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Biography and Memoir October 2026 |
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| Hiroshima, 8:15: The Lost Memoir by Kiyoshi TanimotoThis is a newly discovered firsthand account of the Hiroshima bombing and its aftermath from one of the survivors- bringing unprecedented immediacy to our understanding of this world-changing event.
At approximately 8:15 on the morning of August 6, 1945, Kiyoshi Tanimoto was on the outskirts of Hiroshima when a flash in the sky signaled the birth of a horrifying new world. In an instant, tens of thousands of Hiroshima residents had been vaporized or crushed to death.
As Tanimoto, a thirty-six-year-old Methodist minister, raced back to the city center in search of his wife and infant daughter, he encountered unimaginable devastation: structures leveled; fires everywhere; uncountable injured suffering from burns, broken bones, and the effects of radiation. In the days, weeks, and months that followed this unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, he invested body and soul in helping his living congregants obtain food, shelter, and medical care, as well as identifying and burying with as much dignity as possible those who had perished. He dedicated himself to rebuilding not only his church, but his city and his nation.
Tanimoto went on to gain renown as one of the survivors featured in John Hersey's New Yorker piece and book, Hiroshima, which changed the American public's understanding of the event. But Tanimoto also wrote his own story. Hiroshima, 8:15 is Tanimoto's never-before-published firsthand account of the bombing of Hiroshima, written in the immediate aftermath, in his own words.
This singular memoir is both an invaluable addition to the historical record and an urgent eyewitness testimony of one of the most calamitous events to befall humanity. At a time when the threat of nuclear war still looms, Tanimoto's message of peace, and his vision of a better path forward for humankind, is of vital importance. |
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Serling: A Journey Into the Twilight Zone with Tv's First Visionary
by Alan Sepinwall
New York Times bestselling author and esteemed TV critic Alan Sepinwall delivers the definitive biography of Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone. Serling's pioneering work not only included entertaining millions and shaping television standards, but also being an outspoken advocate on a range of social justice issues. "What I write is a part of me", Rod Serling once said. Serling put himself into everything he wrote. You could hear his distinct voice coming through whether a script was set on another planet or a familiar suburban street. Many of the hundreds of original radio and television scripts that he penned were in some way inspired by moments from his own life: his idyllic childhood, his time in combat in the Pacific, the period in his early career where he earned a reputation as TV's angry young man, and even his experiences as the famed writer, producer, and narrator of The Twilight Zone. So it seems fitting that the definitive biography of a man who poured so much of himself into his material should use his fictional alter egos to help tell his riveting true story. Renowned TV critic and bestselling author Alan Sepinwall employs Rod's own writing to paint a portrait of this singular creative force Serling died believing he had left no legacy, and that his work would quickly be forgotten. Yet celebrated fans like Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, JJ Abrams, Ben Stiller, Rian Johnson, Vince Gilligan, Rob Mac, and many more discuss with Sepinwall how Serling inspired what they do. A revealing portrait of a complicated, principled man, Serling pays due homage to one of the greatest activist writers ever known.
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| The Wound Is Where the Light Enters: A Memoir of Resilience by Chris YoungFor a teenaged Chris Young, selling drugs was the only available escape from his poverty-stricken and violent domestic life. Upon being handed a mandatory life sentence after multiple felony arrests, Young startled everyone at his hearing by advocating for himself armed with nothing but his extensive reading of the books in the prison library, a speech that eventually secured his early release. Young’s story of overcoming tremendous odds is a resonant, inspirational tale of redemption that underscores the racism and injustice corrupting the penal system. |
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An Inconvenient Woman: The Extraordinary Life of Lillian Smith, the Southerner Who Defied Jim Crow America
by Keri Leigh Merritt
Born in Florida to a religious family, Lillian Smith was a white Southern woman living in the Jim Crow South who defied all stereotypes: She lived with her lover, Paula, first running a summer camp in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, and then a magazine, devoted to creating a new vision of the South, one that passionately championed equality and integration. Smith published Black and white writers, a rare feat in those days, and herself wrote articles instructing white Southerners on why they shouldn't support segregation -Smith firmly believed racism hurt white Americans, too. In 1944 she published a bestselling novel, Strange Fruit, which became a national sensation and was banned in Boston and Detroit. The FBI began a file on her, she received death threats, and her house caught fire three times, twice intentionally, resulting in the loss of all her works-in-progress and her correspondence. Undaunted, she continued her ardent fight against segregation, maintaining correspondence with some of the great leaders of her day, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr, W.E.B Dubois, Paul Robeson, and Pauli Murray. She continued to fight for both civil and human rights throughout the 1960s, helping nurture many of the activists in SNCC and CORE, only to succumb to cancer in 1966. Drawing on previously unpublished archival research, and with a modern appreciation of Smith's complex identity, An Inconvienent Woman is the definitive account of a woman who defied all expectations and dedicated her life to racial equality.
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Holding Lightning: The Life, Loves, and Art of Whitney Houston
by Emily Lordi
A showstopping portrait of Whitney Houston as we've never seen her before- a woman in her full power, a musician who knew the impact of her gift, and a fulcrum of Black celebrity- in this first major biography of the artist who became an icon.We remember Whitney Houston for her soaring voice on songs that defined a generation and kicked open the door to Black women in pop music. Her trademark stance was a picture of elegance and power: head thrown back, arms flung straight out. Then there was her sound. One producer recalled Whitney's otherworldly ability to hold notes, comparing it to holding lightning in your hand, holding lightning in your throat. She tried to hold the lightning as she bathed us all in the glow.But since her death in 2012, the woman known as The Voice has been reduced to just that. Whitney's critics have slotted her memory into a tired genre of famous doomed women whose success owed more to their labels and their producers than to any agency of their own. Yet a closer look reveals a serious artist and woman of conviction striving to be who she was. She said it best: There would be no 'Whitney Houston' without Whitney Houston.In Holding Lightning, leading cultural critic and professor Emily Lordi has gained unique access to Houston's innermost circle to show us the Whitney we've been unwilling to see- her fluid sexuality, her unapologetic love of her own talent, her insistence that she be the architect of her own career. And, crucially, Lordi positions Houston's pivotal life in the long history of Black celebrity. Before rooting for everybody Black became the norm, Whitney worked as a relentless advocate for Black female talent across the entertainment industry.Now, finally, in Holding Lightning, we have the essential, up-close portrait of the icon we thought we knew.
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Ethel Kennedy: The Extraordinary Life and Bold Legacy
by Kerry Kennedy
A vivid, intimate biography of Ethel Kennedy written by her daughter Kerry Kennedy, who takes us inside the life of an American icon through her firsthand memories and exclusive access to her mother's unpublished writings. When her husband Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, Ethel Skakel Kennedy-then pregnant with their eleventh child-drew national attention for her grace, dignity, and resolute commitment to furthering his work in human rights, even in her grief. But as no one knows better than her daughter, Kerry, Ethel was so much more than a dutiful wife and keeper of Robert's extraordinary legacy of service. She was extraordinary in her own right: courageous, curious, compassionate, and witty, always guided by faith and an instinct for speaking truth to power. At once a deeply-researched biography and an intimate tribute, Ethel tells the remarkable story of this woman who spent more than seventy years at the center of American political life, but always remained somewhat enigmatic to the public. Kerry delves into her own memories, her family's recollections, and her mother's private papers to paint a true-to-life portrait of her beloved mother, one that captures her humor, resilience, and hope. Until her recent passing, Ethel was the last survivor of Camelot, and she is remembered as a pillar of endurance, strength, and religious belief who rarely revealed anything about her interior life to the media. With a daughter's insight and care, as well as access to family papers and unpublished letters not available to historians or journalists, Kerry tells her story.
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American Pope: Leo XIV's Road from the South Side of Chicago to Vatican City
by Daniel Burke
From the co-host of NPR's All Things Considered and NPR's Senior Editor of Religion and Spirituality, a deeply reported, revelatory biography of Robert Prevost, now known as Pope Leo XIV, that offers rare and exciting new insight into the life and times of the man who would come to lead the Catholic Church. On May 8, 2025, eighteen days after the death of Pope Francis, Cardinal Dominique Mamberti stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica to share the name of the new leader of the Catholic Church. For the first time in its 2,000 year history, the Catholic Church would be led by an American. NPR's Daniel Burke and Scott Detrow, who were in St. Peter's Square that day leading the network's coverage, were among those shocked by the selection. Growing up in the faith as kids and reporting on it as adults, they had been told it was an article of faith, a given, that the Catholic Church would never elect an American pope. And yet, there was Prevost- now Leo XIV- smiling, waving, and declaring to the crowd in Italian, Peace be with you. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who grew up just outside Chicago but had spent much of his adult life in Peru, had been a dark horse candidate to say the least-an unassuming Augustinian who had only recently been promoted to the top levels of Church leadership. Despite international media coverage and fascination, the scope of Prevost's journey has yet to be told in full, intimate detail. Now, in American Pope, Burke and Detrow present the first comprehensive, impressively sourced biography of the new pontiff. The two journalists spent the year after Leo's election reporting in Peru, Chicago, and Rome. They tracked down Leo's close confidants, childhood friends, family members, classmates, fellow clergy, and Vatican insiders. They gained unprecedented access to archival documents, letters, emails, and other personal correspondence that provide key insights into Prevost's experiences and views. As a result, readers are introduced to a man at varying stages of his destiny. Enlightening, engrossing, and undeniably human, American Pope is the key to understanding one of the most consequential figures of our time.
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Alexander: God, King, Man
by Edmund Richardson
An enthralling new biography of Alexander the Great, written as an intimate, present portrait of the way his world saw him and the price he paid to become history's greatest military mind.
Alexander the Great: a wide-eyed boy from the hills of Macedon who ruled most of the known world by his mid-twenties. For centuries, historians, refugees, poets, and explorers have told his story, and yet Alexander himself has remained a mystery.
But over the last few years, a series of remarkable discoveries has changed everything. From the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and the dust of Central Asian hillsides, the remains of Alexander's cities have emerged. The diaries of Babylonian astronomers who knew him have been deciphered. The tombs of his ancestors have been unearthed. Now, for the first time since antiquity, it is possible to tell a different story. The story of a young man whom almost no-one noticed, until the day he became king. A king who became a hero, a hero who became a living god, and a god who died broken-hearted in Babylon.
Using cutting-edge research and a unique narrative approach, Alexander thrusts readers into Alexander the Great's world in ways which have never before been possible: to see the same stars wheeling overhead, feel the desert wind, and experience the full horror of battle. Alexander is a cinematic work of non-fiction, a revelatory retelling of one of the most famous and elusive stories in history.
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Fights Worth Fighting: Finding Strength in Struggle
by Dolph Lundgren
Best known for his role as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, Dolph Lundgren skyrocketed to fame in the 1980s and has since built a remarkable career spanning over a hundred films- including producing, writing, and directing multiple projects. But beyond the on-screen battles lies a far more compelling story: the real-life fights Lundgren has faced behind the scenes.
In this deeply personal account, Lundgren opens up about his upbringing in Sweden, his rise from a chemical engineering student to a martial arts champion, and his eventual transformation into an international movie star. He explores the pressures of fame, the emotional and physical toll of life in a cutthroat industry, and his private struggles. Now, as he faces his most difficult challenge yet- a fight against cancer- Lundgren reflects on the cost of survival and what it truly means to keep going.
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Charlie's Boy: A Memoir
by D. L. Hughley
I learned a joke could be more than humor. It was body armor. Could be a spell. Could be a sword and a shield, all in one breath.
He was always Charlie's Boy- even before he found his name, his voice, his fame.
In this raw, cinematic, and deeply personal memoir, acclaimed comedian and cultural critic D.L. Hughley documents his rise from the streets of South Central Los Angeles to the national spotlight- and the man who quietly stood behind him through it all. While his mother's wrath shaped his early years with fear and rejection, it was Charlie Hughley- a soft-spoken bag handler at the Los Angeles Airport- who raised D.L. and taught him how to survive through tough love and sacrifice. Though he was not D.L.'s biological father- a fact only revealed when D.L. was ten- Charlie gave his boy the only thing he truly needed: a sense of being seen.
It was a time when gangs ruled the streets of South Central, and D.L. rose through the ranks of the Bloods. But when his mother's car was shot up and dead roses were left on his doorstep- signaling he was marked for death- D.L.'s mother knew that he couldn't stay in Los Angeles. So, D.L. boarded a bus to Ohio and left behind everything he understood. It was exile. But it proved to be a fresh start. This is not just a coming-of-age story. It's the story of how one man found his voice by being raised in silence- and how he learned to get on stage and turn pain into punch lines. Through storytelling that's both unsparing and funny, Charlie's Boy is a tribute to the man who never asked for one, and a reckoning for the boy who had to wrestle for love, identity, and truth.
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| Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark by Cassandra PetersonShe’s best known as the busty, pun-slinging vamp and horror hostess Elvira, but TV personality Cassandra Peterson’s backstory is one of grit and perseverance. Growing up in Colorado in a home rife with abuse and addiction, Peterson knew early on that she wanted to become a showgirl, decamping to Las Vegas fresh out of high school. After this early start, she came to many things late in life- fame as Elvira, motherhood, and, finally, true love with her partner when she was 51. Peterson’s memoir is candid, ghoulishly funny, and inspiring. |
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Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life
by Ruth Franklin
This historically relevant biography establishes Shirley Jackson as a towering figure in American literature and revives the life and work of a neglected master. Known to millions mainly as the author of the The Lottery, Shirley Jackson has been curiously absent from the mainstream American literary canon. A genius of literary suspense and psychological horror, Jackson plumbed the cultural anxiety of postwar America more deeply than anyone. Ruth Franklin reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the author of The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Placing Jackson within an American gothic tradition stretching back to Hawthorne and Poe, Franklin demonstrates her unique contribution to this genre.
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| It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror by Joe Vallese, editorPut together by NYU writing professor Joe Vallese, It Came from the Closet is an essay anthology featuring 26 queer or trans writers reflecting on the excitement, revulsion, and sense of belonging they found in horror cinema and literature. The feelings of comfort and validation the contributors describe were often not to be found in a society that ironically viewed them as “monsters.” This thought-provoking collection, while touching on disturbing themes, is shot through with humor, wit, and original ideas. |
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I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted: A Memoir
by Jennifer Finney Boylan
From the famous gender rights activist and bestselling author of She's Not There comes another buoyant, unforgettable memoir -about growing up in a haunted house and making peace with the ghosts that dwell in our hearts. For Jennifer Boylan, creaking stairs, fleeting images in the mirror, and the remote whisper of human voices were everyday events in the Pennsylvania house in which she grew up in the 1970s. But these weren't the only specters beneath the roof of the mansion known as the Coffin House. Jenny herself- born James- lived in a haunted body, and both her mysterious, diffident father and her wild, unpredictable sister would soon become ghosts to Jenny as well. I'm Looking Through You is an engagingly candid investigation of what it means to be haunted. Looking back on the spirits who invaded her family home, Boylan launches a full investigation with the help of a group of earnest, if questionable, ghostbusters. Boylan also examines the ways we find connections between the people we once were and the people we become. With wit and eloquence, Boylan shows us how love, forgiveness, and humor help us find peace- with our ghosts, with our loved ones, and with the uncanny boundaries, real and imagined, between men and women.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Michigan City Public Library
100 E. 4th Street
Michigan City, Indiana 46360
219-873-3044mclib.org/ |
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