Biography and Memoir
June 2026

Recent Releases
Labor: One Woman's Work
by Dr. Mary Fariba Afsari

Mary Farib Afsari is an Iranian American OB/GYN physician who practices out of an RV, partly so that she can bring her services to transgender patients and others who have justified fears of coming to hospitals and medical offices. Afsari movingly tells the story of her Iranian grandmother, whose preventable death during pregnancy played a major role in motivating Mary to go into reproductive care. For another impassioned physician-authored book, try Renegade M.D.: A Doctor’s Stories from the Streets by Susan Partovi, M.D.
Rasputin: The Downfall of the Romanovs
by Antony Beevor

Russian peasant turned mystic Grigori Rasputin was surrounded by dark rumors while serving the court of Nicholas II and Alexandra in pre-revolution St. Petersburg. People whispered that he had superhuman healing powers and conducted orgies with women of the court. Historian Antony Beevor separates myth from fact, concluding that Rasputin’s abuse of the Tsar’s trust coupled with his well-known corruption and lechery likely helped undermine public faith in the Russian royal house, eventually leading to his murder.
American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed
by Isaac Fitzgerald

Memoirist Isaac Fitzgerald (Dirtbag, Massachusetts) combines a love of walking and a fascination with pioneer Johnny Appleseed (aka John Chapman) in his traveling tale, in which he attempts to walk along Chapman’s historic route from Massachusetts to Indiana. Along his journey, Fitzgerald shares his curiosity about the Appleseed legend, myth-making, his own history, and small-town America in a “stirring, singular” (Publishers Weekly) memoir. Read-alike: This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History by Beverly Gage.
Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay
by Mary Lisa Gavenas

Mary Kay Ash, born Mary Kathlyn Wagner, was married with children by age sixteen, and began selling goods to housewives door-to-door to help make ends meet in Depression-era Texas. Decades later, she founded Mary Kay Cosmetics and recruited a sales army of her own. Former Glamour editor Mary Lisa Gavenas reveals the key to Ash’s success: selling the idea of financial independence to ambitious American women like herself. Read-alike: Becoming Elizabeth Arden: The Woman Behind the Global Beauty Empire by Stacy A. Cordery.
This Dark Night: Emily Brontë, a Life
by Deborah Lutz

English professor Deborah Lutz has taken what little is known of Wuthering Heights author Emily Brontë and created a richly imagined extrapolation of her inner world. Famously reclusive and resistant to the expectations imposed upon Victorian women, Emily was most inspired by her fantasy life, nourished by her wanderings in the moors surrounding her family home in Yorkshire, where she spent most of her tragically short life. Lush, atmospheric, and “rigorously researched” (Publishers Weekly), Lutz’s book shines new light on a beloved literary figure.
Say It in Letters
While collections of personal letters aren’t technically biographies, letters written by (and to) famous people can be a wellspring of primary source material that biographers use to study their subjects. Indeed, people often reveal sides of themselves in the letters they write that they wouldn’t to the rest of the world! Enjoy these titles that feature interesting people’s collections of correspondence.
 
 
Notes to John
by Joan Didion

After author Joan Didion died in 2021, a journal was found among her papers addressed to her husband John Gregory Dunne, written in the early 2000s and concerning psychotherapy treatment that she received at the behest of her daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne. Readers will empathize with Didion as she gives a detailed account of these intimate but painful talk-therapy sessions, which cover fraught family dynamics, alcoholism, guilt, and emotional distance. Recommended for people who were moved by I Will Do Better by Charles Bock.
Expatriates of No Country: The Letters of Shirley Hazzard and Donald Keene
by Shirley Hazzard and Donald Keene; edited by Brigitta Olubas

In Expatriates of No Country, Australian novelist Shirley Hazzard and American scholar of Japanese literature Donald Keene exchange missives documenting their 30-year friendship. The two writers and intellectuals spar on topics that concerned them both -- the globe-trotting life, books and writers they were passionate about, and the perils of staying creative in an industry obsessed with commerce. For fans of: Selected Letters of John Updike, edited by James Schiff.
Letters in Exile: Transnational Journeys of a Harlem Renaissance Writer
by Claude McKay; edited by Brooks E. Hefner and Gary Edward Holcomb

Jamaican American author and poet Claude McKay was prolific in both his art and his letter-writing, seen in these selections that “cohere into a multifaceted portrait of a man and his times” (Kirkus Reviews). Communicating with friends including Langston Hughes, Louise Bryant, and W.E.B. Du Bois, McKay wrote while touring around Europe about his intersectional identity, the reception of Black art, and his search for the idea of home, a theme sadly echoed by many of his Black contemporaries.
Letters
by Oliver Sacks; edited by Kate Edgar

In this highly readable collection of letters from neurologist Oliver Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), readers are treated to the author’s familiar charm, curiosity, and warmth, whether he is communicating with colleagues about innovative forms of therapy or pleading with the California DMV not to suspend his driver’s license. These “very enjoyable” (Kirkus Reviews) selections were compiled by Sacks’ longtime assistant, Kate Edgar. For more about the author, try And How Are You, Dr. Sacks? by Lawrence Weschler.
Byron: A Life in Ten Letters
by Andrew Stauffer

English professor and Byron authority Andrew Stauffer’s biography of George Gordon, Lord Byron is cleverly framed around ten letters written by the raconteur of the Romantics, presented chronologically from his teen years to the end of his life at 36. This device allows readers a close-up view of Stauffer’s subject and helps to illustrate Byron’s talents, along with all of his best (and worst) qualities. For another literary biography about a brilliant but brief life, try Katherine Mansfield: A Hidden Life by Gerri Kimber.
Contact your librarian for more great books!
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