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Biography and Memoir February 2026 |
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Star of the Show: My Life on Stage
by Dolly Parton
A stunning celebration of Dolly Parton's iconic career as a performer, featuring entertaining personal stories alongside 350 full-color photographs, including exclusive images and ephemera from her archive, and an 8-page gatefold listing her performances-- Provided by publisher.
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Finding My Way: A Memoir
by Malala Yousafzai
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A USA TODAY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A remarkably intimate and insistently human chronicle of a moral authority's coming of age. --The New York Times This is not the story you think you know. It's the one I've been waiting to tell. Thrust onto the public stage at fifteen years old after the Taliban's brutal attack on her life, Malala Yousafzai quickly became an international icon known for bravery and resilience. But away from the cameras and crowds, she spent years struggling to find her place in an unfamiliar world. Now, for the first time ever, Malala takes us beyond the headlines in Finding My Way--a vulnerable, surprising memoir that buzzes with authenticity, sharp humor, and tenderness. Finding My Way is a story of friendship and first love, of anxiety and self-discovery, of trying to stay true to yourself when everyone wants to tell you who you are. In it, Malala traces her path from high school loner to reckless college student to a young woman at peace with her past. Through candid, often messy moments like nearly failing exams, getting ghosted, and meeting the love of her life, Malala reminds us that real role models aren't perfect--they're human. In this astonishing memoir, Malala reintroduces herself to the world, sharing how she navigated life as someone whose darkest moments threatened to define her narrative--while seeking the freedom to find out who she truly is. Finding My Way is an intimate look at the life of a young woman taking charge of her destiny--and a deeply personal testament to the strength it takes to be unapologetically yourself.
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Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship
by Dana A. Williams
Howard University English professor Dana A. Williams' accessible account chronicles Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison's publishing career as a senior editor at Random House in the 1970s, where she worked tirelessly to uplift Black authors and bring their works into the mainstream. Try this next: Miss Chloe: A Memoir of a Literary Friendship with Toni Morrison by A.J. Verdelle.
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Life and Art: Essays
by Richard Russo
Sharp, tender, extraordinarily intimate reflections on work, culture, love and family ...--Provided by publisher.
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| 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.
*If you are interested in requesting this book, please visit your local library and ask for assistance! |
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Focus on: Black History Month
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King: A Life
by Jonathan Eig
WINNER OF THE 2024 PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY Featured on Amazon's Al Woolworth's Top 10 Books of the Past 25 Years A finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award Named one of the ten best books of 2023 by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Time A New York Times bestseller and notable book of 2023 One of Barack Obama's favorite books of 2023 One of The New Yorker's essential reads of 2023 A Christian Science Monitor best book of the year One of Air Mail's twelve best books of 2023 A Washington Post and national indie bestseller One of Publishers Weekly's best nonfiction books of 2023 One of Smithsonian magazine's ten best books of 2023Supple, penetrating, heartstring-pulling and compulsively readable . . . Eig's book is worthy of its subject. --Dwight Garner, The New York Times (Editors' Choice) King is] infused with the narrative energy of a thriller . . . The most compelling account of King's life in a generation. --Mark Whitaker, The Washington PostNo book could be more timely than Jonathan Eig's sweeping and majestic new King . . . Eig has created 2023s most vital tome. --Will Bunch, The Philadelphia InquirerHailed by The New York Times as the new definitive biography, King mixes revelatory new research with accessible storytelling to offer an MLK for our times. Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig's King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.--and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself. He casts fresh light on the King family's origins as well as MLK's complex relationships with his wife, father, and fellow activists. King reveals a minister wrestling with his own human frailties and dark moods, a citizen hunted by his own government, and a man determined to fight for justice even if it proved to be a fight to the death. As he follows MLK from the classroom to the pulpit to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis, Eig dramatically re-creates the journey of a man who recast American race relations and became our only modern-day founding father--as well as the nation's most mourned martyr. In this landmark biography, Eig gives us an MLK for our times: a deep thinker, a brilliant strategist, and a committed radical who led one of history's greatest movements, and whose demands for racial and economic justice remain as urgent today as they were in his lifetime. Includes 8 pages of black-and-white photographs
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Encounters with James Baldwin: Celebrating 100 Years
by Lindsay Barrett
Encounters with James Baldwin, celebrates the centenary of the African American writer's birth, over 30 contributors reveal the influence of Baldwin's thought, speech and writing to their personal journeys and their awareness of the need for social justice in this moving anthology.
*If you are interested in requesting this book, please visit your local library and ask for assistance!
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Mainline Mama
by Keeonna Harris
PEN America Writing for Justice Fellow Keeonna Harris debuts with a searing account of her experiences navigating the prison industrial complex after her partner was sentenced to 22 years in prison following their son's birth. Try this next: Somebody's Daughter by Ashley C. Ford.
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How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir
by Saeed Jones
People don't just happen, writes Saeed Jones. We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. We sacrifice the people who dared to raise us. The 'I' it seems doesn't exist until we are able to say, 'I am no longer yours.' Haunted and haunting, Jones' memoir tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence - into tumultuous relationships with his mother and grandmother, into passing flings with lovers, friends, and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another - and to one another - as we fight to become ourselves. Blending poetry and prose, Jones has developed a style that is equal parts sensual, beautiful, and powerful - a voice that's by turns a river, a blues, and a nightscape set ablaze. --
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I Am Nobody's Slave: How Uncovering My Family's History Set Me Free
by Lee Hawkins
Pulitzer Prize finalist and What Happened in Alabama? podcast host Lee Hawkins' intimate and thought-provoking family history utilizes genealogical research and interviews to examine the ongoing impacts of generational trauma stemming from enslavement and Jim Crow. Further reading: Go Back and Get It: A Memoir of Race, Inheritance, and Intergenerational Healing by Dionne Ford.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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