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Biography and Memoir November 2025
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Vagabond: A Memoir
by Tim Curry
There are few stars in Hollywood today that can boast the kind of resume Emmy award-winning actor Tim Curry has built over the past five decades. From his breakout role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' to his iconic depiction as the sadistic clown Pennywise in It to his critically acclaimed role as the original King Arthur in both the Broadway and West End versions of Spamalot, Curry redefined what it meant to be a 'character actor,' portraying heroes and villains alike with complexity, nuance, and a genuine understanding of human darkness. He's had dozens of roles across movies, TV shows, and musicals; lent his instantly recognizable voice to dozens of voice roles, audiobooks, and videogames; and he's changed the lives of countless fans in the process. Now, in his memoir, Curry takes readers behind-the-scenes of his rise to fame from his early beginnings as a military brat with difficult family dynamics, to his formative years in boarding school and university, to the moment when he hit the stage for the first time
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The Uncool: A Memoir
by Cameron Crowe
The long-awaited memoir by Cameron Crowe--one of America's most iconic journalists and filmmakers--revealing his formative years in rock and roll and bringing to life stories that shaped a generation, in the bestselling tradition of Patti Smith's Just Kids with a dash of Moss Hart's Act One. The Uncool is a ... dispatch from a lost world, the real-life events that became Almost Famous, and a coming-of-age journey filled with characters you won't soon forget--
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Bread of Angels: A Memoir
by Patti Smith
A radiant new memoir from artist and writer Patti Smith, author of the National Book Award winner Just KidsGod whispers through a crease in the wallpaper, writes Patti Smith in this moving account of her life. A post-World War II childhood unfolds in a condemned housing complex where we enter the child's world of the imagination. Smith, the captain of her loyal and beloved sibling army, vanquishes bullies, communes with the king of tortoises, and searches for sacred silver pennies.The most intimate of Smith's memoirs, Bread of Angels takes us through her teenage years where the first glimmers of art and romance take hold. Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan emerge as creative role models as she begins to write poetry then lyrics, ultimately merging both into the songs of iconic recordings such as Horses, Wave, and Easter.She leaves it all behind to marry her one true love, Fred Sonic Smith, with whom she creates a life of devotion and adventure on a canal in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. Here, she invents a room of her own, a low table, a Persian cup, inkwell and pen, entering at dawn to write. The couple spend nights in their landlocked Chris-Craft studying nautical maps and charting new adventures as they start a family.A series of profound losses mark her life. Grief and gratitude are braided through years of caring for her children, rebuilding her life and, finally, writing again--the one constant in a life driven by artistic freedom and the power of the imagination to transform the commonplace into the magical, and pain into hope. In the final pages, we meet Smith on the road again, the vagabond who travels to commune with herself, who lives to write and writes to live.
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Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts
by Margaret Atwood
How does one of the greatest storytellers of our time write her own life? The long-awaited memoir from the author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments, one of our most lauded and influential cultural figures.'Every writer is at least two beings: the one who lives, and the one who writes. Though everything written must have passed through their minds, or mind, they are not the same.' Raised by ruggedly independent, scientifically minded parents - entomologist father, dietician mother - Atwood spent most of each year in the wild forest of northern Quebec. This childhood was unfettered and nomadic, sometimes isolated (on her eighth birthday: 'It sounds forlorn. It was forlorn. It gets more forlorn.'), but also thrilling and beautiful. From this unconventional start, Atwood unfolds the story of her life, linking seminal moments to the books that have shaped our literary landscape, from the cruel year that spawned Cat's Eye to the Orwellian 1980s Berlin where she wrote The Handmaid's Tale. In pages bursting with bohemian gatherings, her magical life with the wildly charismatic writer Graeme Gibson and major political turning points, we meet poets, bears, Hollywood actors and larger-than-life characters straight from the pages of an Atwood novel. As we travel with her along the course of her life, more and more is revealed about her writing, the connections between real life and art - and the workings of one of our greatest imaginations.
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Gold Bar Bob: The Downfall of the Most Corrupt Us Senator
by Isabel Vincent
American politics at its sleaziest.--Publishers Weekly Power corrupts, and in the case of New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, power--and boatloads of money--corrupted absolutely and led to the downfall of the Democratic Party. Senator Bob Menendez stands alone as the most corrupt US Senator in history. After corruption charges were dropped in a 2017 mistrial, he may have considered himself invincible. But when the Feds raided his home in June 2022, they found a gifted Mercedes Benz, more than $600,000 in cash, and thirteen gold bars stuffed in envelopes, clothes, and closets. It was an outrageous haul for a man who styled himself as a fierce anti-corruption crusader, an ambitious Democrat who overthrew his mob-connected predecessor and rose through the ranks to the House of Representatives and the Senate to serve as the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. From New York Post writer Isabel Vincent and government watchdog Thomas Jason Anderson comes the unbelievable story of a vast web of lies and a stunning conviction. Gold Bar Bob chronicles Menendez's politicking for profit as he enriched a network that included the New Jersey mafia and businessmen from the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Middle East. In exchange for personal and campaign contributions,
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Bob Dylan: Things Have Changed
by Ron Rosenbaum
In the wake of the recent hit biopic A Complete Unknown, this probing appreciation asks: Do the lyrics of Bob Dylan tell the true story of the ever-changing, ever-radical life and career of the Nobel Prize-winning songwriter? In a dingy windowless bungalow on the Warner Brothers back lot in Hollywood in 1977, in the midst of what may have been the longest interview he ever gave (it stretched over ten days), a chain-smoking Bob Dylan confessed to journalist Ron Rosenbaum that he was troubled by something missing from his music. Dylan -- who was editing a dramatic movie based on his life, even as his life seemed to be falling apart -- told Rosenbaum there was a sound he was after that he'd only come close to on one record so far. The sound, he told Rosenbaum, was of thin, wild mercury. This is a book that captures the elusive mercurial artist and his work in a way no other has -- a vivid, compelling pursuit of Dylan, successively a hipster folkie, a Greenwich Village sparkplug of a cultural revolution, who plugged into an amplifier to drive away folkie solemnity, then became a countrified crooner, the man who, just months after Rosenbaum's interview, became a fire-breathing, proselytizing Christian . . . before returning to being a non-religious Jew. .
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Finding My Way: A Memoir
by Malala Yousafzai
A USA TODAY MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK 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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To Rescue the American Spirit: Teddy Roosevelt and the Birth of a Superpower
by Bret Baier
New York Times Bestseller This captivating portrayal of Teddy is Bret Baier's gift to us. From Roosevelt's resilience over tragedy to his heroism in war, from his midnight rambles as police commissioner to his dramatic fights for reform as governor and president, Baier summons the irrepressible spirit of the man. What an engaging storyteller What a joy to read --Doris Kearns GoodwinFrom #1 bestselling author and Fox News Channel's Chief Political Anchor, a fresh and fascinating exploration of the extraordinary life of Teddy Roosevelt, revealing how his bold leadership thrust America onto the world stage and changed the course of world history. Bret Baier's exquisite book reveals the storied life of a leader whose passion, daring, and prowess left an indelible mark on the fabric of our country and reimagined the possibilities of the presidency.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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