Biographies
Lucy! : how Lucille Ball did it all
Amy Guglielmo
jBIOGRAPHY Ball, Lucille
Kids, Picture Books, Nonfiction, Biographies
"Lucy was not a proper little girl. She was sassy. She was bold. She was funny. She was a rule-breaking, chance-taking, comedy pioneer. Can't act? Can't sing? Can't dance? Lucy proves them all wrong - and then has the last laugh when she finally lets her inner funny girl shine. In 1951, the hit show I Love Lucy took television by storm, and has made millions laugh ever since. Lucy! is the true story of how Lucille Ball overcame the odds to become the world's Queen of Comedy"--
Stalking Shakespeare : a memoir of madness, murder, and my search for the poet beneath the paint
Lee Durkee
704.942 /Durkee
Nonfiction, History, Art / Art History, Biographies
"Following his divorce, down-and-out writer and Mississippi exile Lee Durkee holed himself up in a Vermont fishing shack and fell prey to a decades-long obsession with Shakespearian portraiture. It began with a simple premise: despite the prevalence of popular portraits, no one really knows what Shakespeare looked like. That the Bard of Avon has gotten progressively handsomer in modern depictions seems only to reinforce this point. Stalking Shakespeare is Durkee's fascinating memoir about an obsession gone awry, the 400-year-old myriad portraits attached to the famous playwright, and Durkee's own unrelenting search-via X-ray and infrared technologies-for a lost picture of the Bard painted from real life. As Durkee becomes better at beguiling curators into testing their paintings with spectral technologies, we get a front-row seat to the captivating mysteries plaguing the various portraits rumored to depict Shakespeare. Whisking us backward in time through layers of paint and into the pages of obscure books on the Elizabethans, Durkee takes us from Vermont to Tokyo to Mississippi to DC and ultimately to London to confront the stuffy curators forever protecting the image of the Bard. For his part, Durkee is the adversary they didn't know they had-a writer from Mississippi with nothing to lose-the "Dan Brown of English portraiture." A lively, bizarre, and surprisingly moving blend of biography, art history, and madness, Stalking Shakespeare is as entertaining as it is rigorous and sheds new light on one of history's greatest cultural and literary icons"--
A fun little escapade through the major theories of who wrote Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, via the various portraits that are purportedly of him. There's a lot of very interesting stuff here, not just literary but also in the art history sense of who created the portraits, how they've been altered, and why they look the way they do. Lee Durkee is also a strong presence in this book, and tbh I veered between thinking of him as someone I felt sympathetic and appreciative towards, for his candor about his own mental health and personal issues, and then thinking that he'd be an absolute tour guide from hell. All in all, a very (VERY) well-researched and entertaining read. -Candice
Rabbit heart : a mother's murder, a daughter's story
Ervin, Kristine S., author.
364.1523 /Ervin
Nonfiction, True Crime, Biographies
"Kristine S. Ervin was just eight years old when her mother, Kathy Sue Engle, was abducted from an Oklahoma mall parking lot and violently murdered in an oil field. First, there was grief. Then the desire to know: what happened to her, what she felt in her last terrible moments, and all she was before these acts of violence defined her life. In her mother's absence, Ervin tries to reconstruct a woman she can never fully grasp-from her own memory, from letters she uncovers, and the stories of other family members. As more information about her mother's death comes to light, Ervin's drive to know her mother only intensifies, winding its way into her own fraught adolescence. In the process of both, she reckons with contradictions of what a woman is allowed to be-a self beyond the roles of wife, mother, daughter, victim-what a "true" victim is supposed to look like, and, finally, how complicated and elusive justice can be"--
This book has rave reviews, and Booklist says: "This may be the best way true crime should be written, with nuance and unfettered compassion and with the words of the living victims or their families at the center." It looks to have a deep emotional impact, especially related to missing/absent parents and growing up with familial trauma, so read with care if those are triggers. -Candice
Remainders of the day : a bookshop diary
Shaun Bythell
BIOGRAPHY Bythell, Shaun
Biographies
"The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland is a book lover's paradise, with thousands of books across nearly a mile of shelves, a real log fire, and Captain, the portly bookshop cat. You'd think that after twenty years, owner Shaun Bythell would be used to his quirky customers by now. Don't get him wrong, there are some good ones among the antiquarian porn-hunters, die-hard train book lovers, people who confuse bookshops for libraries, and the toddlers just looking for a nice cozy corner in which to wee. He's sure there are some good ones. There must be . . . Filled with the pernickety warmth and humor that has touched readers around the world, stuffed with literary treasures, hidden gems, and incunabula, Remainders of the Day is a warm and welcome memoir of a life in books"--Book jacket flap.
Another superb and fantastic dry-wit addition to Bythell's bookshop diaries. For anyone who has worked in a bookstore or library (or really most retail jobs) you'll get a kick out of his small-town observations of the funny and annoying customers, and the glimpses of delight in the every day. -Amanda
SPLINTERS.
LESLIE JAMISON
BIOGRAPHY/Jamison, Leslie
Nonfiction, Biographies, Literary Nonfiction
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review Bestseller Jamison (The Empathy Exams) chronicles in this exquisite memoir the dramatic shift her life took following the birth of her daughter and the end of her marriage. After giving birth three weeks before her due date in an emergency C-section, Jamison felt overwhelmingly grateful her daughter survived, even as she struggled with difficulties breastfeeding and other challenges of caring for a newborn. Then the real pain started: just over a year after her daughter was born, Jamison's marriage to her husband, "C," disintegrated as his anger grew more intense, and she began divorce proceedings. Two post-divorce boyfriends--"the tumbleweed" and "the ex-philosopher"--entered the picture, then exited. Throughout, Jamison is brutally honest about the obstacles to balancing creative fulfillment, parenting, dating, and sobriety, utilizing her beguiling command of language to spotlight feelings often obscured in other accounts of motherhood ("Sometimes motherhood tricked me into feeling virtuous because I was always taking care of someone. But it didn't make me virtuous at all. It made me feral and ruthless"). Her soul-searching is sure to inspire readers seeking to find the sweet spot between living for their children and living for themselves. By turns funny, poignant, harrowing, and joyful, this standout personal history isn't easily forgotten.
To be honest, this book wasn't at the top of my TBR list, but it is now! I was lucky enough to catch Leslie reading and in conversation with Kaveh Akbar at Prairie Lights last night, and within a minute of hearing Ms. Jamison read, I knew that I would be diving into this book ASAP. So much has already been said about her meticulous attention to detail and conjuring scene and emotion with just the right words, and it's all true. For me, though, it was her actual reading of her own words that hooked me so quickly--a cadence somewhere between prose and poetry that illuminated the beauty of the sentences and let their meaning come through at the same time. And if you're worried that a book about being a writer or a divorcée or a mother won't appeal to you if you aren't any of those things, rest assured that there's so much more to the work. As the subtitle says, it's a different kind of love story, and I think there is something in this book that everyone can relate to. -Candice
Molly
Blake Butler
BIOGRAPHY Butler, Blake
Nonfiction, Biographies
"Blake Butler and Molly Brodak instantly connected, fell in love, married and built a life together. Both writers with deep roots in contemporary American literature, their union was an iconic joining of forces between two major and beloved talents. Nearly three years into their marriage, grappling with mental illness and a lifetime of trauma, Molly took her own life. In the days and weeks after Molly's death, Blake discovered shocking secrets she had held back from the world, fundamentally altering his view of their relationship and who she was. A masterpiece of autobiography, Molly is a riveting journey into the darkest and most unthinkable parts of the human heart, emerging with a hard-won, unsurpassedly beautiful understanding that expands the possibilities of language to comprehend and express true love. Unrelentingly clear, honest and concise, Molly approaches the impossible directly, with a total empathy that has no parallel or precedent" --
I must admit that I'm at a bit of a loss for words with this book--I'm not ambivalent, but a little conflicted in how I feel about it. I placed a hold on it before it's publication, based on reviews I read, and in between that time and now, so much has already been said about the book that I know I my reading of it was changed to some degree. I wasn't just reading to learn Molly's story, her life and her life with Blake, her actions, and what one does in the aftermath of the worst situations, but now I was also reading to see if the author needed to be judged in some way, to ascertain if his telling crossed lines or was vindictive, or if parts of the story were even his to tell. I can see why the book has been polarizing for many, and I'll admit that while parts of it were achingly open and full of grief for a love lost, other parts felt more like they were written by someone who has been hurt very much and wants to hurt back. As ever, I would still encourage those who are interested to read it and form your own decision. -Candice
The snow man : a true story
Jonah Winter
CATALOGING /
Science, Biographies
"Discover the true story of a man who lived alone in the mountains with a hobby of measuring snowfall that led to groundbreaking data tracking in climate change studies"--
I am obsessed, I tell you, OBSESSED with this new picture book biography of billy barr, who moved alone to a rustic, isolated cabin in the Rocky Mountains and ended up doing some of the earliest and most groundbreaking tracking related to the heating of the planet when he measured snowfall over time. Jonah Winter has penned more than forty picture book biographies related to environmental, social, and racial justice. Jeannette Winter's illustrations in predominately shades of purple and blue are a phenomenal accompaniment. Check it out! -Anne W
Impossible people : a completely average recovery story
Julia Wertz
362.292092 /Wertz
Graphic Novels, Biographies
"Celebrated cartoonist Julia Wertz chronicles her haphazard attempts at sobriety and the relentlessly challenging, surprisingly funny, and occasionally absurd cycle of addiction and recovery"--
I love graphic memoirs, and Julia Wertz is just too good at drawing her life. Come for an honest graphic memoir about the journey of recovery from a drinking problem, stay for the immature but witty observations on life, beautiful drawings of New York architecture, and the fart jokes. Lots of fart jokes. -Mari
The lost sons of Omaha : two young men in an American tragedy
Joe Sexton
364.1523 /Sexton
Nonfiction, Black Lives Matter, Biographies, History
"On May 30, 2020, in Omaha, Nebraska, amid the protests that rocked our nation after George Floyd's death at the hands of police, thirty-eight-year-old white bar owner and Marine veteran Jake Gardner fatally shot James Scurlock, a twenty-two-year-old Black protester and young father. What followed were two investigations of Scurlock's death, one conducted by the white district attorney Don Kleine, who concluded that Gardner had legally acted in self-defense and released without a trial, and a second grand jury inquiry conducted by African American special prosecutor Fred Franklin that indicted Gardner for manslaughter and demanded he face trial. Days after the indictment, Gardner killed himself with a single bullet to the head. The deaths of both Scurlock and Gardner gave rise to a toxic brew of misinformation, false claims, and competing political agendas. The two men, each with their own complicated backgrounds, were turned into grotesque caricatures. Between the heated debates and diatribes, these twin tragedies amounted to an ugly and heartbreaking reflection of a painfully divided country. Here, Joe Sexton masterfully unpacks the whole twisting, nearly unbelievable chronicle into a meticulously reported and nuanced account of the two deaths, explaining which claims were true and which distorted or simply false. The Lost Sons of Omaha carefully examines some of the most pressing issues facing America today, including our country's dire need for gun control and mental health reform; the dangerous spread of fake news, particularly on social media; and the urgent call to band together in the collective pursuit of truth, fairness, and healing"--
This is really an incredible book--the best long-form journalism I've read in a while. It's not just that the sentences are smooth, direct, and propel the story forward, it's the heart-wrenching story itself. And while technically a true crime narrative, this book goes deep into the histories of two men brought into conflict during a Black Lives Matter protest. Author Joe Sexton masterfully details the little things in these men's lives that made each of them human; a Lion King tattoo for one, war-induced PTSD for another. Both men lost their lives that night, one literally, and the tragedy extends by political factions using them as martyrs for their causes. Read this book to remember to scrutinize every "black and white" story on the internet. Given the divisiveness and tribalism of online political discourse, and the multiple lies we'll all be reading in the run-up to the 2024 election, I consider this a must-read book for the year. -Melody
Life on delay : making peace with a stutter
John (Atlantic senior editor) Hendrickson
616.8554 /Hendrickson
Biographies
"An intimate and revealing memoir of a lifelong struggle to speak"--
This book is for anyone who stutters or who wants to know better the mind of a stutterer. -Tom
I appreciate this book's focus on the value and power of comedy as part of culture and history! I love to laugh and I think funny people don't get the cultural recognition they deserve beyond just entertainment - comedy is an art and a powerful agent of healing, community-building, and joy. This book highlights Lucille Ball's trailblazing career as an early female comedian, and also just shows how driven she was by the powerful feeling of making people laugh. Fun, loud, retro-style illustrations perfectly complement the text. -Anne W