New Books in Biography & Memoir
Episodes
Benjamin Y. Fong and Paul Prescod, "Rustin's Challenge" (2026)
04 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There was no more trenchant and substantive critic of the Left from the Left in the 1960s and 1970s than Bayard Rustin. Some liberals and leftists t...
Nicholas Thompson, "The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports" (Random House, 2025)
04 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, and University of Puerto Rico professors Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera and Maritza Stanchich, dis...
Nicholas Tochka, "The Musical Lives of Charles Manson: The Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Invention of the Sixties" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
03 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Nicholas Tochka analyzes the role of rock music in the life of Charles Manson, the Family, and the August 1969 Tate-LaBianca killings, which also give...
Roger Frie, "Edge of Catastrophe: Erich Fromm, Fascism and the Holocaust" (Oxford UP, 2024)
03 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Erich Fromm, the prominent twentieth-century public intellectual and psychoanalyst, was recognized for his courageous stand against fascism, racism, a...
Dylan Baun, "Beirut Radical: A Global Microhistory from the Sixties to the Lebanese Civil War" (I.B. Tauris, 2026)
02 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Imad Yusuf Nuwayhid was born in 1944 in the Lebanese village of Ras al-Matn. He came of age in the 1960s, splitting time between Beirut and Europe. An...
Paola De Santo, "The Ambassador and the Courtesan: Political Bodies in Renaissance Italy" (U Delaware Press, 2026)
02 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Paola de Santo joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, The Ambassador and the Courtesan: Political Bodies in Renaissance Italy (U Delaware Pres...
Mary Lisa Gavenas, "Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay" (Penguin, 2026)
28 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As detailed in Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay (Penguin, 2026) by Mary Lisa Gavenas, as the only woman in Forbes’ Greatest Business St...
William R. Brody, "Uncommon Sense: Rethinking Ordinary Problems in Extraordinary Ways" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)
28 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today I’m speaking with William R. Brody about his book, Uncommon Sense: Rethinking Ordinary Problems in Extraordinary Ways (Johns Hopkins Univ...
Douglas Waller, "The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner" (Penguin, 2026)
26 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Frank Wisner was one of the most powerful men in 1950s Washington, though few knew it. Reporting directly to senior U.S. officials--his work largely h...
Zaakir Tameez, "Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation" (Henry Holt, 2025)
25 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A landmark biography of Charles Sumner, the unsung hero of the American Civil War and ReconstructionCharles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist...
Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King
23 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Caroline Bicks became the first scholar granted extended access by Stephen King to his private archives, a treasure trove of manuscripts that document...
Adam Henig, "Baseball's Outcast: The Story of Ron LeFlore" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
20 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When twenty-three-year-old Ron LeFlore played his first organized baseball game, it was in a yard at the State Prison of Southern Michigan where he wa...
Twelve Lives: Creating Literary Community with Raymond Williams, PhD
19 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
From the moment I began working with the New Books Network, my vision was bigger than author interviews. I envisioned my platform one where people cou...
From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg: Memoir and Testimony
19 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
After escaping the Vilna Ghetto and surviving winter in the forest among partisan fighters, Avrom Sutzkever was airlifted to Moscow in 1944. The renow...
Yanara Friedland, "Thanatographies" (U Alabama Press, 2026)
18 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Yanara Friedland is a writer, translator, and educator born in Berlin. She is the author of Uncountry: A Mythology (2016) winner of the Noemi Press ...
Myung-jin Han with Nicolas Levi, "I Was a North Korean Diplomat: Inside the Secret World of Pyongyang's Foreign Service" (Independently Published, 2026)
18 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Nicolas Levi is a researcher at the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He has authored numerous book...
Audrey Borowski, "Leibniz in His World: The Making of a Savant" (Princeton UP, 2026)
17 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Described by Voltaire as “perhaps a man of the most universal learning in Europe,” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) is often portrayed as a...
Kate Crane, "Whatever Happened to Eddy Crane?: A Memoir and an Investigation" (Hanover Square Press, 2026)
15 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Kate Crane's new memoir, Whatever Happened to Eddy Crane?: A Memoir and an Investigation" (Hanover Square Press, 2026) starts when Crane was in ei...
Elizabeth Rosner, "Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening" (Catapult, 2025)
14 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This illuminating book Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening (Catapult, 2025) weaves personal stories of a multilingual upbrin...
Rory Naismith, "Offa: King of the Mercians" (Yale UP, 2026)
14 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Offa: King of the Mercians (Yale UP, 2026), Professor Rory Naismith presents an authoritative biography of Offa of Mercia, revealing his importan...
David Potter, "Master of Rome: A Life of Julius Caesar" (Oxford UP, 2025)
11 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
By any measure, Julius Caesar is one of the most significant and famous figures in Roman history. Self-identified as a "popular" politician, he advoc...
Ed Simon, "Writing During the Apocalypse: Reflections on the Great Unraveling" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Rising authoritarianism. Covid. Inflation. Wealth disparity. War. Climate change. While every time period is marked by apocalyptic fears, it certainl...
Katharine K. Wilkinson, "Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home" (Amber Lotus Publishing, 2026)
08 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When maps come up short and the path ahead is uncertain, how do we find our way? Visionary climate leader Katharine K. Wilkinson offers a compassionat...
Eleanor Houghton, "Charlotte Brontë's Life in Clothes" (Bloomsbury 2026)
06 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Eleanor Houghton, in conversation with Duncan McCargo and Alexis Wolf Meet the real, thinking, feeling woman that was Charlotte Brontë, as told ...
Scott M. Kenworthy, "The People's Patriarch: Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and Revolutionary Russia" (Oxford UP, 2026)
06 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
On October 28, 1917, just days after the Bolsheviks seized power, the great Council of the Russian Orthodox Church voted to restore the patriarchate, ...
Philip Boris Uninsky, "Invented Lives from Troubled Times: A Jewish Family’s Forms of Resilience after Surviving Pogroms, Revolution, and the Holocaust" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2025)
05 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How do people rebuild their lives after unimaginable upheaval—and what stories do they tell along the way? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits dow...
Eivind Røssaak, "The Cory Arcangel Hack: Digital Culture and Aesthetic Practice" (MIT Press, 2025)
05 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The first in-depth exploration of the work of artist Cory Arcangel, a pioneer of DIY-new media art whose influential “hacks” subvert the confines ...
Meg Groff, "Not If I Can Help It: A Family Lawyer's Battles for Justice for Victims of Domestic Violence and the Poor" (Rivertowns Books, 2025)
04 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Meg Groff dedicated forty years of her life to fighting for justice for victims of domestic violence in rural and suburban Pennsylvania. Not If I Can...
Peter E. Gordon, "Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver" (Yale UP, 2026)
04 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary acume...
Robert Parish with Jake Uitti, "The Chief: The Story of the Boston Celtics’ Most Enigmatic Icon" (Triumph, 2026)
03 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A memoir of basketball, dedication, and longevity from Boston Celtics legend Robert Parish Growing up in the heart of Louisiana, Robert Parish and hi...
Caroline Tracey, "Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History" (W. W. Norton, 2026)
03 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Salt lakes are some of the most beautiful and unusual landscapes that you can find on this planet, even as they can be quite alien to people used to f...
Melissa Auf der Maur, "Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A '90s Rock Memoir" (DaCapo, 2026)
02 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Melissa Auf der Maur's new memoir, Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A '90s Rock Memoir(DaCapo, 2026) is a remarkably open-hearted, clear-eyed memoir of...
Chiang Mai 2015
02 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Gastronomica podcast returns to the air, bringing listeners new interviews with authors from the latest issues of Gastronomica: The Journal for...
Peter Mauch, "Tojo: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Most Controversial World War II General" (Harvard UP, 2026)
31 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The military general who became Emperor Hirohito’s prime minister, Tojo Hideki is most often remembered as an iron-fisted leader who dragged Japan i...
Cathryn J. Prince, "For the Love of Labor: The Life of Pauline Newman" (U Illinois Press, 2026)
26 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
My guest today is Cathryn J. Prince the author of For the Love of Labor: The Life of Pauline Newman (U Illinois Press, 2026). From her start ...
The Remarkable Life and Afterlife of Sholem Aleichem
24 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Novelist, playwright, journalist, essayist, and editor, Sholem Aleichem was one of the founding giants of modern Yiddish literature. The creator of a ...
David Bather Woods, "Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy's Greatest Pessimist" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
23 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy’s Greatest Pessimist by David Bather Woods An engaging biography of one of the most influe...
Martha Feldman, "Castrato Phantoms: Moreschi, Fellini, and the Sacred Vernacular in Rome" (Zone Books, 2026)
22 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Around 1830, opera houses stopped using castrati, and Rome and the Vatican became home to their glorious singing, engineered by surgery and intensive ...
The Vilna Gaon and the Making of Modern Judaism
22 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The beginnings of contemporary Jewry are often associated with Jewish figures in Western Europe such as Moses Mendelssohn. But in his book, The Geniu...
Marc Chagall: Reflections of a Granddaughter
19 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Marc Chagall is widely recognized as the preeminent Jewish artist of the 20th century, but little is known of his work to preserve Jewish culture. ...
Kalpana Karunakaran, "A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras" (Context, 2026)
18 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this intimate, yet simultaneously anthropological, exploration of the life of her maternal grandmother Pankajam (1911–2007), Kalpana Karunakaran ...
H. S. Jones, "Liberal Worlds: James Bryce and the Democratic Intellect" (Princeton UP, 2025)
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
James Bryce (1838–1922) was a leading figure in Britain’s Liberal Party and a distinguished historian, a versatile scholar-politician who moved se...
Ethelene Whitmire, "The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram" (Viking, 2026)
15 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
On the eve of World War II, a handsome young scholar arrived in Paris. The queer, Black son of a housecleaner, who had nevertheless been decorated in ...
Teresa Svoboda, "Hitler and My Mother-In-Law" (OR Books, 2025)
13 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Hitler and My Mother-in-Law (OR Books, 2025) is a riveting memoir that explores the intersection of truth—both familial and political—through the...
Dana A. Williams, "Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship" (Amistad, 2025)
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
An insightful exploration that unveils the lesser-known dimensions of this legendary writer and her legacy, revealing the cultural icon's profound imp...
Glen Oglaza, "When I Stories" (Pegasus, 2024)
09 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As news reporters, we are in the story-telling business, the eye witnesses to history, writing, it's said, ‘the first draft of history'. T...
Charles Delgadillo and James Stacey, eds., "Heartland Utopia: William Allen White on the Ideal Midwestern Town" (UP of Kansas, 2026)
09 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
For William Allen White, the ideal Midwestern community was a utopian vision of what America could be: a prosperous, happy community built on equality...
Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry | Filmmaker Q&A
07 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
February 24—Following a screening of the documentary Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry during the weekend of Feb. 20–22, 2026, filmmaker L...
Vladka Meed's "On Both Sides of the Wall"
06 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Vladka Meed, born Feigele Peltel, was just a teenager when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939. Increasingly devastated by the deportation and murde...
Daniel Brook, "The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin" (W. W. Norton & Co, 2025)
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
More than a century ago, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, dubbed the "Einstein of Sex," grew famous (and infamous) for his liberating theory of sexual relativit...
Richard Vinen, "The Last Titians: How Churchill and De Gaulle Saved Their Nations and Transformed the World" (Simon & Schuster, 2026)
04 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A compelling dual biography of Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle that shines new light on two of the greatest figures of the 20th century.Winsto...
Ani DiFranco and Lauren Coyle Rosen, "The Spirit of Ani: Reflections on Spirituality, Feminism, Music, and Freedom" (Akashic Books, 2026)
03 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Rebekah Buchanan talks with Ani DiFranco about her latest collaborative work The Spirit of Ani: Reflections on Spirituality, Feminism, Music and Free...
Coming Out as Dalit with Yashica Dutt
02 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This episode features Yashica Dutt, journalist and author of Coming Out as Dalit. We began with a discussion of her choice to write a memoir, the sig...
E. T. Dailey, "Radegund: The Trials and Triumphs of a Merovingian Queen" (Oxford UP, 2023)
02 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A princess born to the Thuringian royal house. A captive in war, forced to marry the Frankish king who killed her family. A queen, who renounced her p...
Michael Glover Smith, "Bob Dylan as Filmmaker: No Time to Think" (McNidder and Grace, 2026)
28 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A deep dive into one of the most overlooked -- and fascinating -- sides of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature winner: Bob Dylan, the filmmaker. While ...
Preacher, Teacher, and Founder: On Princeton's famous President, John Witherspoon
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Madison’s Notes is back and with a new host, Ryan Shinkel. In this episode to start off Season 5, I interview Dr. Kevin DeYoung, a popular author,...
Seamus McElearney with Barbara Finkelstein, "Flipping Capo: How the FBI Dismantled the Real Sopranos" (Chicago Review Press, 2025)
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Séamus McElearney's early days on an FBI organized crime squad were full of grunt work. For months he was mired in administrative tasks, including t...
John Beyer, "Live a Little Better: One Man's Journey of Survival, Sobriety, and Success" (Worth, 2025)
25 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
John Beyer is the founder and owner of Men on the Move, one of the East Coast's premier moving and self-storage companies. While although John's journ...
Anna-Luna Post, "Galileo’s Fame: Science, Credibility, and Memory in the Seventeenth Century" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2025)
25 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
From the beginning of Galileo’s career, well before the publication of the Sidereus Nuncius, his contemporaries took pains to shape his reputation...
Zalman Newfield, "Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of Hasidism" (Temple UP, 2026)
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn as a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community, Zalman Newfield was raised in an atmosphe...
American Masterpiece: The Civil War Diaries of George Templeton Strong with Brenda Wineapple and Geoff Wisner
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Wednesday, February 18—Called “the greatest American diary of the nineteenth century,” the journal of the patrician New York City lawyer George ...
Ananya Vajpeyi, "Place: Intimate Encounters with Cities" (Women Unlimited Ink, 2025)
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
'In the five years that I tacked incessantly between Delhi, Venice and Istanbul, two questions plagued me: How do we lose what we lose? Why do we love...
Mai Serhan, "I Can Imagine It for Us: A Palestinian Daughter's Memoir" (American University in Cairo Press, 2025)
21 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
I Can Imagine It for Us: A Palestinian Daughter's Memoir (American University in Cairo Press, 2025) is a young woman’s search for connection with ...
Ray Yep, "Man in a Hurry: Murray MacLehose and Colonial Autonomy in Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2024)
20 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Man in a Hurry: Murray MacLehose and Colonial Autonomy in Hong Kong (Hong Kong UP, 2024), Ray Yep explores the latest available archival mater...
Carla Kaplan, "Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford" (Harper, 2025)
18 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
My guest today is Carla Kaplan, the author of Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford (Harper, 2025). In Troublemaker, Kaplan...
Brian Hallstoos, "Sol Butler: An Olympian's Odyssey through Jim Crow America" (U Illinois Press, 2026)
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A superstar in both football and track and field Sol Butler pioneered the parlaying of sports fame into business prosperity. In Sol Butler: An Oly...
Cindy Schweich Handler, "A German Jew's Triumph: Fritz Oppenheimer and the Denazification of Germany" (McFarland, 2025)
16 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Cindy Schweich Handler’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Redbook, The Huffington Post, and a host of ot...
Ian Gittins, "The Cure: A Perfect Dream" (Gemini Books, 2025)
12 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The story of The Cure: a tall tale of a truly unique British band. The Cure's story is a fantastical pop fable, but their trajectory has not been one...
Elizabeth A. DeWolfe, "Alias Agnes: The Notorious Tale of a Gilded Age Spy" (UP of Kentucky, 2025)
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Jane Armstrong Tucker was a Boston stenographer scrabbling to get by as a single woman in the Gilded Age, until she was offered a once-in-a-lifetime c...
Karen Bermann, "The Art of Being a Stranger: A Family Memoir" (New Jewish Press, 2025)
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Karen Bermann grew up in the mad orbit of her father, Fritz, the rebellious child of a Viennese Orthodox Jewish family who fled Europe alone as an ado...
Nicholas Boggs, "Baldwin: A Love Story" (FSG, 2025)
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Baldwin: A Love Story (FSG, 2025) the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, reveals how profoundly the writer’s personal relati...
Marc Mierowsky, "A Spy Amongst Us: Daniel Defoe's Secret Service and the Plot to End Scottish Independence" (Yale UP, 2026)
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In 1706, Edinburgh was on the brink of a popular uprising. Men and women took to the streets to protest the planned union with England, fearing the en...
Matti Friedman, "Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai" (Spiegel & Grau, 2022)
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In October 1973, the poet and singer Leonard Cohen—thirty-nine years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end—traveled from his home on t...
Chris Washburn and Ron Chepesiuk, "Out of Bounds: From Broken NBA Dreams to Redemption" (WildBlue Press, 2025)
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Highly promising basketball player Chris Washburn was selected third overall in the 1986 NBA Draft by the Golden State Warriors. But a chance encounte...
Joshua D. Zimmerman, "Jozef Pilsudski: Founding Father of Modern Poland" (Harvard UP, 2022)
08 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1920s, Józef Piłsudski was a household name not just in Poland, but across Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean as well. Yet this complex and...
Garrett Felber, "A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre" (AK Press, 2025)
06 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The first biography of the revolutionary political prisoner who laid the foundation for contemporary abolitionist struggles and Black anarchism. A Co...
164 Maurice Samuels: Jewish Assimilation, Integration and the Dreyfus Affair (JP)
05 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to the condition of Jews in Christian Europe, France was long known as the haven and heartland of integration and of toleration. And yet...
Dianna N. Watkins-Dickerson, "A Black Woman for President: Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun, and Kamala Harris" (UP of Mississippi)
04 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout US history, only three Black women—Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun, and Kamala Harris—have given successfully recognized bids for...
Sunny Dhillon, "Hide and Sikh: Letters from a Life in Brown Skin" (Wolsak and Wynn, 2025)
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Sunny Dhillon about his book, Hide & Sikh: Letters from a Life in Brown Skin (Wolsak & Wynn, 20...
Janet Kintner, "A Judge’s Tale: A Trailblazer Fights for her Place on the Bench" (She Writes Press, 2025)
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Janet Kintner survived a difficult father and several assaults, but she didn’t let any of it stop her from pursuing law school as one of three women...
Peter Stansky, "The Socialist Patriot: George Orwell and War" (Stanford UP, 2023)
31 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Few English writers wielded a pen so sharply as George Orwell, the quintessential political writer of the twentieth century. His literary output at on...
Najati Sidqi, "Memoirs of a Palestinian Communist: The Secret Life of Najati Sidqi" (U Texas Press, 2025)
30 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the public eye, Najati Sidqi was known as a journalist and writer, a translator of Russian classics, and an outspoken opponent of Nazism. However, ...
Thomas Aiello, "Return of the King: The Rebirth of Muhammad Ali and the Rise of Atlanta" (U Nebraska Press, 2025)
30 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Return of the King: The Rebirth of Muhammad Ali and the Rise of Atlanta (U Nebraska Press, 2025) tells the story of Muhammad Ali’s return to th...
Betty Boyd Caroli, "A Slumless America: Mary K. Simkhovitch and the Dream of Affordable Housing" (Oxford UP, 2026)
28 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Betty Boyd Caroli's biography of Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch is the first full-length work on a seminal figure in the settlement house movement, which ...
Duy Lap Nguyen, "Walter Benjamin and the Critique of Political Economy: A New Historical Materialism" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Walter Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual and philosopher associated with the Frankfurt School, who tragically died at 48 years old in 1940 as ...
Robert P. Kolker and Nathan Abrams, "Kubrick: An Odyssey" (Pegasus Books, 2024)
24 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The definitive biography of the creator of 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, and A Clockwork Orange, presenting the most in-depth portrait yet o...
Ben Ratliff, "Run the Song: Writing About Running About Listening" (Graywolf Press, 2025)
23 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Ben Ratliff is the author of Every Song Ever and Coltrane: The Story of a Sound, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. ...
Andrew Burstein, "Being Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
21 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The deepest dive yet into the heart and soul, secret affairs, unexplored alliances, and bitter feuds of a generally worshipped, intermittently revi...
Christopher Lynch, "Formulating Foster: Stephen C. Foster and the Creation of a National Musical Myth" (Oxford UP, 2025)
19 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen C. Foster (1826–1864) was a prolific song composer. A few of his minstrel tunes have become so enmeshed in American musical culture that the...
Oline Eaton, "Finding Jackie: The Second Act of America's First Lady" (Diversion Books, 2023)
18 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, Finding Jackie: A Life Reinvented (Diversion Books, 2023), scholar and writer Oline Eaton examines the story of an era's biggest...
Giles Tremlett, "El Generalísimo: A Biography of Francisco Franco" (Oxford UP, 2025)
17 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
From a scrawny, overlooked military graduate to the youngest general in Europe, Francisco Franco was known for his ambition, talent and calculated ris...
Everything Is Fine, I'll Just Work Harder: Confessions of a Former Badass
15 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Everything Is Fine, I’ll Just Work Harder: Confessions of A Former Badass (Street Noise Books, 2025), Professor Cara Gormally draws us in...
Luiz Guilherme Burlamaqui, "The Making of Global FIFA: Cold War Politics and the Rise of João Havelange to the FIFA Presidency, 1950-1974" (De Gruyter, 2023)
14 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by Luiz Guilherme Burlamaqui, author of The Making of Global FIFA: Cold War Politics and the Rise of João Havelange to the FIFA ...
Vanessa Díaz and Petra R. Rivera-Rideau, "P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance" (Duke UP, 2026)
14 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance (Duke UP, 2026) explores the work of Puerto Rican musical superstar Bad Bu...
Chris Boucher, "Harry "Bucky" Lew: A Biography of the First Black Professional Basketball Player" (McFarland, 2026)
11 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Harry "Bucky" Lew leapt over pro basketball's color wall in 1902 and continued to integrate every single role in the game over the next 25 years. He w...
Matthew Kennedy, "On Elizabeth Taylor: An Opinionated Guide" (Oxford UP, 2024)
11 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the oceans of ink devoted to the monumental movie star/businesswoman/political activist Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (1932-2011), her beauty and not-s...
Stuart Klawans, "Crooked, But Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges" (Columbia UP, 2023)
10 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In a burst of creativity unmatched in Hollywood history, Preston Sturges directed a string of all-time classic comedies from 1939 through 1948--The Gr...
David Morris, "Stealing The Future: Sam Bankman-Fried, Elite Fraud, and the Cult of Techno-Utopia" (Watkins Media, 2025)
07 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Stealing the Future is the first book to tell the true and full story of Sam Bankman-Fried and his historic crimes. It chronicles the $11 billion FTX...
Bo Tao, "Cooperative Evangelist: Kagawa Toyohiko and His World, 1888-1960" (U Hawaii Press, 2025)
06 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Cooperative Evangelist: Kagawa Toyohiko and His World, 1888-1960 (University of Hawai’i Press, 2025) by Bo Tao uncovers the extraordinary world of ...
Kelsey Klotz, "Dave Brubeck and the Performance of Whiteness" (Oxford UP, 2023)
05 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How can we—jazz fans, musicians, writers, and historians—understand the legacy and impact of a musician like Dave Brubeck? It is undeniable that B...