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Biography and Memoir March 2019
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| Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time, and... by Emily BernardWhat it is: a lyrical memoir in essays that examines author Emily Bernard's relationship to her blackness and her Southern heritage.
Topics include: Bernard's interracial marriage and adoption of twin girls from Ethiopia; her grandmother's Jim Crow-era Mississippi childhood.
Want a taste? "I am black -- and brown, too. Brown is the body I was born into. Black is the body of the stories I tell." |
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One by one : a memoir of love and loss in the shadows of opioid America
by Nicholas Bush
Behind closed doors, thirty-six million people around the world abuse opioids, three million of them are in the US. Nick Bush was one of them. Forty-five thousand people in the US die annually from the disease, two lives lost to it were Nick’s sister and brother, three were his friends. Opioid addiction is recognized as the nation’s worst health crisis. Because of it, the average American lifespan is decreasing.
Incredibly, the stories of the people suffering from opioid addiction rarely get told. In One by One, Nick steps out of the opioid shadows to share his page-turning true story. He is remarkably candid about how he became an addict, as well as the stories of those around him, in a community ravaged by the disease. Nick, though, is a survivor. Here he tells how, and inspires us to know that the war against opioid addiction is one that we can win if only we are willing to bring humanity to the disease, faces to the addiction.
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| The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers by Bridgett M. DavisWhat it's about: the Detroit Numbers, an underground lottery popular in African American neighborhoods throughout the 1960s and '70s.
Starring: Numbers bookie Fannie Davis, who parlayed her wits and talents into a successful 34-year business to support her family and community.
Author alert: Baruch College journalism professor and novelist Bridgett M. Davis (Into the Go-Slow) penned this heartfelt tribute to her mother. |
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| Joy Enough by Sarah McCollWhat it's about: the year Sarah McColl spent grappling with her mother's impending death from cancer and the dissolution of her own marriage.
For fans of: candid memoirs of loss, such as Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed.
Why you might like it: Despite its difficult subject matter, Pushcart Prize nominee McColl's introspective debut is ultimately hopeful. |
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| Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison --Solitary Confinement, A Sham Trial... by Jason RezaianWhat it is: a powerful, briskly paced memoir chronicling Iranian American journalist Jason Rezaian's 18-month imprisonment in Tehran.
What happened: Arrested on trumped-up espionage charges, Rezaian's release was used as a bargaining chip in Iran's nuclear deal negotiations with the Obama administration.
Read it for: frank discussions concerning U.S.-Iran relations and Rezaian's complicated relationship with his family's homeland. |
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| Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf by Helene CooperWho it's about: Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the 24th Liberian President and Africa's first female elected head of state.
Topics include: Sirleaf's exile following her failed presidential run during the First Liberian Civil War; her handling of the 2014 Ebola outbreak.
Is it for you? Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Helene Cooper's mostly flattering biography spares her subject from in-depth criticisms. |
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| Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme... by Linda HirshmanWhat it is: an engaging and evenhanded dual biography of the first two female Justices of the United States Supreme Court.
Read it for: the revealing glimpses of how the pair's disparate approaches to law impacted a number of women's rights issues, including workplace sexual harassment and reproductive rights.
Further reading: First: Sandra Day O'Connor by Evan Thomas; Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life by Jane Sherron De Hart. |
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| Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press by James McGrath MorrisWho it's about: pioneering journalist and activist Ethel Payne, who covered the civil rights movement for the Chicago Defender.
Notable achievements: Payne was the first African American Vietnam correspondent, the first African American reporter invited to China, and the first female African American radio/tv commentator to work for CBS.
Did you know? Payne was a witness to the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; President Johnson gifted her the pen used to sign the law. |
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The women who flew for Hitler : A True Story of Soaring Ambition and Searing Rivalry
by Clare Mulley
A dual biography of the first two women flight captains for the Nazis describes how in spite of Hitler's dictates against women in the military, Aryan poster girl Hanna Reitsch and Jewish aeronautical engineer Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenger served on opposing sides before being awarded the Iron Cross. By the award-winning author of The Woman Who Saved the Children.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Newmarket Public Library 438 Park Ave. Newmarket, Ontario L3Y1W1 905-953-5110www.newmarketpl.ca |
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