New Books in Biography & Memoir
Episodes
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...
Jeanne Theoharis, "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks" (Beacon Press, 2015)
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Beacon Press, 2015) is the definitive political biography of Rosa Parks and the basis for a 2022 documentary...
Burt Kearns, "Lawrence Tierney: Hollywood's Real-Life Tough Guy" (UP of Kentucky, 2022)
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In his latest book, Lawrence Tierney: Hollywood's Real-Life Tough Guy (The University of Kentucky Press, 2022) Burt Kearns explores the life of act...
Elissa Bassist, "Hysterical: A Memoir" (Hachette, 2022)
22 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Elissa Bassist about her memoir Hysterical: A Memoir (Hachette, 2022) For two years author Elissa Bassist saw over twenty medical ...
Gregor Gall, "The Punk Rock Politics of Joe Strummer: Radicalism, Resistance and Rebellion" (Manchester UP, 2022)
18 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Strummer was one of the twentieth century's iconic rock'n'roll rebels. As frontperson, spokesperson and chief lyricist for The Clash, he played a ...
Steve Kemper, "Our Man In Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor" (Mariner Books, 2022)
17 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A gripping, behind-the-scenes account of the personalities and contending forces in Tokyo during the volatile decade that led to World War II, as seen...
Michael Frank, "One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World" (Simon and Schuster, 2022)
17 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
With nearly a century of life behind her, Stella Levi had never before spoken in detail about her past. Then she met Michael Frank. He came to her Gre...
John Darnell and Colleen Darnell, "Egypt's Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth" (St. Martin's Press, 2022)
11 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Two celebrated Egyptologists bring to vivid life the intriguing and controversial reign of King Tut's parents. Akhenaten has been the subject of radic...
Rachael Hanel, "Not the Camilla We Knew: One Woman's Life from Small-Town America to the Symbionese Liberation Army" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)
11 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How could an artist and former social worker from small-town Minnesota become one of the most wanted domestic terrorists in the United States? Camilla...
Muggsy Bogues and Jake Uitti, "Muggsy: My Life from a Kid in the Projects to the Godfather of Small Ball" (Triumph, 2022)
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up, Muggsy Bogues was always told he should do something else, anything besides basketball. He never acknowledged his many doubters except to ...
Nancy Woloch, "The Insider: A Life of Virginia C. Gildersleeve" (Columbia UP, 2022)
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Virginia C. Gildersleeve was the most influential dean of Barnard College, which she led from 1911 to 1947. An organizer of the Seven College Conferen...
Andrew Fitzmaurice, "King Leopold's Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century" (Princeton UP, 2021)
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian ...
Alma Zaragoza-Petty, "Chingona: Owning Your Inner Badass for Healing and Justice" (Broadleaf Books, 2022)
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Chingona: Owning Your Inner Badass for Healing and Justice (Broadleaf Books, 2022), Mexican American activist, scholar, and podcast host Alma Zar...
David Kaiser, "Well, Doc, You're In: Freeman Dyson’s Journey through the Universe" (MIT Press, 2022)
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Freeman Dyson (1923–2020)—renowned scientist, visionary, and iconoclast—helped invent modern physics. Not bound by disciplinary divisions, he we...
Joanna Ebenstein, "Frederik Ruysch and His Thesaurus Anatomicus: A Morbid Guide" (MIT Press, 2022)
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Frederik Ruysch (1638-1731) was a celebrated Dutch anatomist, master embalmer, and museologist. He is best remembered today for strange tableaux, craf...
Mallory Lewis and Nat Segaloff, "Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop: The Team That Changed Children's TV" (UP of Kentucky, 2022)
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Two decades after Lewis and Lamb Chop last graced television with their presence, Lewis' daughter Mallory and author Nat Segaloff have set the record ...
Kelisha B. Graves, ed., "Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Documentary Portrait of an Early Civil Rights Pioneer, 1900-1959" (U Notre Dame Press, 2019)
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nannie Helen Burroughs (1879-1961) is just one of the many African American intellectuals whose work has long been excluded from the literary canon. I...
Leonardo da Vinci and Vassari’s "Lives of the Painters"
25 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of the Vault, we hear Harry Berger’s talk about Leonardo da Vinci and Vassari’s "Lives of the Painters." Harry Berger was a schola...
Leonardo da Vinci and Vassari’s "Lives of the Painters"
25 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of the Vault, we hear Harry Berger’s talk about Leonardo da Vinci and Vassari’s "Lives of the Painters." Harry Berger was a schola...
Rachel Schreiber, "Elaine Black Yoneda: Jewish Immigration, Labor Activism, and Japanese American Exclusion and Incarceration" (Temple UP, 2021)
25 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
During World War II, Elaine Black Yoneda, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, spent eight months in a concentration camp--not in Europe, but in...
The Future of Vladimir Putin: A Discussion with Philip Short
25 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
President Vladmir Putin – the son of a foreman at a railway carriage works – is today one of the most powerful individuals on earth. What drives h...
Faleeha Hassan, "War and Me" (Amazon Crossing, 2022)
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An intimate memoir about coming of age in a tight-knit working-class family during Iraq's seemingly endless series of wars. Faleeha Hassan became inti...