Biography and Memoir May 2026 |
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| Heartland: A Forgotten Place, an Impossible Dream, and the Miracle of Larry Bird by Keith O'BrienLarry Bird was just a poor kid from a broken home in French Lick who thought his college basketball career was over when he quit the University of Indiana after an overwhelming first semester. In an unlikely turn, Bird was re-recruited by Bob King of Indiana State (a school with zero hoops cred), leading to a trip to the Final Four in 1979 and a storied NBA career. Biographer Keith O’Brien (Charlie Hustle) spins a “smart, well-paced” (Kirkus Reviews) tale of Bird beginning to take flight. |
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The Rolling Stones: The Biography
by Bob Spitz
Bob Spitz has brought his indefatigable energy and five decades of experiences in the fields and hollows of rock 'n' roll to bear on his five-year journey to reexamine one of popular music's greatest stories. There are myriad revisions to the conventional narrative which underscore just how in control of that narrative the band has been up to now--small example: no, Muddy Waters was not mopping the floors at Chess Records when the Stones showed up. But in a larger sense, as with the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, Spitz's greatest gift is for the big picture. He knows where the magic is, and why it is. He is as clear-eyed a connoisseur of the show business, the spectacle and the collateral damage of this whirlwind as anyone alive, but the ultimate goal is to connect with a creative force whose power shows no signs of fading, over sixty years on. At its heart the story is about two boys, Mick and Keith, and their unique, fraught, alchemical bond, often tested, never sundered. The Glimmer Twins. The bandmates, like Charlie Watts, who found their groove in relation to this double star made the trip intact, while those who struggled, like Brian Jones and Mick Taylor, were chewed up and spit out. This is a story with many dark corners, including a surprising number of deaths. But whether Jagger and Richards sold their souls to the devil at the crossroads for blues greatness or just squeezed their heroes for every drop of inspiration, in the end their connection to their music and to each other put them in a category of one, where they very much remain.
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True Crime: A Memoir
by Patricia Cornwell
Patricia Cornwell is best known for her international bestselling thriller series about forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Every story comes from somewhere, and Scarpetta's began when Patricia Cornwell embedded herself in a morgue. In this achingly honest memoir, Cornwell excavates her own life, detailing her traumatic childhood being raised by neglectful parents, her father abandoning the young family on Christmas day, her mother being institutionalized twice, an abusive foster family, and developing a parental relationship with evangelist Billy Graham's wife Ruth. Cornwell depicts a harrowing hospitalization and near-death car accident. She unflinchingly shares overcoming obstacles that later gave her the ambition to become an award-winning police reporter. From there it was research in a medical examiner's office that would turn into a full-time job. She would become a forensic expert and worldwide publishing phenomenon. Cornwell leaves no stone unturned in this deeply candid account of her life, offering inspiring insight into what made her into the international sensation she is today.
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Kate!: The Courage, Grace, and Power of the Woman Who Will Be Queen
by Christopher Andersen
Kate is one of the most photographed, most talked about, most written about women in the world--heiress to Princess Diana's glamour and mystique, both wife of one future monarch and mother of another. But as the daughter of an airline attendant who grew up in public housing, Kate was not destined for this fate. She had to fight for it--and for the love of the future king. In this illuminating portrait, master biographer Christopher Andersen chronicles Kate's life, beginning with her humble upbringing; her off-again, on-again love story with William that catapulted her to global fame; and the 2011 Wedding of the Century. Throughout their marriage, Kate has proven that she is more than just a prince's wife--she is a leader in humanitarian work, the devoted mother of three children in the media spotlight, an unparalleled fashion icon, and the universally adored face of Britain's monarchy. Yet her story is more complex than the public knows. With startling new details from his inside sources, Andersen reveals the full picture: including Kate's fight to repair William and Harry's rift, the disintegration of her relationship with Meghan, her work to refute charges of racism leveled at the monarchy, and her bravery in the face of cancer--her diagnosis and treatment, and the bizarre theories that swirled around her public disappearance. Kate is an against-all-odds romance, a glittering fairy tale, and a heart-tugging family drama within the modern monarchy--but most of all, an inspiring saga of one woman's grace and grit in the face of adversity.
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American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed
by Isaac Fitzgerald
New York Times bestselling author Isaac Fitzgerald sets off to the heart of America, following the path of the legendary Johnny Appleseed on an epic journey that both takes him far from home and brings him closer to it. It's a difficult thing, to separate legend from story from memory from fact. As a child, Isaac Fitzgerald was always captivated by Johnny Appleseed, drawn by family ties to the legend, his father's larger-than-life stories, and a shared restlessness to leave home and discover what lies beyond. In American Rambler, he sets out, walking from Massachusetts to Indiana on a year-long journey to follow Appleseed's path, turning a childhood fascination into a profound reckoning of loss and grief, ritual and faith, grimy gas-station bathrooms and scenic apple picking. A moving blend of memoir, history, and travelogue, American Rambler is at once an ode to the American heartland and an antidote to the breakneck pace of modern life.
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Just One More Game: A Pickleball Quest
by Clare Frank
An entertaining look at the meteoric rise of pickleball and one player's joyful obsession with the game Just One More Game is writer Clare Frank's account of abandoning herself to a sport loved by millions (and hated by plenty of others). As she tries to understand its hold on America and herself, Frank takes readers far and wide, from PickleCon to the US Open, into the sport's roots and its viral rise, and along on her quixotic quest to qualify for the pickleballing big-time. Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in North America and has been for some time. In 2017, there were 3 million players in the United States, and by 2025, that number had grown to over 22 million. With over 68,000 courts across the country, a burgeoning professional league, and the sport targeting the 2032 Olympics, it shows no sign of slowing down. The game was born in Washington State in 1965, and so was author Clare Frank, but she didn't encounter the game until 2021, when she got roped into joining a neighborhood friend's game. Despite being mystified by the court dimensions, the equipment, and especially the lingo (whose kitchen was being violated?), it wasn't long before the retired firefighter's competitive drive kicked in. And then she was in deep: joining underground games, shaking off injuries, playing in local tournaments, and traveling to Mexico for clinics. This fun read will be welcomed by pickleballers old and new.
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Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay
by Mary Lisa Gavenas
The only woman in Forbes' Greatest Business Stories of All Time and the first woman to chair a company on the New York Stock Exchange, Mary Kay Ash has a life story that reads like a Barbara Taylor Bradford novel Growing up in Depression-era Texas, Mary Kathlyn Wagner is a dutiful daughter and diligent student with ambition aplenty and no place to use it. Married at sixteen, she is a grandmother at thirty-four. When she is not cooking or cleaning or taking care of the kids, she peddles cleaning products to other housewives. The work has no salary and no security but she sticks with it, sure that direct selling will make her dreams come true. In 1963, after she has been divorced three times and widowed twice, she sets up her own company, selling second chance and self-invention for the price of a skin care showcase. Soon millions know her as the little lady in the big wig who gives away pink Cadillacs. From its unpromising start in a 500-square-foot Dallas storefront, Mary Kay Inc. grows into a global phenomenon with 3.5 million reps in over 35 countries. She becomes the most famous saleswoman in the world. Maybe the most famous ever. Based on fifteen years of research, Selling Opportunity gives us a page-turning rags-to-riches story set against the background of direct selling in all its overstated, over-the-top glory. Here, for the first time, is the definitive history of a peculiarly American industry and a mid-century mindset that ennobled extreme self-reliance, sticking to your guns, and blind faith in the American dream.
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On Witness and Respair: Essays
by Jesmyn Ward
Beginning with her upbringing in a multi-generational household in rural Mississippi, the cradle of both her youth and her gift for storytelling, Ward brings her keen wisdom and hauntingly lyrical prose to a range of topics, following in her grandmother Dorothy's footsteps when she promises always to Tell it straight. Tell it all. True to her word, in these pages Ward contemplates the writers and novels of her youth and adulthood--the transformative power of discovering Octavia Butler as a twenty-something, the mirror that Richard Wright's novels held up to her own childhood, and of course, her lifelong love for Toni Morrison. Ward ruminates on her approach to both fiction and life, reflecting on the power of the novel, how to raise a Black son in an era of rising divisiveness and cruelty, as well as her own personal tragedies--including the titular essay of the collection, which tells the story of her partner's sudden death on the eve of the COVID-19 epidemic. Every bit as piercing and moving as her fiction, On Witness and Respair is a testament to Ward's powers as one of America's finest living writers (San Francisco Chronicle) and is a monument to hope, beauty, and personal and collective resilience.
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