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Biography and Memoir March 2026 |
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Forest euphoria : the abounding queerness of nature
by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian
Growing up, Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian felt most at home in the swamps and culverts near her house in the Hudson Valley. A child who frequently felt out of place, too much of one thing or not enough of another, she found acceptance in these settings, among other amphibious beings. In snakes, snails, and, above all, fungi, she saw her own developing identities as a queer, neurodivergent person reflected back at her--and in them, too, she found a personal path to a life of science.
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Stone lands: a journey of darkness and light through Britain's ancient places
by Fiona Robertson
Journeying across Britain, from West Penwith and Avebury to the Lake District and Orkney, Stone Lands uncovers the magic and rich history of Britain's incredible prehistoric standing stones. It conveys the delight that lies in tracking them down, as well as the solace these ancient places offer in times of darkness. A few months after discovering that her beloved husband, Stephen, had incurable cancer, Fiona Robertson began to write this book. A long-time megalith enthusiast, she found the ancient stones resonated with her more profoundly than ever as she faced the prospect of losing him. This enthralling memoir is woven delicately around great grief but is ultimately about embracing life, joy and ancient wonder--a luminous reminder of what it means to exist on this earth.
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Alias Agnes : the notorious tale of a gilded age spy
by Elizabeth A. DeWolfe
| Alias Agnes details the story of Jane Tucker, who took a job as an undercover detective with a ten-week mission. Her target: Madeleine Pollard, former mistress of Congressman William C. P. Breckinridge, whom she had sued for breach of promise when he failed to marry her. Exploring the intricacies of this trial and a scandal that captivated the nation, author Elizabeth A. DeWolfe demonstrates that a shared lack of power did not always lead to alliances among women. |
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The waterbearers : a memoir of mothers and daughters
by Sasha Bonét
Sasha Bonét grew up in 1990s Houston, worlds removed from the Louisiana cotton plantation that raised her grandmother, Betty Jean, and the Texas bayous that shaped Sasha's mother, Connie. And though each generation did better, materially, than the last, all of them carried the complex legacy of Black American motherhood with its origins in slavery. All of them knew that the hands used to comb and braid hair, shell pecans, and massage weary muscles were the very hands used to whip children into submission. When she had her own daughter, Sofia, Bonét was determined to interrupt this tradition. The Waterbearers is a dazzling and transformative work of American storytelling that reimagines not just how we think of Black women, but how we think of ourselves--as individuals, parents, communities, and a country.
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Strangers : a memoir of marriage
by Belle Burden
In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha's Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together--building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whisky sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving her. In Strangers, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. With unflinching honesty and profound grace, Burden charts a path through heartbreak to show the power of a woman who refuses to give up on love. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir heralding the arrival of a thrilling new literary talent.
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The mixed marriage project : a memoir of love, race, and family
by Dorothy Roberts
From Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body and a writer who has brilliantly illuminated the Black experience in America for decades, comes a spirited and riveting memoir of growing up in an interracial family in 1960s Chicago and a daughter's journey to understand her parents' marriage--and her own identity. In following the arc of her parents' interviews and marriage, The Mixed Marriage Project invites us into the everyday lives of interracial couples in Chicago over four decades. Along the way, Roberts reflects on her own childhood as a Black girl with a white father, and how those experiences shaped her into one of today's most prominent public thinkers and scholars on race. Blurring the boundaries between the political and the personal, between memoir and history, The Mixed Marriage Project is a deeply moving meditation on family, race, identity, and love.
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Judy Blume : a life
by Mark Oppenheimer
The highly anticipated biography of one of the world's most treasured literary voices, showcasing a life as triumphant and inspiring as the stories she crafted. In Judy Blume, journalist, historian, and longtime Blume aficionado Mark Oppenheimer pens a beautiful, multidimensional portrait of the acclaimed author through extensive interviews with Blume herself, invaluable access to her papers and correspondence, and thoughtful analysis of Blume's beloved novels, including early, unpublished works that shed light on the pathbreaking writer she would become. Oppenheimer goes deep, exploring Blume's middle-class 1950s upbringing, complicated childhood, varied relationships and marriages, unabashed sexual experiences, bouts of heartache and loss, and enduring legacy as a champion of free speech and contemporary literature. Oppenheimer peels back the curtain to reveal the woman behind the literary empire in all her complex, multifaceted glory.
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Hostage
by Eli Sharabi
On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists stormed Kibbutz Be'eri, shattering the peaceful life Eli Sharabi had built with his British wife, Lianne, and their teenage daughters, Noiya and Yahel. Dragged barefoot out his front door while his family watched in horror, Sharabi was plunged deep into the suffocating darkness of Gaza's tunnels. As war raged above him, he endured a grueling 491 days in captivity, all the while holding onto the hope that he would one day be reunited with his loved ones. In the first memoir by a released Israeli hostage, and the fastest-selling book in Israel's history, Sharabi offers a searing firsthand account of survival under unimaginable conditions--starvation, isolation, physical beatings, and psychological abuse at the hands of his captors.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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