New Books in Biography & Memoir

Christina Rice, "Mean...Moody...Magnificent!: Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend" (UP of Kentucky, 2021)

28 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

By the early 1950s, Jane Russell (1921–2011) should have been forgotten. Her career was launched on what is arguably the most notorious advertising ...

Ravi Malhotra and Benjamin Isitt, eds., "Class Warrior: The Selected Works of E. T. Kingsley" (Athabasca UP, 2022)

28 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The socialist activist E. T. Kingsley occupies an odd place in the history of labor and the left. Often mentioned due to his prolific life of speaking...

Andrea Friederici Ross, "Edith: The Rogue Rockefeller McCormick" (Southern Illinois UP, 2020)

27 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Young Edith and her siblings had access to the best educators in the world, but the girls were not taught how to handle the family money; that respons...

Kieron Pim, "Endless Flight: The Life of Joseph Roth" (Granta Books, 2022)

26 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Endless Flight: The Life of Joseph Roth (Granta Books, 2022) travels with Roth from his childhood in the town of Brody on the eastern edge of the Au...

Jacob Norris, "The Lives and Deaths of Jubrail Dabdoub: Or, How the Bethlehemites Discovered Amerka" (Stanford UP, 2023)

25 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This is the fantastical, yet real, story of the merchants of Bethlehem, the young men who traveled to every corner of the globe in the nineteenth cent...

Rose Marshack, "Play Like a Man: My Life in Poster Children" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

20 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Play Like a Man: My Life in Poster Children (University of Illinois Press, 2023), Poster Children bassist Rose Marshack details her life in the ...

From China's Lost Generation to American Private Equity Professor

19 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Having lived through both China’s Great Leap Forward during primary school, then the Cultural Revolution and the closing of schools for ten years, B...

Magdalena J. Zaborowska, "James Baldwin’s Turkish Decade: Erotics of Exile" (Duke UP, 2009)

18 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Between 1961 and 1971 James Baldwin spent extended periods of time in Turkey, where he worked on some of his most important books. In this first in-de...

Book Talk 58: Vivian Gornick on Emma Goldman

17 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What Is to Be Done? In her luminous biography Emma Goldman: Revolution as a Way of Life (Yale UP, 2011), Vivian Gornick brings us back to this quest...

Sherine Tadros, "Taking Sides: A Memoir about Love, War, and Changing the World" (Scribe, 2023)

16 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Taking Sides: A Memoir about Love, War, and Changing the World (Scribe, 2023) is a personal memoir by Sherine Tadros, the United Nations Representati...

R. J. M. Blackett, "Samuel Ringgold Ward: A Life of Struggle" (Yale UP, 2023)

15 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Samuel Ringgold Ward (1817–c. 1869) escaped enslavement and would become a leading figure in the struggle for...

Stephen Prothero, "God, the Bestseller: How One Editor Transformed American Religion a Book at a Time" (HarperOne, 2023)

14 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed religion scholar, Stephen Prothero, captures the compelling and unique saga of twentieth-century Amer...

Illuminations Episode 1: Experimental Methods

12 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Have faith and science always been enemies? The story of Robert Hooke, a revolutionary working in the Scientific Revolution, exemplifies the ways in w...

Kelsey Klotz, "Dave Brubeck and the Performance of Whiteness" (Oxford UP, 2023)

12 Mar 2023

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...

Megan Buskey, "Ukraine Is Not Dead Yet: A Family Story of Exile and Return" (Ibidem-Verlag, 2023)

12 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Megan Buskey about her book Ukraine Is Not Dead Yet: A Family Story of Exile and Return (Ibidem-Verlag, 2023). When Megan Buskey’...

Robin L. Owens, "'My Faith in the Constitution Is Whole': Barbara Jordan and the Politics of Scriptures" (Georgetown UP, 2022)

11 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

US Congresswoman Barbara Jordan is well-known as an interpreter and defender of the Constitution, particularly through her landmark speech during Rich...

Brian Harker, "Sportin' Life: John W. Bubbles, an American Classic" (Oxford UP, 2022)

11 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

John W. Bubbles was an actor, singer, comedian, and most importantly, a dancer. Born in 1902, Bubbles was an innovator in the jazz tap style and half ...

Hilbourne A. Watson, "Errol Walton Barrow and the Postwar Transformation of Barbados: The Late Colonial Period" (U The West Indies Press, 2019)

09 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Beginning in the 1920s, Barbadians and other British West Indians began organizing politically in an international environment that was marked by a se...

Lillian Colon, "Lilly: The First Latina Rockette" (Lilly Enterprises, 2021)

07 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lilly: The First Latina Rockette (Lilly Enterprises, 2021) is the improbable story of a Puerto Rican toddler, confined by her father for 15 years to ...

Hilbourne A. Watson, "Errol Walton Barrow and the Postwar Transformation of Barbados: The Independence Period, 1966-1976" (U West Indies Press, 2020)

04 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hilbourne A. Watson's Errol Walton Barrow and the Postwar Transformation of Barbados: The Independence Period, 1966-1976 (U West Indies Press, 2020)...

Francine Lazarus, "A Hidden Jewish Child from Belgium: Survival, Scars and Healing" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2017)

03 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Francine Lazarus survived WWII in Belgium hidden with strangers, isolated from her family, and moved from place to place. She witnessed murder and was...

Priscilla Gilman, "The Critic's Daughter: A Memoir" (Norton, 2023)

03 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Growing up on the Upper West Side of New York City in the 1970s, in an apartment filled with dazzling literary and artistic characters, Priscilla Gilm...

Marilyn Migiel, "Veronica Franco in Dialogue" (U Toronto Press, 2022)

02 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since the late twentieth century, the Venetian courtesan Veronica Franco has been viewed as a triumphant proto-feminist icon: a woman who celebrated h...

Steve Kemper, "Our Man in Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor" (Mariner Books, 2022)

02 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the years leading up to the Second World War, the U.S. was represented in Japan by Ambassador Joseph Grew: born from a patrician family, Harvard-ed...

Margaret Hall, "Gemignani: Life and Lessons from Broadway and Beyond" (Applause Books, 2022)

01 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Margaret Hall's Gemignani: Life and Lessons from Broadway and Beyond (Applause Books, 2022) is the definitive book on Broadway's greatest music dir...

Lara Gabrielle, "Captain of Her Soul: The Life of Marion Davies" (U California Press, 2022)

27 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From Marion Davies's humble days in Brooklyn to her rise to fame alongside press baron William Randolph Hearst, the public life story of the film star...

Jonathan W. White and Lydia J. Davis, ed., "My Work Among the Freedmen: The Civil War and Reconstruction Letters of Harriet M. Buss" (U Virginia Press, 2021)

26 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Between 1863 and 1871, Harriet M. Buss of Sterling, Massachusetts, taught former slaves in three different regions of the South, in coastal South Caro...

Anthony Bale, "Margery Kempe: A Mixed Life" (Reaktion Books, 2022)

25 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Margery Kempe: A Mixed Life (Reaktion Books, 2022) is a new account of the medieval mystic and pilgrim Margery Kempe. Kempe, who had fourteen childr...

Joseph T. Stuart, "Christopher Dawson: A Cultural Mind in the Age of the Great War" (Catholic U of America Press, 2022)

24 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) was a British historian who was deeply shaken by the Great War (1914-1918) and sought to explore the history of differe...

Leonard C. Spitale, "Victorine Du Pont: The Force Behind the Family" (U Delaware Press, 2022)

24 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Victorine Elizabeth du Pont, the first child of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont and his wife Sophie, was seven years old when her family emigrated to Amer...

Jeffrey J. Matthews, "Colin Powell: Imperfect Patriot" (U Notre Dame Press, 2019)

24 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Until he passed away in 2021, Colin Powell was revered as one of America's most trusted and admired leaders. Jeffrey J. Matthews' Colin Powell: Imper...

Ashley Brown, "Serving Herself: The Life and Times of Althea Gibson" (Oxford UP, 2023)

24 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From her start playing paddle tennis on the streets of Harlem as a young teenager to her eleven Grand Slam tennis wins to her professional golf career...

Deborah Holt Larkin, "A Lovely Girl: The Tragedy of Olga Duncan and the Trial of California's Most Notorious Killer" (Pegasus Crime, 2022)

22 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In A Lovely Girl: The Tragedy of Olga Duncan and the Trial of California's Most Notorious Killer (Pegasus Crime, 2022), Deborah Larkin tells the inc...

Lynn Cullen, "The Woman with the Cure" (Berkley Books, 2023)

19 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The essential contribution of The Woman with the Cure (Berkley Books, 2023) can be summarized in one sentence: like most of its future readers (I as...

Patrick Bixby, "Unaccompanied Traveler: The Writings of Kathleen M. Murphy" (Syracuse UP, 2021)

18 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

At the time of her death in 1962, Kathleen M. Murphy was recognized as “the most widely and most knowledgeably travelled Irish woman of her time . ....

Stephen F. Knott, "Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy" (UP of Kansas, 2022)

16 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Political Scientist and presidential scholar Stephen Knott has a new book specifically focusing on the 35th president, John F. Kennedy. This book is ...

Nic Brown, "Bang Bang Crash: A Memoir" (Counterpoint, 2023)

14 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In his memoir, Bang Bang Crash (Counterpoint, 2023), Nic Brown shares his experiences as a rock and roll drummer who abandons his successful musi...

Mike Westhoff, "Figure It Out: My Thirty-Two-Year Journey While Revolutionizing Pro Football's Special Teams" (Mascot Books, 2022)

11 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Simply put, Mike Westhoff is the greatest special teams coach in National Football League history. Sharp-witted, creative, and intensely focused, West...

Winston James, "Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik" (Columbia UP, 2022)

11 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

One of the foremost Black writers and intellectuals of his era, Claude McKay (1889–1948) was a central figure in Caribbean literature, the Harlem Re...

“Tech” Journalism and the Many Lives of Stewart Brand

07 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Journalist John Markoff has been writing about Silicon Valley for over forty years. In this interview with Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel, Markoff t...

Ben Burgis, "Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters" (Zero Books, 2022)

07 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters (Zero Books, 2022), Ben Burgis reminds readers about what wa...

Geoffrey Roberts, "Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books" (Yale UP, 2022)

06 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this engaging life of the twentieth century’s most self-consciously learned dictator, Geoffrey Roberts explores the books Stalin read, how he rea...

Alan Verskin, "Diary of a Black Jewish Messiah: The Sixteenth-Century Journey of David Reubeni Through Africa, the Middle East, and Europe" (Stanford UP, 2023)

06 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1524, a man named David Reubeni appeared in Venice, claiming to be the ambassador of a powerful Jewish kingdom deep in the heart of Arabia. In this...

Otherness, Disability, and Beauty: A Conversation with Pulitzer finalist Chloé Cooper Jones

31 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This episode of How To Be Wrong is about humility, beauty and the ways in which our society dictates the nature and boundaries of what is deemed beaut...

Book Talk 57: Anne Fernald and Rajgopal Saikumar on Virginia Woolf's "Three Guineas" (1938)

30 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Virginia Woolf’s 1938 provocative and polemical essay Three Guineas presents the iconic writer’s views on war, women, and the way the patriarchy...

Vona Groarke, "Hereafter: The Telling Life of Ellen O'Hara" (NYU Press, 2022)

29 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ellen O'Hara was a young immigrant from Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century who, with courage and resilience, made a life for herself in New ...

George Anton Kiraz, "Water the Willow Tree: Memoirs of a Bethlehem Boyhood" (Gorgias Press, 2022)

29 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Water the Willow Tree: Memoirs of a Bethlehem Boyhood (Gorgias Press, 2022), George A. Kiraz tells the story of a young Palestinian boy growing u...

Oline Eaton, "Finding Jackie: The Second Act of America's First Lady" (Diversion Books, 2023)

24 Jan 2023

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...

Dick Weissman, "Bob Dylan's New York: A Historic Guide" (SUNY Press, 2022)

22 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

New York has long been a city where people go to reinvent themselves. And since the dawn of the twentieth century, New York City’s Greenwich Village...

Richard Bradford, "Tough Guy: The Life of Norman Mailer" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

20 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, firstly in 1969 for The Armies of the Night and again in 1980 for The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer's life ...

The Thought of Ivan Illich

20 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Author L. M. Sacasas talks about the life, thought, and legacy of the Catholic priest, philosopher, and social critic Ivan Illich with Peoples & Thing...

We Shall Overcome: Sister Thea Bowman and the Black Catholic Experience

18 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Though we are all one—“there is neither Jew nor Greek,” St. Paul wrote to the Galatians—each of us brings a particular heritage to the mosaic ...

Elia Meghnagi, "Escape from Benghazi: Diary of an Imposter" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2022)

15 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Elia Meghnagi last saw his childhood home in Benghazi when he was only seventeen. A member of the endangered and fast-shrinking millennia-old Jewish c...

Holy Paradox and St. Teresa of Ávila: Mysticism in Sixteenth Century Spain

15 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Carlos Eire, author of The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila: A Biography (2019) and professor of medieval and early modern European history and religion...

On Émile Durkheim's "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life" (1912)

15 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Steven Lukes about Émile Durkheim's classic The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912). Lukes is the author of Emile Durkhei...

Donna Stein, "Archaeology of Metaphor: The Art of Gilah Yelin Hirsch" (Skira, 2022)

14 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Characterized by a search for meaning, Hirsch’s oeuvre connects psychological, scientific, and philosophical implications of form, bringing together...

Marxists and Mystics: A Vatican Journalist Discusses her Biography of Madeleine Delbrêl and the New Papal Constitution

13 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Vatican journalist Colleen Dulle discusses her biography of the French Mystic Madeleine Delbrêl, author of The Marxist City as Mission Territory (195...

Paul S. Landau, "Spear: Mandela and the Revolutionaries" (Ohio UP, 2022)

13 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the middle of the twentieth century, in South Africa, Nelson Mandela organized a group of revolutionary freedom fighters to openly denounce the rac...

Wout J. van Bekkum, "The Religious Poetry of El'azar Ben Ya'aqov Ha-Bavli (Baghdad, 13th C.)" (Brill, 2022)

12 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Wout J. van Bekkum's The Religious Poetry of El'azar Ben Ya'aqov Ha-Bavli (Baghdad, 13th C.) (Brill, 2022) is a comprehensive edition of Hebrew hym...

Restless Pilgrims: About CS Lewis

11 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

David Bates, Catholic apologist and CS Lewis expert, reflects upon Lewis's conversion (how he was 'surprised by joy'), how his reason confirmed his fe...

Sarah Imhoff, "The Lives of Jessie Sampter: Queer, Disabled, Zionist" (Duke UP, 2022)

11 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Lives of Jessie Sampter: Queer, Disabled, Zionist (Duke UP, 2022), Sarah Imhoff tells the story of an individual full of contradictions. Jess...

Richard Wolin, "Heidegger in Ruins: Between Philosophy and Ideology" (Yale UP, 2023)

10 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean when a radical understanding of National Socialism is inextricably embedded in the work of the twentieth century's most important ph...

Albert Glinsky, "Switched On: Bob Moog and the Synthesizer Revolution" (Oxford UP, 2022)

07 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Moog synthesizer ‘bent the course of music forever’ Rolling Stone declared. Bob Moog, the man who did that bending, was a lovable geek with Ei...

Peter Hudis, "Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades" (Pluto Press, 2015)

07 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) was a Caribbean and African psychiatrist, philosopher and revolutionary whose works, including Black Skin, White Masks and Th...

Ellen Cassedy, "Working 9 to 5: A Women's Movement, a Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie" (Chicago Review Press, 2022)

06 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Ellen Cassedy about her new book  Working 9 to 5: A Women's Movement, a Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie (Chicago Review Press, ...

Vanessa A. Bee, "Home Bound: An Uprooted Daughter's Reflections on Belonging" (Astra, 2022)

04 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Vanessa A. Bee is a consumer protection lawyer with a freelancing habit. Primarily interested in inequality, corporate power, the American Left, and W...

Aaron W. Hughes, "Jacob Neusner: An American Jewish Iconoclast" (NYU Press, 2016)

03 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jacob Neusner (born 1932) is one of the most important figures in the shaping of modern American Judaism. He was pivotal in transforming the study of ...

John P. Gluck, "Voracious Science and Vulnerable Animals: A Primate Scientist's Ethical Journey" (U Chicago Press, 2016)

03 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The National Institute of Health recently announced its plan to retire the fifty remaining chimpanzees held in national research facilities and place ...

Rebecca Binns, "Gee Vaucher: Beyond Punk, Feminism and the Avant-Garde" (Manchester UP, 2022)

02 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Rebecca Binn's Gee Vaucher: Beyond Punk, Feminism and the Avante Garde (Manchester University Press, 2022) is the first book-length work dedicated ...

Samsi, Queen of the Arabs

30 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A bonus episode in honor of Womens History Month! Learn all about Samsi, one of the queens of the ancient Arabs, and what her story can tell us about ...

Stuart Klawans, "Crooked, But Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges" (Columbia UP, 2023)

25 Dec 2022

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...

Emma Wild-Wood, "The Mission of Apolo Kivebulaya: Religious Encounter and Social Change in the Great Lakes C. 1865-1935" (James Currey, 2020)

25 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Mission of Apolo Kivebulaya: Religious Encounter and Social Change in the Great Lakes c.1865-1935 (James Currey, 2020) is a vivid portrayal of K...

Kevin R. C. Gutzman, "The Jeffersonians: Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, 1801-1825" (St. Martin's Press, 2022)

25 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Kevin R. C. Gutzman's The Jeffersonians: Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, 1801-1825 (St. Martin's Press, 2022) marks t...

Eve Golden, "Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Couldn't Help It" (UP of Kentucky, 2021)

25 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Jayne Mansfield (1933-1967) was driven not just to be an actress but to be a star. One of the most influential sex symbols of her time, she was known ...

Stephen Dobranski, "Reading John Milton: How to Persist in Troubled Times" (Stanford UP, 2022)

24 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

John Milton is unrivalled--for the music of his verse and the breadth of his learning. In this brisk, topical, and engaging biography, Stephen B. Dobr...

Craig Seymour, "Luther: The Life and Longing of Luther Vandross" (2017)

21 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On April 16, 2003, Luther Vandross suffered a near-fatal stroke, and the world held its breath. Inside sources said he might never sing again. He was ...

Kathe Geist, "Ozu: A Closer Look" (Hong Kong UP, 2022)

21 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Based on a close reading of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu’s extant films, this book provides insights into the ways the director created narrative ...

Zvi Preigerzon, "Memoirs of a Jewish Prisoner of the Gulag" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2022)

20 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Alex Lahav about his edition and translation Memoirs of a Jewish Prisoner of the Gulag (Cherry Orchard Books, 2022). Zvi Preigerz...

Sonya Y. Ramsey, "Bertha Maxwell-Roddey: A Modern-Day Race Woman and the Power of Black Leadership" (UP of Florida, 2022)

18 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Bertha Maxwell-Roddey: A Modern-Day Race Woman and the Power of Black Leadership (UP of Florida, 2022) examines a life of remarkable achievements and...

Neil Baldwin, "Martha Graham: When Dance Became Modern" (Knopf, 2022)

17 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Time magazine called her "the Dancer of the Century." Her technique, used by dance companies throughout the world, became the first long-lasting alte...

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

16 Dec 2022

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...

Ying-Chen Peng, "Artful Subversion: Empress Dowager Cixi's Image Making" (Yale UP, 2023)

15 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ying-chen Peng’s Artful Subversion: Empress Dowager Cixi’s Image Making is a beautiful new volume on late Qing imperial art practice from Yale U...

Philip Nanton, "Riff: The Shake Keane Story" (Papillote Press, 2022)

14 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Philip Nanton's new book Riff: The Shake Keane Story (Papillote Press, 2022) follows the life and work of Shake Keane, the peripatetic and creative...

Nicholas de Villiers, "Cruisy, Sleepy, Melancholy: Sexual Disorientation in the Films of Tsai Ming-Liang" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)

14 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A critical figure in queer Sinophone cinema—and the first director ever commissioned to create a film for the permanent collection of the Louvre—T...

Daniel Gross. "A Banker's Journey: How Edmond J. Safra Built a Global Financial Empire" (Radius Book Group, 2022)

14 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Who was Edmond J. Safra? "The greatest banker of his generation," in the estimation of a former World Bank President. The founder of four massive fina...

William Inboden, "The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink" (Dutton, 2022)

14 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

With decades of hindsight, the peaceful end of the Cold War seems a foregone conclusion. But in the early 1980s, most experts believed the Soviet Unio...

Natasha Lasky, "Britney Spears's Blackout" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

11 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Britney Spears barely survived 2007. She divorced her husband, lost custody of her kids, went to rehab, shaved her head and assaulted a paparazzo. In ...

Chrysta Bilton, "Normal Family: On Truth, Love, and How I Met My 35 Siblings" (Little, Brown, 2022)

09 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Chrysta Bilton is an American writer who lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. Her first book, the memoir Normal Family: On Truth,...

Virginia L. Summey, "The Life of Elreta Melton Alexander: Activism within the Courts" (U Georgia Press, 2022)

07 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Virginia L. Summey's book The Life of Elreta Melton Alexander: Activism within the Courts (U Georgia Press, 2022) explores the life and contribution...

Edmund Hayes, "Agents of the Hidden Imam: Forging Twelver Shi‘ism, 850-950 CE" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

03 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 874 CE, the eleventh Imam died, and the Imami community splintered. The institutions of the Imamate were maintained by the dead Imam's agents, who ...

Joseph Sassoon, "The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire" (Pantheon Books, 2022)

01 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Sassoons were one of the great merchant families of the nineteenth century, alongside such names as the Jardines, the Mathesons, and the Swires. T...

The Future of Xi and China: A Discussion with Sue Lin Wong

30 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What will a Chinese-dominated world look like? And since Xi Jin Ping will probably rule China for life, what does he want to do; what does he believe ...

William Marling, "Christian Anarchist: Ammon Hennacy, A Life on the Catholic Left" (NYU Press, 2022)

29 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ammon Hennacy was arrested over thirty times for opposing US entry in World War 1. Later, when he refused to pay taxes that support war, he lost his w...

Cornelia Spelman, "Missing" (Jackleg Press, 2022)

28 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In her new memoir, Missing (Jackleg Press, 2022), children's book author Cornelia Maude Spelman explores her family history and her mother's life...

Stephen Galloway, "Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and the Romance of the Century" (Grand Central, 2022)

25 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A sweeping and heartbreaking Hollywood biography about the passionate, turbulent marriage of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. In 1934, a friend brou...

Gregory Nobles, "The Education of Betsey Stockton: An Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

25 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The life of Betsey Stockton (ca. 1798–1865) is a remarkable story of a Black woman’s journey from slavery to emancipation, from antebellum New Jer...

Tara T. Green, "Love, Activism, and the Respectable Life of Alice Dunbar-Nelson" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

25 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Born in New Orleans in 1875 to a mother who was formerly enslaved and a father of questionable identity, Alice Dunbar-Nelson was a pioneering activist...

Joseph McBride, "Billy Wilder: Dancing on the Edge" (Columbia UP, 2021)

24 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The director and cowriter of some of the world's most iconic films―including Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment―B...

Ray Scott, "The NBA in Black and White: The Memoir of a Trailblazing NBA Player and Coach" (Seven Stories Press, 2022)

24 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“There’s a basic insecurity with Black guys my size,” Scott writes. “We can’t hide and everybody turns to stare when we walk down the street...

Aidan Enright, "Charles Owen O'Conor, the O'Conor Don: Landlordism, Liberal Catholicism and Unionism in Nineteenth-Century Ireland" (Four Courts, 2022)

24 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Aidan Enright holds a PhD in History from Queen’s University Belfast and is an Associate Researcher and Part-Time Lecturer in History at Leeds Becke...