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Biography and Memoir April 2025 |
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| Becoming Spectacular: The Rhythm of Resilience from the First African American... by Jennifer JonesIn her moving and inspiring debut, trailblazing dancer Jennifer Jones reveals the triumphs and trials of her 15-year career as a Radio City Rockette, becoming the troupe's first Black dancer in 1987. For fans of: The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History by Karen Valby. |
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| Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson... by Mallory O'MearaMallory O'Meara's (The Lady from the Black Lagoon) engaging latest chronicles the life and career of Helen Gibson, Hollywood's first professional stunt woman, whose start in silent films included appearances in the long-running adventure serial The Hazards of Helen, from which she took her stage name. Further reading: Nobody's Girl Friday: The Women Who Ran Hollywood by J.E. Smyth. |
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| Legends and Soles: The Memoir of an American Original by Sonny Vaccaro with Armen KeteyianIn his candid and heartfelt memoir, retired sports marketing executive Sonny Vaccaro dishes on his successful career, including his role in signing Michael Jordan to a shoe deal with Nike and creating the Air Jordan shoe in 1984. For fans of: the 2023 movie Air, in which Matt Damon portrays Vaccaro. |
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Focus on: National Poetry Month
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| Punch Me Up to the Gods by Brian BroomeIn his Kirkus Prize-winning debut, poet and screenwriter Brian Broome recounts coming of age Black and gay in 1980s Ohio, detailing his struggles with identity, addiction, and generational trauma. Try this next: No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America by Darnell L. Moore. |
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| Poet Warrior by Joy HarjoFormer United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo's engaging follow-up to her 2012 memoir Crazy Brave explores her Muscogee upbringing with a poetry-loving mother, who encouraged the author's interest in words, and how she survived abuse from her father and stepfather to find communion with fellow Indigenous writers as a University of New Mexico student in the 1970s. Further reading: When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: An Anthology of Native Nations Poetry edited by Harjo. |
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| Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir by Natasha TretheweyYears after her mother's murder, Pulitzer Prize winner and former United States Poet Laureate Natasha Tretheway returned to the scene of the crime, where she found long-buried answers to questions lingering from childhood. Readers stirred by this lyrical and unflinching portrait of family violence will want to check out Blood by Allison Moorer. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books! |
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