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Biography and Memoir April 2021
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| The Soul of a Woman: On Impatient Love, Long Life, and Good Witches by Isabel AllendeWhat it is: beloved author Isabel Allende's intimate and lyrical reflections on the role that feminism has played in her life.
Topics include: Allende's career beginnings as a journalist in 1960s Chile; the roadblocks she encountered while attempting to publish her first novel, 1982's The House of the Spirits; aging, sex, and family life.
Who it's for: fans of Allende's work will appreciate this empowering memoir/manifesto and the lessons shared within. |
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| Speak, Okinawa by Elizabeth Miki BrinaWhat it's about: Raised in suburban New York by her white American soldier father and Japanese war bride mother, Elizabeth Miki Brina felt like an outsider, taking her feelings of self-loathing out on her mother.
Why you should read it: Tackling themes of trauma and resilience, Brina's moving portrait of her complicated family life pays tribute to the heritage she longed to distance herself from in childhood.
Reviewers say: "A can't-miss memoir that will stay with readers after they finish the last page" (Library Journal). |
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| Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City by Rosa BrooksWhat it's about: In 2016, to the dismay of her family and colleagues, Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks enrolled in the Washington, D.C. police academy, becoming a reserve officer upon her graduation.
Why she did it: Brooks hoped to gain a firsthand understanding of the complex issues surrounding police reform, eventually creating a fellowship program to educate her fellow officers on issues like racial discrimination and implicit bias.
Is it for you? No matter where you stand on policing, Brook's nuanced and well-researched account offers plenty of food for thought. |
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| Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob by Russell ShortoWhat it is: historian Russell Shorto's engaging family memoir chronicling his Italian American grandfather's rise as a small-town mobster in post-World War II Pennsylvania.
Read it for: a fast-paced and thoughtful exploration of the limitations of the American Dream; the family secrets Shorto unearths along the way.
What's inside: photographs; family recipes; interviews with mob connections and other family members. |
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| Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight by Julia SweigWhat it is: a well-researched biography of First Lady Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson that offers fresh insights on her life and legacy.
What sets it apart: This revisionist account positions Johnson as a key player in husband Lyndon B. Johnson's presidential administration, revealing the role she played in shaping his political strategies and ambitions.
Featuring: diary entries the First Lady recorded during her time in the White House. |
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The lost chapters : finding recovery and renewal one book at a time by Leslie SchwartzIn 2014, novelist Leslie Schwartz was sentenced to 90 days in Los Angeles County Jail for a DUI and battery of an officer. After more than a decade clean and sober, Schwartz had a 414-day relapse into alcohol and drug addiction. The damage she inflicted that year upon her friends, her husband, her teenage daughter, and herself was nearly impossible to fathom. Incarceration might have ruined her altogether, if not for the stories that sustained her while she was behind bars--both the artful tales in the books she read while there, and, more immediately, the stories of her fellow inmates.
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Consent : a memoir
by Vanessa Springora
A powerful indictment of gender inequality and child sexual exploitation describes the author’s perspectives as a 13-year-old girl who was seduced, manipulated and publicly heralded as the muse of a celebrated, 50-year-old writer. 25,000 first printing.
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| A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa; translated by Risa Kobayashi and Martin BrownWhat it's about: Born in Japan to a Korean father and a Japanese mother, a teenaged Masaji Ishikawa and his family moved to North Korea in 1960 as part of the country's repatriation program.
What happened next: Ishikawa spent three decades enduring poverty, starvation, and ostracism under Kim Il-Sung's totalitarian rule before making a daring escape back to Japan.
Reviewers say: "[a] painful story with sardonic humor and unwavering familial love even in the depths of despair" (Booklist Reviews). |
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| We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy PearlmanWhat it is: a sobering yet hopeful oral history of Syrian refugees' experiences in the aftermath of 2011's Arab Spring protests.
Book buzz: Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal, this eye-opening collection offers a diverse array of perspectives from "a population that meets with too few opportunities to represent itself."
Further reading: For more intimate firsthand insights into the Syrian civil war, pick up Alia Malek's The Home That Was Our Country. |
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| Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body by Rebekah TaussigWhat it is: a witty and engaging memoir about author Rebekah Taussig's life as a wheelchair user, with frank discussions of how disability intersects with issues like sex, dating, self-image, relationships, the media, and more.
Why you should read it: Sitting Pretty is a refreshingly candid and welcome voice in the growing body of literature about disability written by disabled people themselves. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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