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Biography and Memoir Februrary 2024 |
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The Secret Life of John Le Carrâe
by Adam Sisman
Originally published in 2015, this definitive biography, now released in its entirety after the great novelist's death in 2020, reveals a hitherto-hidden perspective on the life and work of the spy-turned-author and a masterful meditation on the complex relationship between biography and subject.
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And Then We Rise: A Guide to Loving and Taking Care of Self
by Common
From the multi-award-winning performer, author, and activist, a comprehensive program for addressing mental and physical health- and encouraging communities to do the same. Common has achieved success in many facets of his life and career, from music to acting to writing. But for a long time, he didn’t feel that he had found fulfillment in his body and spirit. And Then We Rise is about Common’s journey to wellness as a vital element of his success. A testimony to the benefits of self-care, this book is composed of four different sections, each with its own important lessons: "The Food" focuses on nutrition. "The Body" focuses on fitness. "The Mind" focuses on mental health. And "The Soul" focuses on perhaps the most profound thing of all- spiritual well-being.
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Drunk-ish: Loving and Leaving Alcohol
by Stefanie Wilder-Taylor
When Stefanie Wilder-Taylor became a mother, being able to connect with other moms over drinks or enjoy a glass of wine at the end of a stressful day felt life-affirming. As the years go by, Stefanie wonders if her relationship with alcohol is different from other people's. Is everyone else struggling this hard to moderate? Having spent a lifetime grappling with the question of whether or not she is a "real" alcoholic, one evening brings Stefanie close to the edge of losing it all. Miraculously unscathed, she decides that she doesn't need to dive all the way down to a stereotypical rock bottom before deciding to stop drinking; if sobriety will improve her life, that's a good enough reason to quit. Stefanie's memoir is a tender and funny farewell letter to a beloved but toxic friend.
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Burnt
by Clare Frank
When Clare Frank was 17 years old, she became a firefighter in Northern California. Very soon, she knew she had found her calling. Burnt is Frank's inspiring, richly detailed, and open-hearted account of an extraordinary life in fire. It chronicles the transformation of a young adult determined to prove her mettle into a scarred and sensitive veteran, grappling with the weight of her duties as chief of fire protection- one of the highest-ranking women in Cal Fire history- while record-setting fires engulf her home state. No one has written about this world, from this perspective, like Clare Frank. She masterfully mixes irreverence and awe, taking readers inside firehouses, on daily calls, and along to gigantic wildfires where antics and dark humor balance terrifying risk, trauma, and a sense of almost holy responsibility. Burnt: A Memoir of Fighting Fire is an unforgettable memoir from an American original.
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Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment
by Susannah Breslin
What if your parents turn you into a human lab rat when you're a child? When Susannah Breslin was a toddler, her parents enrolled her in an exclusive laboratory preschool at the University of California, Berkeley, where she became one of over a hundred children research subjects in an unprecedented 30-year study of personality development that predict who she and her cohorts grew up to be. Decades later, trapped in an abusive marriage and battling breast cancer, she starts to wonder how growing up under a microscope shaped her identity and life choices. Already a successful journalist, she makes her own curious history the subject of her next investigation. From experiment rooms with one-way mirrors, to children's puzzles with no solutions, to condemned basement laboratories, her life-changing journey uncovers the long-buried secrets hidden behind the renowned study. The question at the gnarled heart of her quest: Did the study know her better than she knew herself? At once bravely honest and sharply witty, Data Baby is a compelling and provocative account of a woman's quest to find her true self, and an unblinking exploration of why we turn out as we do.
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What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator
by Barbara Butcher
Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism when she found an unexpected lifeline: a job at the Medical Examiner's Office in New York City. The second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan, she was the first to last more than three months. The work was gritty, demanding, morbid, and sometimes dangerous- and she loved it. In What the Dead Know, she writes with the kind of New York attitude and bravado you might expect from decades in the field, investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides. In the opening chapter, she describes how just from sheer luck of having her arm in a cast, she avoided a boobytrapped suicide. Later in her career, she describes working the nation's largest mass murder- the attack on 9/11.
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Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself
by Crystal Hefner
A world-renowned model, advocate, entrepreneur and wife of the late Hugh Hefner provides a fascinating look behind-the-scenes at a powerful cultural icon and brand, revealing the objectification and misogyny of the Playboy mansion and sharing her transformative journey to a person who finally recognized her true worth.
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Becoming Kerouac
by Paul Maher
Jack Kerouac was one of America's great writers of the latter half of the 20th century, yet he endured a life characterized by persistent hardship and disillusion. Leading Kerouac scholar Paul Maher Jr. targets the writer's embattled insight of self as central to his life and work. He reveals how Kerouac's troubled interactions with alcohol, drugs, and spirituality stamped its importance on his autobiographical prose and poetry and created a singular language that united thoughts on the human condition and spiritual liberation. Becoming Kerouac: A Writer In His Time affixes Kerouac's life and art in a fresh way, giving readers a rich perspective from which to understand this 20th-century literary genius. Using unpublished archival material, Becoming Kerouac focuses on the writer's critical formative years (1940-1957) to demonstrate his growth as a novelist and poet.
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I Survived Capitalism and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt: Everything I Wish I Never Had to Learn About Money
by Madeline Pendleton
A big-hearted, no-bull memoir from TikTok superstar Madeline Pendleton about her journey from living paycheck to paycheck to creating a multi-million-dollar business that offers a compassionate alternative to capitalism. After years of living broke, Madeline decided to study the rules of capitalism. She used what she learned to build a new kind of business- one rooted in an ethos of community care. Now, Madeline is paying it forward by sharing her path to success on her terms, plus no-nonsense life and money advice: How do you build credit? How do you negotiate higher pay? How do you build a better world? Millennials and Gen Zers like Madeline are facing an unprecedented financial reality: Stagnant wages, skyrocketing housing costs, a student debt crisis.
I Survived Capitalism is essential reading for anyone searching for hope and stability in an unjust world.
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Charlie Chaplin vs. America
by Scott Eyman
Bestselling Hollywood biographer and film historian Scott Eyman tells the story of Charlie Chaplin's fall from grace. In the aftermath of World War Two, Chaplin was criticized for being politically liberal and internationalist in outlook. He had never become a US citizen, something that would be held against him as xenophobia set in when the postwar Red Scare took hold. Politics aside, Chaplin had another problem: his sexual interest in young women. He had been married three times and had had numerous affairs. In the 1940s, he was the subject of a paternity suit, which he lost, despite blood tests that proved he was not the father. His sexuality became a convenient way for those who opposed his politics to condemn him. Refused permission to return to the US from a trip abroad, he settled in Switzerland, and made his last two films in London
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Dear Sister: A Memoir of Secrets, Survival, and Unbreakable Bonds
by Michelle Horton
In September 2017, a knock on the door upends Michelle Horton's life forever: her sister had just shot her partner and was now in jail. During the investigation that follows, Michelle learns that Nikki had been hiding horrific abuse for years. Stunned to find herself in a situation she'd only ever encountered on television and true crime podcasts, Michelle rearranges her life to care for Nikki's children and simultaneously launches a fight to bring Nikki home, squaring off against a criminal justice system seemingly designed to punish the entire family. An intimate look at a family surviving trauma, Dear Sister is a deeply personal story about what it takes to be believed and the danger of keeping truths hidden. Ultimately, Horton turns her family's suffering into hard won wisdom.
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| Naomi Osaka: Her Journey to Finding Her Power and Her Voice by Ben RothenbergJournalist and Racquet senior editor Ben Rothenberg's engaging biography of four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka chronicles the tennis phenom's highs and lows both on and off the court. Try this next: My Dream Time by Ash Barty. |
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| The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands by Elizabeth B. White & Joanna SliwaHistorians Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa's moving account chronicles the daring wartime exploits of Polish Jewish mathematician Josephine Janina Mehlberg, who posed as a countess and helped save thousands of Poles imprisoned at Majdanek concentration camp during World War II. For fans of: Irena's Children: A True Story of Courage by Tilar J. Mazzeo. |
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Focus on: Black History Month
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| Vigilance: The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad by Andrew K. DiemerTowson University professor Andrew K. Diemer penned this evocative and well-researched biography of Philadelphia abolitionist William Still, who was responsible for creating the Underground Railroad's escape routes and helped hundreds of enslaved people find freedom. Further reading: William Still: The Underground Railroad and the Angel at Philadelphia by William C. Kashatus. |
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The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
by Les Payne
A revisionary portrait of the iconic civil rights leader draws on hundreds of hours of interviews with surviving family members, intelligence officers and political leaders to offer new insights into Malcolm X's
Depression-era youth, religious conversion and 1965 assassination.
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| The Kneeling Man: My Father’s Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. by Leta McCollough SeletzkyLeta McCullough Seletzky's compelling debut offers a nuanced portrait of her father, undercover police officer Marrell "Mac" McCollough, who was present during the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and who famously appeared in photographs of the event giving aid to King. Try this next: A Spy in Canaan: How the FBI Used a Famous Photographer to Infiltrate the Civil Rights Movement by Marc Perrusquia. |
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When Evil Lived in Laurel
by Curtis Wilkie
"The inside story of how a courageous FBI informant helped to bring down the KKK chapter responsible for a brutal civil rights-era killing. By early 1966, the civil rights work of Vernon Dahmer, head of the Forrest County chapter of the NAACP and a dedicated advocate for voter registration, was well-known in Mississippi. This put him in the crosshairs of the White Knights, one of the most violent sects of the KKK in the South-which carried out his murder in a raid that burned down his home and store. A riveting account of the incident and its aftermath, When Evil Lived in Laurel is a tale of obsession, in which the infamous Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers became so fixated on killing Dahmer that the bungled attack ultimately led to Bowers's downfall and the destruction of his virulently racist organization. Drawing on the diary of a former Klan infiltrator who risked his life to help break the White Knights, veteran journalist Curtis Wilkie brings fresh light to this chapter in the history of civil rights in the South"
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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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