New Books in Biography & Memoir

Blanche Bendahan, "Mazaltob: A Novel" (Brandeis UP, 2024)

24 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Raised in the Judería or Jewish quarter of Tetouan, Morocco, at the turn of the 20th-century, sixteen-year-old Mazaltob finds herself betrothed to Jo...

Mary Flannery, "Geoffrey Chaucer: Unveiling the Merry Bard" (Reaktion Books, 2024)

22 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For over six centuries, Chaucer has epitomized poetic greatness, though more recent treatments of The Canterbury Tales’ lively and often risqué s...

Susan Tate Ankeny, "American Flygirl" (Citadel Press, 2024)

20 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1931, Hazel Ying Lee, a nineteen-year-old American daughter of Chinese immigrants, sat in on a friend’s flight lesson. It changed her life. In le...

Janet Sherfund, "Abandoned at Birth: Searching for the Arms that Once Held Me" (Worth, 2024)

19 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Adoption is often painted as a happy, inspirational act—a baby finds a family and lives happily ever after. But the truth is that adopted children e...

The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at the New Yorker

19 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Our book is: The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at the New Yorker (Mariner Books, 2024) by Dr. Amy Reading, which is a lively and intimate bi...

Xian Wang, "Gendered Memories: An Imaginary Museum for Ding Ling and Chinese Female Revolutionary Martyrs" (U Michigan Press, 2025)

19 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Gendered Memories: An Imaginary Museum for Ding Ling and Chinese Female Revolutionary Martyrs (U Michigan Press, 2025) takes readers on a journey th...

Ruby Lowe on John Milton’s Definition of Free Speech

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

British poet John Milton published one of the earliest and still tremendously important defenses of free speech for our modern world. From his famous ...

Mary Frances Phillips, "Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins" (NYU Press, 2025)

17 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this groundbreaking biography, Mary Frances Phillips immerses readers in the life and legacy of Ericka Huggins, a revered Black Panther Party membe...

Caroline Topperman, "Your Roots Cast a Shadow: One Family's Search across History for Belonging" (HCI, 2024)

16 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

NBN host Hollay Ghadery interviews Toronto author Caroline Topperman about her new book, Your Roots Cast a Shadow: One Family's Search Across Histor...

Kenneth Roth, "Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments" (Knopf, 2025)

15 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For three decades, Kenneth Roth led Human Rights Watch, transforming it from a small advocacy group into one of the most influential human rights o...

Jay Prosser, "Loving Strangers: A Camphorwood Chest, a Legacy, a Son Returns" (Black Spring Press, 2024)

14 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A family memoir that builds a bridge across the terrible divides of our times. It’s a Jewish book, but not Just a Jewish book. It moves Jewish writi...

The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn

13 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Our book is: The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) by award-winning historian ...

Alisse Waterston, "My Father's Wars: Migration, Memory, and the Violence of a Century" (Routledge, 2024)

11 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On the podcast today I am joined by Presidential Scholar and Professor Emerita of Anthropology at John Jay College, City University of New York, Aliss...

Jeff Copeland, "Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn" (Feral House, 2025)

11 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn (Feral House, 2025), Jeff Copeland brings readers into Hollywood in the 1980s and shares his story of writing a b...

Stan Bunger, "Mornings with Madden: My Radio Life With An American Legend" (Triumph, 2024)

08 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

John Madden is synonymous with football. He was the television face and voice of the nation's most popular sport, the namesake of its best-selling spo...

Thanks to Life: A Biography of Violeta Parra

06 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Our book is: Thanks to Life: A Biography of Violeta Parra (UNC Press, 2025), by Ericka Verba, which explores the life of Chilean musician and artist...

Rosemary Wakeman, "The Worlds of Victor Sassoon: Bombay, London, Shanghai, 1918–1941" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

06 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The 1920s and 1930s were a period of cosmopolitan globalization–and no one, perhaps, exemplified it more than Victor Sassoon, business tycoon, trade...

Ann Schmiesing, "The Brothers Grimm: A Biography" (Yale UP, 2024)

04 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ann Schmiesing, Ph.D. is Professor of German and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder, with research interests spanning 18th and...

Jean Strouse, "Family Romance: John Singer Sargent and the Wertheimers" (FSG, 2024)

04 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At the height of his career, Sargent painted twelve portraits of the Wertheimer family, commissioned by Asher Wertheimer, a German-Jewish London art d...

Elio Zarmati, "Goodbye, Tahrir Square: Coming of Age as a Jew of the Nile" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2025)

03 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Goodbye, Tahrir Square: Coming of Age as a Jew of the Nile (Cherry Orchard Books, 2025) is a first-person memoir written from the standpoint of a Jew...

Alexis Wolf, "Transnational Women Writers in the Wilmot Coterie, 1798-1840" (Boydell Press, 2024)

03 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What were two Irish sisters doing in Russia during the early years of the nineteenth century, editing the French-language memoirs of a princess who h...

Yves Rees, "Travelling to Tomorrow: How Australia's Modern Women Pioneered Our Romance with the United States" (New South, 2024)

02 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A celebrity decorator with blue hair. A single mother who advised JFK in the Oval Office. A Christian nudist with a passion for almond milk. As explor...

Lionel Barber, "Gambling Man: The Wild Ride of Japan’s Masayoshi Son" (Atria, 2024)

01 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As Wall Street swooned and boomed through the last decade, our livelihoods have—now more than ever—come to rely upon the good sense and risk appet...

Anand Venkatkrishnan, "Love in the Time of Scholarship: The Bhagavata Purana in Indian Intellectual History" (Oxford UP, 2024)

30 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Where is the "life" in scholarly life? Is it possible to find in academic writing, so often abstracted from the everyday? How might religion bridge th...

About Spider-Mother: The Fiction and Politics of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain

30 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Ben Baer and Smaran Dayal about About Spider-Mother: The Fiction and Politics of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain.  Pioneering Indian Musl...

Peter Brian Barry, "George Orwell: The Ethics of Equality" (Oxford UP, 2023)

29 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

George Orwell is sometimes read as disinterested in (if not outright hostile) to philosophy. Yet a fair reading of Orwell's work reveals an author who...

Christopher Burnham, "Sir Ronald Storrs: Personality and Policy in Mandate Palestine, 1917-1926" (Routledge, 2024)

28 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This volume utilises the personal papers of Sir Ronald Storrs, as well as other archival materials, to make a microhistorical investigation of his per...

Vera Keller, "Curating the Enlightenment: Johann Daniel Major and the Experimental Century" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

27 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How did the research universities of the Enlightenment come into being? And what debt do they owe to scholars of the previous era? Focusing on the car...

The Cambridge Centennial Edition of The Great Gatsby

25 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Great Gatsby is often called the great American novel. Emblematic of an entire era, F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic tale of illicit desire, grand il...

The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe

23 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Henry Christophe was born to an enslaved mother on the Caribbean island of Grenada, and fought to overthrow the British in North America before helpin...

Michael Ray Richardson, "Banned: How I Squandered an All-Star NBA Career Before Finding My Redemption" (Sports Publishing, 2024)

18 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Ray Richardson was a star in the making. After a stellar collegiate career at the University of Montana, where he was voted first team All-Big...

Patchen Barss, "The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius" (Basic Books, 2024)

18 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When he was six years old, Roger Penrose discovered a sundial in a clearing near his house. Through that machine made of light, shadow, and time, Roge...

Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany

09 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Our book is: Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins’s Efforts To Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany (Citadel Press, 2025)  by Dr. Rebecca Bre...

Joel Whitebook, "Freud: An Intellectual Biography" (Cambridge UP, 2017)

07 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We interview Dr. Joel Whitebook, philosopher and psychoanalyst about his book Freud: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge UP, 2017). Dr. Whitebook w...

Amy Aronson, "Chrystal Eastman: A Revolutionary Life" (Oxford UP, 2019)

05 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Amy Aronson is an Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Fordham University and former editor at Working Woman and Ms. magazines. Her ...

Stuart Elden, "The Early Foucault" (Polity Press, 2021)

03 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What were the key ideas and influences on Michel Foucault’s early career? In The Early Foucault (Polity Press, 2021), Stuart Elden, Professor of...

Carl Rollyson, "The Life of William Faulkner: The Past Is Never Dead, 1897-1934" (UVA Press, 2020)

02 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As a novelist, short story author, screenwriter, and Nobel laureate, William Faulkner looms large in modern American literature. Yet the very range of...

Donna Tesiero, "A Revolutionary Woman: Elizabeth Freeman and the Abolition of Slavery in the North" (McFarland, 2024)

01 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At the end of the American Revolution, Elizabeth Freeman was an enslaved widow and mother living in Massachusetts. Hearing the words of the new Massac...

Frederick Crews, "Freud: The Making of an Illusion" (Picador, 2018)

31 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The figure of Sigmund Freud has captivated the Western imagination like few others. One hundred and twenty-five years after the publication of Studies...

Harvey J. Kaye, "The British Marxist Historians" (Zero Book, 2022)

29 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The British Marxist Historians, originally published in 1995, remains the first and most complete study of the founders of one of the most influentia...

Susanna Ashton, "A Plausible Man: The True Story of the Escaped Slave Who Inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin" (New Press, 2024)

29 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In December of 1850, a faculty wife in Brunswick, Maine, named Harriet Beecher Stowe hid a fugitive slave in her house. While John Andrew Jackson stay...

Emily Herring, "Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People" (Basic Books, 2024)

29 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People (Basic Books, 2024) is the first English-language biography of Henri B...

Peter Salmon, "An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida" (Verso, 2020)

28 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Who is Jacques Derrida? For some, he is the originator of a relativist philosophy responsible for the contemporary crisis of truth. For the far right,...

Daniel B. Hinshaw, "Journey to Simplicity: The Life and Wisdom of Archimandrite Roman Braga" (St Vladimirs Seminary Press, 2023)

27 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Daniel B. Hinshaw about his book Journey to Simplicity: The Life and Wisdom of Archimandrite Roman Braga (St Vladimirs Seminary P...

Linda M. Clemmons, "Unrepentant Dakota Woman: Angelique Renville & the Struggle for Indigenous Identity, 1845-1876" (SDHS Press, 2023)

22 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For much of her life, Angelique Renville had decisions made for her. Where to live, who to live with, where to attend school, what to do with her land...

Joseph McBride, "George Cukor's People: Acting for a Master Director" (Columbia UP, 2024)

21 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The director of classic films such as Sylvia Scarlett, The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adam's Rib, A Star Is Born, and My Fair Lady, George Cu...

Paul French, "Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties, and the Making of Wallis Simpson" (St. Martin's Press, 2024)

19 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When defenders of the British royal family scrounged around for dirt on Wallis Simpson, the divorced U.S.-born fiancee of King Edward VIII, they often...

Dianne Ashton and Melissa R. Klapper, "The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai" (NYU Press, 2024)

15 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Emma Mordecai lived an unusual life. She was Jewish when Jews comprised less than 1 percent of the population of the Old South, and unmarried in a cul...

Emanuela Trevisan Semi, "Taamrat Emmanuel: An Ethiopian Jewish Intellectual, Between Colonized and Colonizers" (Centro Primo Levi, 2018)

14 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Emanuela Trevisan Semi’s Taamrat Emmanuel: An Ethiopian Jewish Intellectual, Between Colonized and Colonizers (Centro Primo Levi, 2018) is an insi...

David J. Collins, SJ, "Disenchanting Albert the Great: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Magician" (Penn State UP, 2024)

12 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

David J Collins, SJ joins Jana Byars to talk about Disenchanting Albert the Great: the Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Magician (Penn State Press, ...

Beth Kaplan, "Finding the Jewish Shakespeare: The Life and Legacy of Jacob Gordin" (Syracuse UP, 2007)

12 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Born of an Anglican mother and a Jewish father who disdained religion, Kaplan knew little of her Judaic roots and less about her famed great-grandfath...

Rebecca Brenner Graham, "Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany" (Citadel Press, 2025)

10 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

She was the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, the longest-serving Labor Secretary, and an architect of the New Deal. Yet beyond these ce...

Henri Colt, "Becoming Modigliani" (Rake Press, 2024)

09 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Becoming Modigliani (Rake Press, 2024) is a comprehensive biography that delves into the troubled life of the Jewish-Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani...

F. K. Clementi, "South of My Dreams: Finding My American Home, A Memoir" (U South Carolina Press, 2024)

09 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

South of My Dreams: Finding My American Home, A Memoir (U South Carolina Press, 2024) by F. K. Clementi follows the adventures and misadventures of F...

Marlene L. Daut, "The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe" (Knopf, 2025)

08 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe (Knopf, 2025) is the essential biography of the controversial rebel, traito...

Jane Austen's Darkness: A Conversation with Julia Yost

04 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of Madison's Notes, we sit down with Julia Yost, senior editor at First Things and author of the new book Jane Austen's Darkness ...

Julie Salverson, "A Necessary Distance: Confessions of a Scriptwriter's Daughter" (Wolsak and Wynn, 2024)

01 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A Necessary Distance: Confessions of a Screenwriter’s Daughter (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024) by critically acclaimed author Julie Salverson braids together...

Keith Gandal, "Firsthand: How I Solved a Literary Mystery and Learned to Play Kickass Tennis While Coming to Grips with the Disorder of Things" (U Michigan Press, 2024)

01 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Firsthand: How I Solved a Literary Mystery and Learned to Play Kickass Tennis While Coming to Grips with the Disorder of Things (U Michigan Press, 20...

Seth Rogovoy, "Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison" (Oxford UP, 2024)

29 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Seth Rogovoy's latest book for Oxford University Press is called Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison (Oxford University Press, 2024...

Johanna Drucker, "Iliazd: A Meta-Biography of a Modernist" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)

29 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Johanna Drucker’s Iliazd: A Meta-Biography of a Modernist (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020) uncovers the enigmatic life and work of Ilia Zdan...

Mary Ellen Curtin, "She Changed the Nation: Barbara Jordan's Life and Legacy in Black Politics" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

28 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During her keynote speech at the 1976 Democratic Party convention, Barbara Jordan of Texas stood before a rapt audience and reflected on where America...

Denys Turner, "Dante the Theologian" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

27 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An understanding of Dante the theologian as distinct from Dante the poet has been neglected in an appreciation of Dante's work as a whole.  That is ...

Cornelia M. Spelman, "Solace" (Jackleg Press, 2024)

20 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do we become the persons we are? Cornelia Maude Spelman's Solace (Jackleg Press, 2024) seeks to answer that question. A portrait of the emotio...

Connie DeNave, "The Image Maker: Shattering Rock and Roll's Glass" (2023)

18 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The Image Maker: Shattering Rock and Roll's Glass Ceiling (2023), Connie DeNave shares her experiences in the public relations world during the...

Peter Worthing, "General He Yingqin: The Rise and Fall of Nationalist China" (Cambridge UP, 2016)

17 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

General He Yingqin: The Rise and Fall of Nationalist China (Cambridge UP, 2016) is a revisionist study of the career of General He Yingqin, one of t...

Karen M. Dunak, "Our Jackie: Public Claims on a Private Life" (NYU Press, 2024)

17 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis became First Lady of the United States over sixty years ago, she stepped into the public spotlight. Although Jackie is...

Deborah Parker, "Becoming Belle Da Costa Greene: A Visionary Librarian Through Her Letters" (Villa I Tatti, 2024)

16 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Becoming Belle da Costa Greene: A Visionary Librarian through Her Letters (Harvard University Press, October 2024), Deborah Parker chronicles th...

David Tereshchuk, "A Question of Paternity: My Life As an Unaffiliated Reporter" (Envelope Books, 2024)

15 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to David Tereshchuk about his memoir A Question of Paternity: My Life As an Unaffiliated Reporter (Envelope Books, 2024) Tereshchuk ...

Sara Glass, "Kissing Girls on Shabbat: A Memoir" (Atria, 2024)

13 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Growing up in the Hasidic community of Brooklyn’s Borough Park, Sara Glass knew one painful truth: what was expected of her and what she desperately...

Janusz Korczak, "How to Love a Child and Other Selected Works" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2018)

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How to Love a Child and Other Selected Works (Vallentine Mitchell, 2018) is the first comprehensive collection of Korczak's works translated into Eng...

Paul M. Renfro, "The Life and Death of Ryan White: AIDS and Inequality in America" (UNC Press, 2024)

10 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1980s, as HIV/AIDS ravaged queer communities and communities of color in the United States and beyond, a straight white teenager named Ryan Whi...

Rachel Zimmerman, "Us, After: A Memoir of Love and Suicide" (SFWP, 2024)

09 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Note: This episodes contains references to suicide. When a state trooper appeared at Rachel Zimmerman's door to report that her husband had jumped to ...

James M. Bradley, "Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician" (Oxford UP, 2024)

08 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Despite serving as the 8th president of the United States, Martin Van Buren gets little consideration for his impact on American history. In his new b...

John Duffus, "Backstage in Hong Kong: A Life with the Philharmonic, Broadway Musicals and Classical Superstars" (Blacksmith Books, 2024)

07 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, the Hong Kong Philharmonic is one of the world’s great symphony orchestras. But when John Duffus landed in Hong Kong in 1979 as the Philharmo...

Karine Rashkovsky, "An Improbable Life: My Father's Escape from Soviet Russia" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2024)

05 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From evading the KGB and disassembling a downed American plane to narrowly escaping a life sentence in Siberia, Reuven Rashkovsky’s story is a gripp...

Douglas J. Engelman, "A Boy Broken: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Mental Illness, Loss, and a Search for Meaning" (2023)

04 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In A Boy Broken: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Mental Ilness, Loss, and a Search for Meaning (2023), Dr. Douglas J. Engelman takes us t...

Avi Shlaim, "Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew" (Oneworld, 2024)

03 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In July 1950, Avi Shlaim, only five, and his family were forced into exile, fleeing from their beloved Iraq into the new state of Israel. Now the rump...

Phuc Tran, "Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In" (Flatiron Books, 2020)

02 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong, Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In (Flatiron Book...

Mirin Fader, "Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon" (Hachette, 2024)

02 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s now the norm for NBA and collegiate teams to have international players dotting their rosters. The Olympics are no longer a gimme for Team USA....

Richard Schoch, "How Sondheim Can Change Your Life" (Atria Books, 2024)

01 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For fans of musical theatre, Stephen Sondheim is one of the true titans – the genius who brought us Sweeney Todd and West Side Story, Into the Woods...

Ronald Drabkin, "Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor" (William Morrow, 2024)

31 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Frederick Rutland—”Rutland of Jutland”—was a war hero, renowned World War I aviator…and a Japanese spy. In the years leading up to Pearl Har...

Rajbir Singh Judge, "Prophetic Maharaja: Loss, Sovereignty, and the Sikh Tradition in Colonial South Asia" (Columbia UP, 2024)

30 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do traditions and peoples grapple with loss, particularly when it is of such magnitude that it defies the possibility of recovery or restoration? ...

Sharon Kinoshita, "Marco Polo and His World" (Reaktion Books, 2024)

26 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sharon Kinoshita talks with Jana Byars about her new book, Marco Polo and His World (Reaktion Press, 2024). A lavishly illustrated tour of the fame...

Bob Frishman, "Edward Duffield: Philadelphia Clockmaker, Citizen, Gentleman, 1730-1803" (APS Press, 2024)

23 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Edward Duffield (1730–1803) was a colonial Philadelphia clockmaker, whose elegant brass, mahogany, and walnut timekeepers stand proudly in major Ame...

John Freed, “Frederick Barbarossa: The Prince and the Myth” (Yale UP, 2016)

22 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For all of his importance as a medieval ruler, there are surprisingly few biographies in English of the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa (c. 1122-1...

S. L. Wisenberg, "The Adventures of Cancer Bitch" (Tortoise Books, 2024)

22 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s 2006, and S. L. Wisenberg is teaching writing at one of Chicago’s great universities and living a busy life when she’s gobsmacked by a sudd...

Amy Reading, "The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker" (Mariner Books, 2024)

18 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the summer of 1925, Katharine Sergeant Angell White walked into The New Yorker's midtown office and left with a job as an editor. The magazine was...

Anne Higonnet, "Liberty Equality Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution" (Norton, 2024)

18 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Joséphine Bonaparte, future Empress of France; Térézia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Récamier, muse of intellectuals, ...

Thomas Weber, “Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi” (Basic Books, 2017)

18 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Few would dispute that Hitler’s ideas led to war and genocide. Less clear however, is how and when those ideas developed. In his latest book, Becomi...

Suganya Anandakichenin, "The Monsoon Cloud: Poet Kāḷamēkam and His Irreverent Poetry" (Primus, 2024)

17 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A wordsmith, an extempore poet and a satirist, Kāḷamēkam (also known as Kāḷamēka Pulavar; fifteenth century) is widely known for his taṉippā...

Jennifer Lang, "Landed: A Yogi's Memoir in Pieces & Poses" (Vine Leaves Press, 2024)

17 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In her latest memoir, Landed: A Yogi's Memoir of Places & Poses (2024, Vine Leaves Press),  American-born Jennifer traces her journey-both on and...

Oumelbanine Nina Zhiri, "Beyond Orientalism: Ahmad Ibn Qasim Al-Hajari Between Europe and North Africa" (U California Press, 2023)

16 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The first in-depth study of the collaborative intellectual exchange between the European and the Arabic Republics of Letters.  Beyond Orientalism: Ah...

Jackie Wang, "Alien Daughters Walk Into the Sun: An Almanac of Extreme Girlhood" (Semiotext(e), 2023)

14 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jackie Wang is a poet, scholar, multimedia artist, and Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California....

Aliza Arzt, "Turning the Pages: Conversations Through Time with Rabbi Isador Signer" (Ben Yehuda Press, 2024)

13 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Aliza Arzt about Turning the Pages: Conversations Through Time with Rabbi Isador Signer (Ben Yehuda Press, 2024) In 1924, Rabbi I...

Robert Gerwarth, “Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich” (Yale UP, 2012)

09 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Few history books sell better than biographies of Nazi leaders. They attract anyone even tangentially interested in World War Two or Nazi Germany. I...

Iris Jamahl Dunkle, "Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb" (U California Press, 2024)

06 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1939, when John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath was published, it became an instant bestseller and a prevailing narrative in the nation's collect...

Christopher Paul Clohessy, "Half of My Heart: The Narratives of Zaynab, Daughter of Alî" (Gorgias Press, 2020)

06 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Christopher Paul Clohessy about Half of My Heart: The Narratives of Zaynab, Daughter of Alî (Gorgias Press, 2020). As Abû ʿAbd...

Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s book is: Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action (University of R...

Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav, "Being Hindu, Being Indian: Lala Lajpat Rai’s Ideas of Nationhood" (India Viking, 2024)

29 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav’s book Being Hindu, Being Indian: Lala Lajpat Rai’s Ideas of Nationhood (Penguin Random House India, 2024) undertakes a s...

William H. F. Altman, "Plato the Teacher: The Crisis of the Republic" (Lexington, 2012)

24 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Plato the Teacher: The Crisis of the Republic (Lexington, 2012), William Altman shines a light on the pedagogical technique of the playful Plato,...