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CJ Connor is a cozy mystery and romance writer whose main goal in life is to make their dog proud. They are a Pitch Wars alumnus and an Author Mentor Match R9 mentor. Their debut mystery novel BOARD TO DEATH is forthcoming from Kensington Books. Twitter: @cjconnorwrites | cjconnorwrites.com
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Read on to discover nine of the best biographies published within the last year. Included are life stories of singular people, including celebrated artists and significant historical figures, as well as collective biographies.
The books included in this list have all been released as of writing, but biography lovers still have plenty to look forward to before the year is out. A few to keep your eye out for in the coming months:
Without further ado, here are the best biographies of 2023 so far!
Ellen and William Craft were a Black married couple who freed themselves from slavery in 1848 by disguising themselves as a traveling white man and an enslaved person. Author Ilyon Woo recounts their thousand-mile journey to seek safety in the North and their escape from the United States in the months following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act.
Written over a period of 11 years with exclusive journalistic access to the subject, author Michael Finkel explores the motivations, heists, and repercussions faced by the notorious and prolific art thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Of special focus is his relationship with his girlfriend and accomplice, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus.
While recently published, King: A Life is already considered to be the most well-researched biography of Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. published in decades. New York Times bestselling journalist Jonathan Eig explores the life and legacy of Dr. King through thousands of historical records, including recently declassified FBI documents.
This biography is part of the Why Music Matters series from the University of Texas. It reflects on the legendary blues singer’s life through an essay collection in which the author (also an accomplished musician) seeks to recreate the feeling of browsing through a box of records.
Historian Leah Redmond Chang’s latest book release focuses on three aristocratic women in Renaissance Europe: Catherine de’ Medici, Elizabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots. As a specific focus, she examines the juxtaposition between the immense power they wielded and yet the ways they remained vulnerable to the patriarchal, misogynistic societies in which they existed.
Anna May Wong was a 20th-century actress who found great acclaim while still facing discrimination and typecasting as a Chinese woman. University of California professor Yunte Huang explores her life and impact on the American film industry and challenges racist depictions of her in accounts of Hollywood history in this thought-provoking biography.
Written by Rhodes Scholar and University of Pennsylvania medical student Jasmine Brown, this collective biography shares the experiences and accomplishments of nine Black women physicians in U.S. history — including Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first Black American woman to earn a medical degree in the 1860s, and Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.
Two years after the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s death, this biography presents a comprehensive history of Larry McMurtry’s life and legacy as one of the most acclaimed Western writers of all time.
Journalist Leta McCollough Seletzky examines her father, Marrell “Mac” McCollough’s complicated legacy as a Black undercover cop and later a member of the CIA. In particular, she shares his account as a witness of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel.
Are you a history buff looking for more recommendations? Try these.
Life is a journey filled with numerous experiences, both good and bad. These experiences can teach us valuable life lessons, shape our character, and inspire us to be better. However, it’s not just our own experiences that can enlighten and motivate us; the lives of others can also offer profound insights and inspiration. This is where biographies come in.
In this article, we’ll explore ten such inspirational biographies that promise to captivate your imagination, stir your emotions, and inspire you in ways you’d never thought possible. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the fascinating world of others.
Anne Frank’s diary is an extraordinary testament to the human spirit in the face of unimaginable adversity. The diary narrates Anne’s life while hiding from the Nazis during World War II.
Despite her circumstances, Anne’s poignant reflections, unwavering optimism, and belief in humanity make this biography a profound and compelling read. Her resilience and courage continue to inspire millions around the world.
This biography tells the moving story of John Nash, a brilliant mathematician who battled schizophrenia. Despite his debilitating mental illness, Nash made groundbreaking contributions to the fields of mathematics and economics, eventually winning the Nobel Prize.
His life story serves as a powerful reminder of the incredible strength of the human spirit and the potential within all of us to overcome our challenges.
Nelson Mandela’s autobiography is a stirring tale of perseverance, courage, and unwavering commitment to justice. It chronicles Mandela’s life from his childhood in rural South Africa to his time as a freedom fighter, his 27 years in prison, and his eventual rise to the presidency.
Mandela’s life embodies the power of resilience and the transformational impact one person can have on the world.
Helen Keller’s autobiography is a beacon of hope and an embodiment of the indomitable human spirit. Despite being born deaf and blind, Keller overcame these challenges to become a renowned author, political activist, and lecturer. Her life story serves as a powerful testament to the strength of determination and the limitless potential of the human spirit.
This compelling biography reveals the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge—became instrumental in many medical breakthroughs.
Skloot beautifully intertwines the narrative of scientific discovery with the painful history of Henrietta’s family, resulting in a captivating and thought-provoking biography that challenges our understanding of ethics, race, and medicine.
Based on more than forty interviews conducted over two years, Isaacson’s biography paints an honest and insightful portrait of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc.
It recounts his roller-coaster life, marked by groundbreaking innovation, intense passion, personal demons, and a relentless pursuit of perfection. This biography inspires readers to embrace their creativity and follow their dreams, no matter the obstacles.
In this memoir, Maya Angelou recounts her early life, marked by racism, trauma, and adversity. Yet, her story is ultimately one of resilience and redemption, as she finds her voice and learns to soar above her circumstances. Angelou’s compelling narrative and poetic prose make this autobiography a powerful and inspiring read. What Angelou puts in the book says a lot about humanity and its ways.
Krakauer’s biography follows the adventurous and tragic story of Chris McCandless, a young man who abandoned his comfortable life to journey into the Alaskan wilderness.
While his story ends in tragedy, McCandless’s pursuit of truth, freedom, and a life lived fully continues to inspire many to question societal norms and seek their own path. Paging through Into the Wild, you will likely get an understanding of the temporariness of the materialistic life most of us are after.
This illuminating biography brings to light the untold story of four African-American women mathematicians who played crucial roles in NASA’s space program.
Against the backdrop of segregation and sexism, these women broke barriers and changed the course of history. Their story serves as a powerful testament to the power of perseverance and the importance of diversity in innovation.
Elon Musk, the man behind Tesla and SpaceX, is known not just for his genius but also for his audacious visions of the future. Vance’s biography offers a fascinating glimpse into Musk’s life and his relentless pursuit of ambitious goals. This biography will inspire you to dream big and challenge the status quo. You might start understanding why Elon does what he does.
There we have it, our list of 10 best biographies that inspire. What do you think about our picks? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below:
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Featuring buster keaton, jean rhys, bernardine evaristo, kate beaton, and more.
We’ve come to the end of another bountiful literary year, and for all of us review rabbits here at Book Marks, that can mean only one thing: basic math, and lots of it.
Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be calculating and revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2022, in the categories of (deep breath): Fiction ; Nonfiction ; Memoir and Biography; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror; Short Story Collections; Essay Collections; Poetry; Mystery and Crime; Graphic Literature ; and Literature in Translation .
Today’s installment: Memoir and Biography .
Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”
1. We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole (Liveright) 17 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed • 1 Pan
“One of the many triumphs of Fintan O’Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves is that he manages to find a form that accommodates the spectacular changes that have occurred in Ireland over the past six decades, which happens to be his life span … it is not a memoir, nor is it an absolute history, nor is it entirely a personal reflection or a crepuscular credo. It is, in fact, all of these things helixed together: his life, his country, his thoughts, his misgivings, his anger, his pride, his doubt, all of them belonging, eventually, to us … O’Toole, an agile cultural commentator, considers himself to be a representative of the blank slate on which the experiment of change was undertaken, but it’s a tribute to him that he maintains his humility, his sharpness and his enlightened distrust …
O’Toole writes brilliantly and compellingly of the dark times, but he is graceful enough to know that there is humor and light in the cracks. There is a touch of Eduardo Galeano in the way he can settle on a telling phrase … But the real accomplishment of this book is that it achieves a conscious form of history-telling, a personal hybrid that feels distinctly honest and humble at the same time. O’Toole has not invented the form, but he comes close to perfecting it. He embraces the contradictions and the confusion. In the process, he weaves the flag rather than waving it.”
–Colum McCann ( The New York Times Book Review )
2. Thin Places: A Natural History of Healing and Home by Kerri Ní Dochartaigh (Milkweed)
12 Rave • 7 Positive • 2 Mixed
“Assured and affecting … A powerful and bracing memoir … This is a book that will make you see the world differently: it asks you to reconsider the animals and insects we often view as pests – the rat, for example, and the moth. It asks you to look at the sea and the sky and the trees anew; to wonder, when you are somewhere beautiful, whether you might be in a thin place, and what your responsibilities are to your location.It asks you to show compassion for people you think are difficult, to cultivate empathy, to try to understand the trauma that made them the way they are.”
–Lynn Enright ( The Irish Times )
3. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (Drawn & Quarterly)
14 Rave • 4 Positive
“It could hardly be more different in tone from [Beaton’s] popular larky strip Hark! A Vagrant … Yes, it’s funny at moments; Beaton’s low-key wryness is present and correct, and her drawings of people are as charming and as expressive as ever. But its mood overall is deeply melancholic. Her story, which runs to more than 400 pages, encompasses not only such thorny matters as social class and environmental destruction; it may be the best book I have ever read about sexual harassment …
There are some gorgeous drawings in Ducks of the snow and the starry sky at night. But the human terrain, in her hands, is never only black and white … And it’s this that gives her story not only its richness and depth, but also its astonishing grace. Life is complex, she tell us, quietly, and we are all in it together; each one of us is only trying to survive. What a difficult, gorgeous and abidingly humane book. It really does deserve to win all the prizes.”
–Rachel Cooke ( The Guardian )
4. Stay True by Hua Hsu (Doubleday)
14 Rave • 3 Positive
“… quietly wrenching … To say that this book is about grief or coming-of-age doesn’t quite do it justice; nor is it mainly about being Asian American, even though there are glimmers of that too. Hsu captures the past by conveying both its mood and specificity … This is a memoir that gathers power through accretion—all those moments and gestures that constitute experience, the bits and pieces that coalesce into a life … Hsu is a subtle writer, not a showy one; the joy of Stay True sneaks up on you, and the wry jokes are threaded seamlessly throughout.”
–Jennifer Szalai ( The New York Times )
5. Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Evaristo (Grove)
13 Rave • 4 Positive
“Part coming-of-age story and part how-to manual, the book is, above all, one of the most down-to-earth and least self-aggrandizing works of self-reflection you could hope to read. Evaristo’s guilelessness is refreshing, even unsettling … With ribald humour and admirable candour, Evaristo takes us on a tour of her sexual history … Characterized by the resilience of its author, it is replete with stories about the communities and connections Evaristo has cultivated over forty years … Invigoratingly disruptive as an artist, Evaristo is a bridge-builder as a human being.”
–Emily Bernard ( The Times Literary Supplement )
1. Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
14 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed
“Rundell is right that Donne…must never be forgotten, and she is the ideal person to evangelise him for our age. She shares his linguistic dexterity, his pleasure in what TS Eliot called ‘felt thought’, his ability to bestow physicality on the abstract … It’s a biography filled with gaps and Rundell brings a zest for imaginative speculation to these. We know so little about Donne’s wife, but Rundell brings her alive as never before … Rundell confronts the difficult issue of Donne’s misogyny head-on … This is a determinedly deft book, and I would have liked it to billow a little more, making room for more extensive readings of the poems and larger arguments about the Renaissance. But if there is an overarching argument, then it’s about Donne as an ‘infinity merchant’ … To read Donne is to grapple with a vision of the eternal that is startlingly reinvented in the here and now, and Rundell captures this vision alive in all its power, eloquence and strangeness”
–Laura Feigel ( The Guardian )
2. The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland (Harper)
12 Rave • 3 Positive
“Compelling … We know about Auschwitz. We know what happened there. But Freedland, with his strong, clear prose and vivid details, makes us feel it, and the first half of this book is not an easy read. The chillingly efficient mass murder of thousands of people is harrowing enough, but Freedland tells us stories of individual evils as well that are almost harder to take … His matter-of-fact tone makes it bearable for us to continue to read … The Escape Artist is riveting history, eloquently written and scrupulously researched. Rosenberg’s brilliance, courage and fortitude are nothing short of amazing.”
–Laurie Hertzel ( The Star Tribune )
3. I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys by Miranda Seymour (W. W. Norton & Company)
11 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Pan
“…illuminating and meticulously researched … paints a deft portrait of a flawed, complex, yet endlessly fascinating woman who, though repeatedly bowed, refused to be broken … Following dismal reviews of her fourth novel, Rhys drifted into obscurity. Ms. Seymour’s book could have lost momentum here. Instead, it compellingly charts turbulent, drink-fueled years of wild moods and reckless acts before building to a cathartic climax with Rhys’s rescue, renewed lease on life and late-career triumph … is at its most powerful when Ms. Seymour, clear-eyed but also with empathy, elaborates on Rhys’s woes …
Ms. Seymour is less convincing with her bold claim that Rhys was ‘perhaps the finest English woman novelist of the twentieth century.’ However, she does expertly demonstrate that Rhys led a challenging yet remarkable life and that her slim but substantial novels about beleaguered women were ahead of their time … This insightful biography brilliantly shows how her many battles were lost and won.”
–Malcolm Forbes ( The Wall Street Journal )
4. The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon’s Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I by Lindsey Fitzharris (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
9 Rave • 5 Positive • 1 Mixed
“Grisly yet inspiring … Fitzharris depicts her hero as irrepressibly dedicated and unfailingly likable. The suspense of her narrative comes not from any interpersonal drama but from the formidable challenges posed by the physical world … The Facemaker is mostly a story of medical progress and extraordinary achievement, but as Gillies himself well knew—grappling daily with the unbearable suffering that people willingly inflicted on one another—failure was never far behind.”
5. Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life by James Curtis (Knopf)
8 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed
“Keaton fans have often complained that nearly all biographies of him suffer from a questionable slant or a cursory treatment of key events. With Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life —at more than 800 pages dense with research and facts—Mr. Curtis rectifies that situation, and how. He digs deep into Keaton’s process and shows how something like the brilliant two-reeler Cops went from a storyline conceived from necessity—construction on the movie lot encouraged shooting outdoors—to a masterpiece … This will doubtless be the primary reference on Keaton’s life for a long time to come … the worse Keaton’s life gets, the more engrossing Mr. Curtis’s book becomes.”
–Farran Smith Nehme ( The Wall Street Journal )
Our System:
RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points
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Anthony Bourdain (file Photo by Rich Fury/Invision/AP)
I recently listed some of my favorite history books of all-time and because people are the most interesting aspects of history, I included a few great biographies of significant historical figures like Malcolm X, Winston Churchill, Julius Caesar, and others.
But there are so many others Here are some of the best biographies of all time, many of which are written to inspire you to take risks in business—and in life.
The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy by Charles R. Morris
The Tycoons by Charles R. Morris
What powered American industry, from the devastating aftermath of its civil war, to become the catalyst behind the world largest economy within decades? The answer has much to do with four men: Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gould and Morgan. These industrialists, financiers, railroaders and oil tycoons became as big and wealthy as America itself, and along the way paved the road for what is today the laws, regulations and infrastructure of our modern markets. I enjoyed this book as not just a biography of these four men, but as an economic history of the United States during one of its most tumultuous eras.
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War and Peace: FDR's Final Odyssey by Nigel Hamilton
War and Peace by Nigel Hamilton
Nigel Hamilton's acclaimed trilogy (which is available as a three-part boxed set ) ends with this volume that happened coincide with the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. This book makes me think of perhaps my favorite presidential biography of all time: Truman by David McCullough. While many under-appreciated Truman during his term in office, today's readers of McCullough's 1992 biography will truly understand how he capably overcame the enormity of the challenges he faced and the impact his leadership has on our society today. But as Hamilton's FDR trilogy makes clear, many of Truman's successes (and failures) or due to what he inherited from Roosevelt.
Mozart: A Life by Peter Gay
Mozart by Peter Gay
Is it possible to summarize the life of the world's arguably greatest composer in just 160 pages? Peter Gay, a historian and previous National Book Award winner, pulls it off expertly, with a quick, engaging and informative narrative that not only digs into the nature and personality of the musical genius but also gives a great background of the economic and political times that influenced his life and his work. Gay 1999 biography takes pains to debunk some of the myths surrounding Mozart's life (no, he wasn't poisoned by a rival composer and, no, he wasn't buried in a pauper's grave). This book isn't a deep dive or an expanded narrative. But for me, it provided all the information I wanted to learn about a musician whose works have helped me navigate my way through the mundane work—I am an accountant, after all—of my professional life.
Anthony Bourdain Remembered by CNN
Anthony Bourdain Remembered
I've been interested in Anthony Bourdain—who tragically took his own life in 2018—long before he became a nationally known TV star of the hit CNN series "Parts Unknown." I didn't love reading Kitchen Confidential — his first and most famous book—simply because of all the crazy stories of drug use and partying that went on behind the scenes at the restaurants where he worked. I enjoyed it because I like to go to restaurants and I'm curious—from a business and creative standpoint—about how they work. But it's Bourdain's legacy that's considered in Anthony Bourdain Remembered , a bestseller released just last month compiling memories and anecdotes from his fans, friends, and colleagues at CNN.
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Montefiore's 2003 biography of Stalin is about a man who lived with death every single day of his life to become the leader of millions and an infamous reminder of what can happen when the wrong leaders rise to power. But as the book explains—in great and sometimes gory detail—he achieved that power through many murderous and violent ways. More interestingly, Montefiore provides countless examples of how Stalin befriended his fellow politicians, party members and others only to abandon (and oftentimes eliminate them) in pursuit of his goals. Can a ruthless monster rise to the top and stay there his entire life? This book shows how it's possible.
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
With all due respect to the hit musical—which is fantastic—the book it's based on is better. That's because Ron Chernow's 2004 biography more deeply describes Hamilton's days as a soldier under Washington's command and the complexities involved in financing a young nation's growth and creating a central bank amidst the monumental political and financial challenges of the day. Hamilton—the nation’s most famous immigrant to some—never held elected office. But his influence on our lives today is still very much apparent.
The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro
The Passage of Power by Robert Caro
Robert Caro's latest entry in his series of LBJ biographies (there were three previous volumes) covers from approximately 1958 to 1964 and explains in great detail how Johnson—the powerful leader of the Senate who so aspired to the presidency —rose out of the political wilderness of the vice-presidency to use the skills he learned in over 30 years of government service to rescue the country from a devastating presidential assassination and guide it back to stability.
Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
Walter Isaacson—the former editor of Time , best known for his other great biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Steve Jobs—not only illuminates some of da Vinci's greatest artistic works, but also reveals the genius behind this self-taught, self-confident entrepreneur. Leonardo was constantly promoting his artistic abilities to wealthy benefactors and had the creativity to come up with flying machines and giant crossbows while studying anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. Few geniuses like this have ever walked the earth.
This year sees some riveting and remarkable lives—from artist ai weiwei to singer-songwriter joni mitchell—captured on the page..
A life story can be read for escapist pleasure. But at other times, reading a memoir or biography can be an expansive exercise, opening us up to broader truths about our world. Often, it’s an edifying experience that reminds us of our universal human vulnerability and the common quest for purpose in life.
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Biographies and memoirs charting remarkable lives—whether because of fame, fortune or simply fascination—have the power to inspire us for their depth, curiosity or challenges. This year sees a bumper calendar of personal histories enter bookshops, grappling with enigmatic public figures like singer Joni Mitchell and writer Ian Fleming , to nuanced analysis of how motherhood or sociopathy shape our lives—for better and for worse.
SEE ALSO: The Best Addiction Memoirs for the Sober Curious
Here we compile some of the most rewarding biographies and memoirs out in 2024. There are stories of trauma and recovery, art as politics and politics as art, and sentences as single life lessons spread across books that will make you rethink much about personal life stories. After all, understanding the triumphs and trials of others can help us see how we can change our own lives to create something different or even better.
Ai Weiwei , the iconoclastic artist and fierce critic of his homeland China, mixes fairy tales with moral lessons to evocatively retrace the story of his life in graphic form. Illustrations are by Italian artist Gianluca Costantini . “Any artist who isn’t an activist is a dead artist,” Weiwei writes in Zodiac , as he embraces everything from animals found in the Chinese zodiac to mystical folklore tales with anamorphic animals to argue the necessity of art as politics incarnate. The meditative exercise uses pithy anecdotes alongside striking visuals to sketch out a remarkable life story marked by struggle. It’s one weaving political manifesto, philosophy and personal memoir to engage readers on the necessity of art and agitation against authority in a world where we sometimes must resist and fight back.
Already well-known for her experimental writings, Sheila Heti takes a decade of diary entries and maps sentences against the alphabet, from A to Z. The project is a subversive rethink of our relationship to introspection—which often asks for order and clarity, like in diary writing—that maps new patterns and themes in its disjointed form. Heti plays with both her confessionals and her sometimes formulaic writing style (like knowingly using “Of course” in entries) to retrace the changes made (and unmade) across ten years of her life. Alphabetical Diaries is a sometimes demanding book given the incoherence of its entries, but remains an illuminating project in thinking about efforts at self-documentation.
Unlike her previous work The Empathy Exams , which examined how we relate to one another and on human suffering, writer Leslie Jamison wrestles today with her own failed marriage and the grief of surviving single parenting. After the birth of her daughter, Jamison divorces her partner “C,” traverses the trials and tribulations of rebound relationships (including with “an ex-philosopher”) and confronts unresolved emotional pains born of her own life living under the divorce of her parents. In her intimate retelling—paired with her superb prose—Jamison charts a personal history that acknowledges the unending divide mothers (and others) face dividing themselves between partners, children and their own lives.
Whether dancing figures or a “radiant baby,” the recognizable cartoonish symbols in Keith Haring ’s art endure today as shorthand signs representing both his playfulness and politicking. Haring (1958-1990) is the subject of writer Brad Gooch ’s deft biography, Radiant , a book that mines new material from the archive along with interviews with contemporaries to reappraise the influential quasi-celebrity artist. From rough beginnings tagging graffiti on New York City walls to cavorting with Andy Warhol and Madonna on art pieces, Haring battled everything from claims of selling out to over-simplicity. But he persisted with work that leveraged catchy quotes and colorful imagery to advance unsavory political messages—from AIDS to crack cocaine. A life tragically cut short at 31 is one powerfully celebrated in this new noble portrait.
In The House of Hidden Meaning , celebrated drag queen, RuPaul , reckons with a murky inner world that has shaped—and hindered—a lifetime of gender-bending theatricality. The figurative house at the center of the story is his “ego,” a plaguing barrier that apparently long inhibited the performer from realizing dreams of greatness. Now as the world’s most recognizable drag queen—having popularized the art form for mainstream audiences with the TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race —RuPaul reflects on the power that drag and self-love have long offered across his difficult, and sometimes tortured, life. Readers expecting dishy stories may be disappointed, but the psychological self-assessment in the pages of this memoir is far more edifying than Hollywood gossip could ever be.
Patric Gagne is an unlikely subject for a memoir on sociopaths. Especially since she is a former therapist with a doctorate in clinical psychology. Still, Gagne makes the case that after a troubled childhood of antisocial behavior (like stealing trinkets and cursing teachers) and a difficult adulthood (now stealing credit cards and fighting authority figures), she receives a diagnosis of sociopathy. Her memoir recounts many episodes of bad behavior—deeds often marked by a lack of empathy, guilt or even common decency—where her great antipathy mars any ability for her to connect with others. Sociopath is a rewarding personal exposé that demystifies one vilified psychological condition so often seen as entirely untreatable or irreparable. Only now there’s a familiar face and a real story linked to the prognosis.
Nicholas Shakespeare is an acclaimed novelist and an astute biographer, delivering tales that wield a discerning eye to subjects and embrace a robust attention to detail. Ian Fleming (1908-1964), the legendary creator of James Bond, is the latest to receive Shakespeare’s treatment. With access to new family materials from the Fleming estate, the seemingly contradictory Fleming is seen anew as a totally “different person” from his popular image. Taking cues from Fleming’s life story—from a refined upbringing spent in expensive private schools to working for Reuters as a journalist in the Soviet Union—Shakespeare reveals how these experiences shaped the elusive world of espionage and intrigue created in Fleming’s novels. Other insights include how Bond was likely informed by Fleming’s cavalier father, a major who fought in WWI. A martini (shaken, not stirred) is best enjoyed with this bio.
Salman Rushdie , while giving a rare public lecture in New York in August 2022, was violently stabbed by an assailant brandishing a knife . The attack saw Rushdie lose his left hand and his sight in one eye. Speaking to The New Yorker a year later , he confirmed a memoir was in the works that would confront this harrowing existential experience: “When somebody sticks a knife into you, that’s a first-person story. That’s an ‘I’ story.” Knife: Meditations after an Attempted Murder is promised to be his raw, revelatory and deeply psychological confrontation with the violent incident. Like the sword of Damocles, brutality has long stalked Rushdie ever since the 1989 fatwa issued against the author, following the publication of his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses . The answer to such barbarity, Rushdie is poised to argue, is by finding the strength to stand up again.
Peter Schjeldahl (1942-2022), longstanding art critic of The New Yorker , confronted his mortality when he was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer in 2019. The resulting essay collection he then penned, The Art of Dying , is a masterful meditation on one life preoccupied entirely with aesthetics and criticism. It’s a discursive tactic for a memoir that avoids discussing Schjeldahl’s coming demise while equally confirming its impending visit by avoiding it. Acknowledging that he finds himself “thinking about death less than I used to,” Schjeldahl spends most of the pages revisiting familiar art subjects—from Edward Hopper ’s output to Peter Saul ’s Pop Art—as vehicles to re-examine his own remarkable life. With a life that began in the humble Midwest, Schjeldahl says his birthplace was one that ultimately availed him to write so plainly and cogently on art throughout his career. Such posthumous musings prove illuminating lessons on the potency of American art, with whispered asides on the tragedy of death that will come for all of us.
Joni Mitchell has enjoyed a remarkable revival recently, even already being one of the most acclaimed and enduring singer/songwriters. After retiring from public appearances for health reasons in the 2010s, Mitchell, 80, has returned to the spotlight with a 2021 Kennedy Centers honor , an appearance accepting the 2023 Gershwin Prize and even a live performance at this year’s Grammy Awards . It’s against this backdrop of public celebration of Mitchell that NPR music critic Ann Powers retraces the life story and musical (re)evolution of the singer, from folk to jazz genres and rock to soul music, across five decades for the American songbook. “What you are about to read is not a standard account of the life and work of Joni Mitchell,” she writes in the introduction. Instead, Powers’ project is one showing how Mitchell’s many journeys—from literal road trips inspiring tracks like “All I Want” to inner probings of Mitchell’s psyche, such as the song “Both Sides Now”—have always inspired Mitchell’s enduring, emotive and palpable output. These travels hold the key, Powers says, to understanding an enigmatic artist.
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From former first ladies to famous actors and standup comedians.
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The books on this list include incredible true stories about remarkable women who overcame great adversity, from Hollywood heavyweights sharing their personal stories for the first time to women journeying through grief, love, heartbreak, and hardship. While some of these books explore what it means to move forward after a violent crime, others explain the influence a person's upbringing had on their identity. Here, we round up 10 of the best biographies of women to add to your reading list in 2024.
Michelle Obama needs no introduction following her eight-year tenure as first lady in the White House, but that doesn't make her story any less remarkable. Becoming covers everything from Michelle's youth in Chicago to her relationship with husband and former president Barack Obama and the way she's learned to juggle working on a world stage alongside raising her family. Rather than shying away from her mistakes, Michelle reflects on her life to date, offering every ounce of wisdom she's gathered, making her memoir an essential read.
When Malala Yousafzai was just 15 years old, she was shot in the head after standing up to the Taliban regarding her right to an education. Seemingly against all odds, Yousafzai survived the attack, and was subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her advocacy on behalf of children and young people. Since then, she has continued her activism by supporting young women to receive an education, while opposing extremism. I Am Malala is Yousafzai's incredible story , told in her own words.
As an award-winning actor and the ex-wife of Bruce Willis , Demi Moore is no stranger to the spotlight. In Inside Out: A Memoir, Moore uses her wit and candor to discuss her unlikely rise to fame, the difficulties she encountered as a Hollywood star, and aspects of her personal life even the most dedicated fan wouldn't know. From her very real battles with sexism to the disintegration of multiple relationships, Moore doesn't hold anything back in her emotional autobiography.
With Know My Name, Chanel Miller gave up her anonymity as Emily Doe to tell her story. In 2016, Brock Turner was found guilty of three counts of felony sexual assault, for which he was sentenced to six months in county jail, although he would only serve three. Following the trial, Miller's victim impact statement went viral online, in which she revealed the devastating impact the crime had on every aspect of her life. Know My Name is an intimate portrayal of what it's like to survive a life-changing event and find a new forward.
Viola Davis' biography , Finding Me, elevated the actor to EGOT status when she took home a Grammy for her performance of the audiobook, and it's easy to see why. Discussing her humble upbringing on Rhode Island and her quest to forge a career as an actor, Davis encourages honesty and self-reflection when readers look back on their own stories. While Davis' talent is undeniable, her journey to stardom has been anything but simple, making Finding Me an important and timeless read.
After leaving Scientology in July 2013, Leah Remini was forced to rebuild her life from the ground up. Despite being a famous actor, Remini was seemingly adrift in the world without her former religion and allegedly faced harassment and stalking by the organization for fleeing. Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology tracks Remini's upbringing in the church, the reasons she finally decided to leave, and the ways in which her life changed after she walked away.
Comedian Michelle Buteau has continually proven herself with roles in Netflix movies, such as Someone Great and Always Be My Maybe, and on TV shows like Russian Doll and First Wives Club. In Survival of the Thickest, Buteau provides readers with an insight into her life growing up in New Jersey with Caribbean parents and why she made the move to Miami for college. Both hilarious and intimate, Buteau gets candid about her chaotic life as a standup comedian, starting a family with her Dutch husband, and the difficult decisions she faced when becoming a mother.
Brought to the big screen in a movie starring Reese Witherspoon , Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail is a story of resilience, heartbreak, grief, and an 1100-mile solo hike. Leaving behind a difficult romantic relationship and personal demons and still reeling from the death of her mother, Strayed navigates the challenging walk with very little hiking experience. In spite of her shortcomings, the journey changes the course of her life forever.
Known as the lead singer of Japanese Breakfast , Michelle Zauner's biography is an exploration of family, food, identity, loss, and the journey to discovering oneself. From her childhood in Oregon to her experiences staying in Seoul, South Korea, with her grandmother, Zauner examines the strands that form her identity as a Korean American. In addition to tracking her career as a rock musician, Zauner opens up about the devastating family diagnosis that changed her outlook on life and heritage.
Author Jami Attenberg is known for her novels The Middlesteins and The Melting Season, and for short story collections such as Instant Love . In I Came All This Way to Meet You, Attenberg shares the experiences that shaped her worldview, including following her father's occupation as a traveling salesman. As Attenberg discovered her own creative identity, she also found the less glamorous aspects of writing, such as the cross-country book tours and the lack of stable housing. Despite the challenges, Attenberg's memoir provides the encouragement needed to never quit, whatever the project.
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Dave Barry (born July 3, 1947, Armonk, New York , U.S.) is an American humorist and author best known for a popular humor column he wrote for The Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005. Barry’s column was syndicated to more than 500 newspapers in the United States and abroad. Barry is the author, coauthor, or contributing author of dozens of best-selling books, including collections of his columns, nonfiction humor books, novels, and anthologies. In 1988 Barry was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary “for his consistently effective use of humor as a device for presenting fresh insights into serious concerns.”
Barry has acknowledged being influenced by his parents, by the American humorist Robert Benchley , and by the satirical Mad magazine . He attended Pleasantville High School in Pleasantville, New York, where he wrote for the school newspaper and was elected “class clown” by his graduating class of 1965. At Haverford College in Pennsylvania Barry earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature (1969) and wrote for the college’s newspaper, the Haverford News . In the early 1970s Barry was hired as a reporter for the Daily Local News of West Chester , Pennsylvania. In 1975, after a short stint at the Associated Press , he began teaching business writing for the consulting firm Burger Associates. During this period he began writing humor columns for his former newspaper, the Daily Local News . Other newspapers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Chicago Tribune , also began printing his columns.
In 1983 Barry was hired to write a humor column for The Miami Herald . His trademark style of silly and self-deprecating but incisive humor proved popular with readers, and his column was picked up for syndication.
Barry is known for his wry observations regarding family life, history , politics, and—especially—the strangeness of life in Miami, where he still lives today. “I am not making this up,” he frequently declared in his columns. Fans often sent him stories about absurd events clipped from newspapers or magazines, which he wrote about in his columns and credited to “alert readers.” (This tradition was later continued on Barry’s blog , DaveBARRY.com.) Another mainstay of his columns was a character called “Mr. Language Person,” who gave terrible advice to (often fictional) readers seeking instruction on proper grammar . Barry also covered the Olympic Games and the Democratic and Republican national conventions for the Herald .
Barry’s columns inspired the television sitcom Dave’s World , which aired on the CBS network from 1993 to 1997. The show starred Harry Anderson as a fictionalized version of Barry.
Barry ended his column in 2005 but continued to write several annual features for the Herald , including “Holiday Gift Guide” and “Year in Review” columns. In 2005 Barry was honored with the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism. He was also awarded the Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists in 2013.
Barry is the author of dozens of humor books with amusing titles, including Stay Fit & Healthy Until You’re Dead (1985), Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs (1997), and Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys: A Fairly Short Book (1995), which was made into a movie released in 2005. His nonfiction titles include Lessons from Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old, Happy Dog (2019). Collections of Barry’s columns have been published in several books, such as Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up (1994). His novels include Big Trouble (1999)—which was made into a 2002 movie starring Tim Allen, Rene Russo, and Stanley Tucci—and, more recently, Swamp Story: A Novel (2023). Barry has also collaborated with other authors and contributed to anthologies. Naked Came the Manatee: A Novel (1997), for example, includes individual chapters written by Barry and other Florida authors, such as Edna Buchanan, Carl Hiaasen, and Elmore Leonard .
With coauthor Ridley Pearson, Barry wrote the Starcatchers series of novels, which reimagines the J.M. Barrie stories about the fictional character Peter Pan . One of the Starcatchers novels was adapted into a play, Peter and the Starcatcher , which debuted in La Jolla, California, in 2009. In 2012 the play opened on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre (now the Lena Horne Theatre). Barry and Pearson also wrote the Never Land Books series for younger readers.
From 1992 to 2012 Barry played guitar in the literary rock band the Rock Bottom Remainders with fellow writers Stephen King , Amy Tan , Ridley Pearson, and Mitch Albom. In 2002 Barry helped to promote International Talk Like a Pirate Day, held annually on September 19. This parody celebration, started by Barry’s friends Mark Summers and John Baur in 1995, encourages people to talk using “pirate slang” for an entire day.
In 2010 Barry joined a team of writers for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards . The show’s writers were nominated for an Emmy Award that year for outstanding writing for a variety, music, or comedy special.
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Who reads children’s books best kids or adults, by jane sullivan, save articles for later.
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When it comes to writing for children, grown-ups don’t always know best. Lauren Crozier discovered this when a literary agent strongly advised her not to write about magical animals. That shamed her and discouraged her from writing what came naturally to her, until she finally wrote a story featuring a magical owl.
The book, The Best Witch in Paris , won the 2023 Text Prize for writing for children and it’s had great reviews. Which raises a more general question: who knows best about books for children, adults or kids?
Amelia Mellor had trouble selling her books to publishers. Credit: Justin McManus
Kill Your Darlings recently ran a survey of writers for children in its “What I Wish I’d Known About” series. While Crozier wished she hadn’t taken that agent’s advice about magical animals, others said they wished they’d known about the exacting standards publishers demand.
Megan Hess, author of the Claris the Mouse series, wishes she’d known just how important every single word is in a picture book. All her books are exactly 18 double pages long, and every story has to fit perfectly in that format. Tony Wilson, author of the Selwood Boys series, didn’t know that picture book manuscripts should have 32 pages and about 500 words.
Amelia Mellor, author of the award-winning The Grandest Bookshop in the World , wishes she’d known how to sell books for children. She’d written two previous novels that won unpublished manuscript awards and kids adored them. But they were rejected 45 times because they didn’t conform to established genres, age groups or topics of interest.
Adults and kids readers agreed on Tristan Bancks’ book. Credit: Louise Kennerley
The Children’s Book Council of Australia has a bet each way in its Book of the Year awards, chosen by a panel of adult judges and also by the Shadow Judges, more than 240 groups of schoolchildren who read the shortlisted books and vote for their own winners.
This year, adults and kids agreed on two books. They both named Scar Town by Tristan Bancks as the winner in the Younger Readers category; and Australia: Country of Colour by Jess Racklyeft as a top book in the non-fiction Eve Pownall category (it was a winner for the kids and an Honour Book for the adults). Otherwise, young and old diverged in their choices.
It’s interesting to see how they differed. The winner in the Older Readers category was Karen Comer’s debut Grace Notes , by all accounts a beautifully written verse novel about a violinist and a street artist connecting during Melbourne’s pandemic lockdown. But the kids went for Suzy Zail’s Inkflower , about a girl whose dying father is a Holocaust survivor, and the secrets she’s trying to keep.
What can we deduce from this? That writing for children is an area where you must please both your young readers and the publishing gatekeepers and judges – and you mustn’t be afraid of dark themes. Clearly Tristan Bancks has pushed all the right buttons with his bestselling books, and he’s very focused on encouraging reluctant or unconfident kids into the joys of reading.
But different writers have different priorities. Beloved writer and illustrator Shaun Tan says he wishes he’d known that writing for children is not really writing for children: “It’s about writing for everyone, telling universal stories … that are so good they can even be read by children but without sacrificing any complexity or ambiguity”.
Mind you, you don’t have to know anything. Anna Zobel said her first book, Little Gem , “sort of sprang forth organically … I had no sense of writing for a particular audience, no educational intention and no understanding of the market; I was writing for pleasure”. Maybe writing what comes naturally is the best way after all.
The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday .
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by Petrana Radulovic and Susana Polo
There is a stereotype that books shelved under Young Adult literature are not for adults. That if a story is appropriate for children, then it must only be appropriate for children, or that if it contains elements kids are supposed to outgrow — fairy tales, magic, coming of age stories — there’s nothing there to enrich the mind of someone who is truly grown up.
That’s bullshit, naturally; you’ll find books with familiar plots, thin emotions, and easy prose in every genre humans are capable of inventing. But it means that books written expressly for a YA audience, and books lumped in with YA because of their subject matter, can be overlooked in the search for a story to really knock one’s socks off or offer meaty ideas to chew on.
It’s in that spirit that Polygon’s put together this list: childhood favorites that will surprise you with the depth they have to offer to adults, hugely influential books that will give you a better understanding of their wider genre, and a new wave of diverse stories that expand upon the usual coming-of-age-narrative.
Michael Ende, 1979
If the movie is all you know about The Neverending Story , you don’t know it at all. The 1984 film adapted only the first half of the novel by German writer Michael Ende, displaying all of the tropes, and none of the subversion.
Ende, the son of an artist deemed “degenerate” by the Nazi regime, tore up his draft papers and joined an anti-SS sabotage movement the moment he came of age. His Neverending Story is a blazing, interrogative work of fantasy. It’s not merely a story within a story, but a novel that pushes the format of the medium itself, with elements like a magical artifact that determines the reader’s viewpoint. And woven through everything The Neverending Story has to say is a treatise on how a lonely, self-hating young man is radicalized into facism by his love for fantasy, and the perilous journey he undertakes to de-radicalize himself. — Susana Polo
Leigh Bardugo, 2015-2016
Admittedly, Leigh Bardugo’s first set of Grishaverse novels suffers from Bad YA Fantasy tropes: a totally normal girl who is secretly a Chosen One, a love triangle, and a Big Bad that needs to be thwarted. But there was potential in her Imperial Russian-inspired fantasy world, and Bardugo took all of that and really dazzled with the Six of Crows books .
The duology follows Kaz Brekker, a criminal mastermind (who, yes, is seventeen, but let the teens have their fantasies) who gets recruited to pull off a dangerous heist. He calls on some allies — old friends and unlikely newcomers. Every character is magnetic, their relationships compelling. And the worldbuilding is wonderful, seamlessly threaded through the book to the point where you don’t even need to read the first three books to understand anything (though some cameos in the second book will make more sense if you do).— Petrana Radulovic
The earthsea cycle.
Ursula K. Le Guin, 1968-2018
Before the Boy Who Lived went to wizard school, there was the Archmage Sparrowhawk, central figure of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle. “Wizard books” conjure a certain image these days, whether it’s one of old white guys with beards or bespectacled chosen ones — but Le Guin’s fantasy series, unsurprisingly, bends to very few genre standards.
Even in 1968, she approached her editor’s suggestion of a fantasy novel for children from a reactionary standpoint. Dragons, yes, but swords, hardly ever. A dark-skinned protagonist in a society where that was the norm, a distinct lack of dark lords, and a characteristic Le Guin-ian interest in the mundane lives of the people in her fantastical settings. She returned to Earthsea throughout her career, and taken together, the series is a tour of the changing strengths and interests of a towering talent, from her very first book to gain a wide audience to some of her final works before her death. — SP
Turtles all the way down.
John Green, 2017
Haters will say that John Green only writes books about sad nerdy boys and manic pixie dream girls. Those haters are wrong (that’s the subject of another article , though).
Nothing proves that more than his most recent YA novel. It starts with some John Green stock elements: an anxious protagonist (in this case, named Aza), a weird, compelling hook (in this case, a missing billionaire), and a quirky best friend (in this case, she writes Chewbacca x Rey fanfic). But it’s a raw and unflinching look at one young woman’s struggle with OCD. Turtles All the Way Down is John Green’s most personal novel, and it shows in the way he writes about Aza’s mental health struggles. The book never shies away from the darker edges of Aza’s illness, but Green also depicts it with great care and empathy. — PR
J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937
The story of Bilbo Baggins’ journey there and back again is Tolkien in a distinctly different mode than The Lord of the Rings . A recorded version of the ongoing bedtime stories Tolkien improvised for his four children, The Hobbit is unpretentious, relentlessly jokey, and uninterested in consistency of worldbuilding or internal plot logistics. Less of an epic and more of a “New Chapter, New Monster” travelog of Bilbo’s strange experiences, it was never intended to connect up with the capital-R romantic fantasy of Middle-earth until after it was completed and published, yet it remains the cited foundation of the genre.
If you want to understand how we got to this genre of knights in shining armor, magic spells, and heroic deeds, you should see where it began: with an unlikely, out of shape (dare we say cowardly?) little weirdo who lives in a hole. — SP
Terry Pratchett, 2003-2015
If you’re a Discworld fan who has overlooked the Young Adult books set in the universe, fix that immediately. Tiffany Aching, the witch-in-training star of Wee Free Men and its sequels, is one of Terry Pratchett’s best realized protagonists, shoulder to shoulder with characters like Granny Weatherwax and Commander Sam Vimes.
Tiffany’s five book sub-series are full of Discworld cameos, naturally favoring Pratchett’s witch characters in the biggest roles, but they stand alone for any new reader, following her from pre-teen adventure (including some none-too-subtle digs at that other Brit-fantasy series about witch school) to her responsibilities as a young, practicing witch.
There’s a fiercely evident sense of love and care in the way Pratchett writes this pragmatic, whip-smart, good-hearted girl from childhood to first loves to first jobs, and that sense permeates everything else about the books. They keep his love for English farming communities in full display, measured, as in every Discworld book, by his frustration with conservatism and prejudice, and his keen understanding of human nature. — SP
I kissed shara wheeler.
Casey McQuinton, 2022
Okay, I started this piece talking about the tropes John Green accidentally became known for and how that’s not really true — but I gotta say I Kissed Shara Wheeler is basically like a gay redux of his Paper Towns , where a popular girl goes missing a few weeks before graduation, leaving behind only some cryptic notes to three people she kissed in the days leading up to her disappearance.
Except, instead of a sad boy realizing it’s not good to put pretty girls on pedestals, it’s about a queer community coming together in the South. Casey McQuinton’s YA debut is full of the same warmth and wit that’s made their adult novels so dang appealing. I Kissed Shara Wheeler is deeply funny, but also deeply hopeful. (Also, I just need to hammer this home — Red, White & Royal Blue is NOT a young adult novel!) — PR
Aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz, 2012
Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s queer coming-of-age story is achingly poignant and beautiful. Set in the 1980s, the novel is narrated by Aristotle Mendoza, a Mexican-American teenager who forms a quick and deep friendship with a boy named Dante. Ari’s narration anchors the whole book. He’s the sort of protagonist who thinks more than he does, and the result is a book that really captures one specific character’s psyche. And Ari’s narration often twists like a knife, as he battles his own self-doubt and eventually his repressed sexuality and feelings for his best friend. It’s gorgeously written, with enough grit to ground it and enough hope to make it worth the pain. — PR
Maggie Stiefvater, 2011
Maggie Stiefvater’s richly atmospheric books will pull you into their settings, no matter what your age. The Scorpio Races , however, is the most timeless story of all her novels: at its core, it’s a horse girl book . And horse girl books stay with you forever.
In this case, though, most of the horses are man-eating equines who rise from the sea — that’s a point in the “taming a dangerous beast” category. On this little island, a deadly race takes place every November, and it’s one girl’s chance to win the cash prize and save for her family. But even though she’s a great rider, all she has is her dingy little pony. As the first girl to ever do so, the odds are stacked against her. She managed to befriend the reigning champion, a brooding boy who’s really only in it because he loves his horse so dang much.
Admittedly my plot description leans a bit too hard on tropes, but I really can’t do justice to just how gorgeously written this book is, how rich and dynamic the characters are, and how you can vividly picture the little island of Thisby, as gray waves pound the rocky shores. — PR
The last unicorn.
Peter S. Beagle, 1968
Peter S. Beagle didn’t write The Last Unicorn for children. Which is not to say that kids won’t enjoy the inept wizard and the menacing King Haggard — but the bulk of The Last Unicorn will at best fly over their heads and at worst seem baffling.
Beagle writes for an audience intimately versed in fantasy tropes, but not as satire: The Last Unicorn is a fairy tale in which everyone is genre savvy and no one is happy with their roles. Its elegiac quality extends not just to the world but to the characters, who are almost all battling the idea that they’ve missed their chance. Kids might not really get why Molly Grue weeps with sorrow and anger when she meets the Unicorn, but for any adult with a wisp of regret for what might have been, it’s one of the most powerful scenes in the genre. — SP
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For people who embrace this with their entire being, our ten best biographies and memoirs of 2022 are certainly ones they won't want to miss. From celebrities to people facing injustices in the world, these books are ones that will linger in readers' minds long after they've finished them and make a great gift this year! Hardcover $22.99 ...
Read on to discover nine of the best biographies published within the last year. Included are life stories of singular people, including celebrated artists and significant historical figures, as well as collective biographies. ... Catch Up on the Best 21st Century Novels in 10 Books. 12 of the Funniest Science Fiction and Fantasy Books. The ...
Elon Musk, the man behind Tesla and SpaceX, is known not just for his genius but also for his audacious visions of the future. Vance's biography offers a fascinating glimpse into Musk's life and his relentless pursuit of ambitious goals. This biography will inspire you to dream big and challenge the status quo.
To read Donne is to grapple with a vision of the eternal that is startlingly reinvented in the here and now, and Rundell captures this vision alive in all its power, eloquence and strangeness". -Laura Feigel ( The Guardian) 2. The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland.
Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson. Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson. Amazon. Walter Isaacson—the former editor of Time, best known for his other great biographies of Benjamin Franklin and ...
Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir by Ai Weiwei and illustrated by Gianluca Costantini. 'Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir' by Ai Weiwei. Ten Speed Graphic. Ai Weiwei, the iconoclastic artist and fierce critic ...
Sports biographies take you into the locker room and off the playing field with the likes of Andre Agassi, Lauren Fleshman and Caster Semenya. Artist biographies run the gamut from Vincent van Gogh to Aurora James. Discover our list of the best books of 2024 so far for your TBR list or to give as gifts. Looking for biography books to read today?
Here, we round up 10 of the best biographies of women to add to your reading list in 2024. $12 at Amazon. Credit: Vintage. Brought to the big screen in a movie starring Reese Witherspoon, Cheryl ...
100 Best Books of the 21st Century: As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.
Dave Barry (born July 3, 1947, Armonk, New York, U.S.) is an American humorist and author best known for a popular humor column he wrote for The Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005. Barry's column was syndicated to more than 500 newspapers in the United States and abroad. Barry is the author, coauthor, or contributing author of dozens of best-selling books, including collections of his columns ...
Adults and kids readers agreed on Tristan Bancks' book. Credit: Louise Kennerley The Children's Book Council of Australia has a bet each way in its Book of the Year awards, chosen by a panel ...
17 New Books Coming in June A biography of Joni Mitchell, two hotly anticipated horror novels, a behind-the-scenes exposé about Donald Trump's years on "The Apprentice" and more. YA/NYT
The 20 best biography audiobooks recommended by Tim Cook, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Emma Watson, Jimmy Fallon and others. Categories Experts Newsletter icon-search
The 50 Best TV Shows on Netflix, Ranked (August 2024) By Paste Staff August 16, 2024 | 3:00pm; The 10 Best Movies on Apple TV+, Ranked (August 2024) By Jacob Oller and Paste Staff August 16, 2024 ...
From The Last Unicorn to The Scorpio Races, from J.R.R. Tolkien to John Green, here are 10 YA novels for adults.