (wond'rous instinct) Ethiopians speak.
|
|
|
|
Forgotten Souls: The Search for the Lost Tuskegee Airmen
by Cheryl W. Thompson
NPR investigative journalist and the daughter of a Tuskegee Airman, Cheryl W. Thompson explores the stories of the 27 Tuskegee Airmen - the Black pilots who fought for America in WWII - who went missing in combat, the lives they lived, the reasons their planes went down, why the remains of all but two were never found, and the impact their disappearances had on their families and communities. As cruel as war itself could be, the friends, family, communities and fellow Tuskegee Airmen who mourned the lost pilots never imagined how unforgivable it could get. After 80 years, Forgotten Souls honors the impact they made, and the sacrifices they endured on America's behalf.
|
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|
1188 S. Livermore Avenue | Livermore, CA 94550 | (925) 373-5500
|
|
|
|