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Biography and Memoir February 2026 |
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| 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. |
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This American Woman: A One-In-A-Billion Memoir by Zarna GargAward-winning comedian Zarna Garg turns her life story into a hilarious memoir, spilling all the chai on her wild ride from narrowly escaping an arranged marriage and homelessness in India, to carving her own path in America and launching a dazzling second act in midlife.
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Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice by Virginia Roberts GiuffreThe world knows Virginia Roberts Giuffre as Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's most outspoken victim: the woman whose decision to speak out helped send both serial abusers to prison, whose photograph with Prince Andrew catalyzed his fall from grace. But her story has never been told in full, in her own words, until now. In April 2025, Giuffre took her own life. She left behind a memoir written in the years preceding her death and stated unequivocally that she wanted it published. Nobody's Girl is the riveting and powerful story of an ordinary girl who would grow up to confront extraordinary adversity.
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| A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls: Margaret C. Anderson, Book Bans, and the Fight to Modernize Literatureby Adam MorganAmerican editor Margaret C. Anderson was a champion of early modernists including Djuna Barnes and James Joyce, giving their experimental works voice in her upstart literary journal The Little Review. Critic Adam Morgan documents her fierce advocacy of the arts, romances with various high-profile women, and independence from the 20th-century status quo. Readers will savor this “enlightening depiction of a[n]…influential figure of both modernism and queer history” (Publishers Weekly). |
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Last Rites by Ozzy OsbourneIn 2018, at the age of sixty-nine, Ozzy Osbourne was on a triumphant farewell tour, playing to sold-out arenas and rave reviews all around the world. Then: disaster. In a matter of just a few weeks, he went from being hospitalized with a finger infection to having to abandon his tour - and all public life - as he faced near-total paralysis from the neck down. Last Rites is the shocking, bitterly hilarious, never-before-told story of Ozzy's descent into hell. Unflinching, brutally honest, but surprisingly life-affirming, Last Rites demonstrates once again why Ozzy has transcended his status as 'The Godfather of Metal' and 'The Prince of Darkness' to become a modern-day folk hero and national treasure.
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Focus on: Black History Month
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| Bring Judgment Day: Reclaiming Lead Belly's Truths from Jim Crow's Lies by Sheila Curran BernardFilmmaker Sheila Curran Bernard’s biography of Black folk and blues musician Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter seeks to right historical wrongs. Curran’s research drawn from original sources details how the musician’s life and career were repeatedly compromised by people trying to punish and exploit him, including his racist managers, folklorists John and Alan Lomax. It’s a shocking and infuriating read about a hugely talented and important interpreter of American song, and long overdue. |
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Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State by Caleb GayleIn this paradigm-shattering work of American history, Caleb Gayle recounts the extraordinary tale of Edward McCabe, a Black man who championed the audacious idea to create a state within the Union governed by and for Black people, and the racism, politics, and greed that thwarted him.
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| Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline GumbsPoet Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ innovative, adventurous biography of Black feminist poet Audre Lorde is a tribute to and legacy of a shared intersectional identity. Gumbs, who, like her subject, is an LGBTQIA+ descendant of Caribbean immigrants, details how Lorde rose from a difficult upbringing to become an inspiring feminist figure whose work never hesitated to call out injustice and oppression in this “scintillating tour de force” (Publishers Weekly). |
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Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler by Susana M. MorrisIn this outstanding work, Susana M. Morris places Butler's story firmly within the cultural, social, and historical context that shaped her life: the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, women's liberation, queer rights, Reaganomics. Morris reveals how these influences profoundly impacted Butler's personal and intellectual trajectory and shaped the ideas central to her writing.
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| The Garretts of Columbia: A Black South Carolina Family from Slavery to the Dawn of Integrationby David NicholsonAuthor and former journalist David Nicholson dives deep into family archives to pen the sweeping story of his ancestors from before the Civil War to the mid-20th century. Beginning with an enslaved patriarch who purchased freedom for himself and family members, notable Garretts would go on to become soldiers, scholars, and lawyers, steadfastly building a legacy of success despite an unsympathetic and, at times, antagonistic society. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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