Shows / New Books in Biography & Memoir
New Books in Biography & Memoir
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/…
Episodes
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
How Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on Washington with Marcia Chatelain (Random House, 2026)
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Franchise comes How Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on Washington (Pantheon…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Karmic Winds: Reflections from “The Smartest Guy in Hollywood” with Peter M. Hoffman (Rare Bird Books, 2026)
Karmic Winds: Reflections from “The Smartest Guy in Hollywood” (Rare Bird Books, 2026) is a memoir of power, collapse, and reckoning by Peter M. Hoffman, a…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Last Day: How to Stop Losing Our Loved Ones to the Opioid Crisis with Stephanie Wittels Wachs (Gallery/Lemonada Books, 2026)
Based on the groundbreaking podcast of the same name, Last Day: How to Stop Losing Our Loved Ones to the Opioid Crisis (Gallery/Lemonada Books, 2026) is borne…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Chekhov's Sakhalin Journey: Doctor, Humanitarian, Writer with Jonathan Cole (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Chekhov liked to joke that he was a doctor by profession and merely did literary work in his spare time. Behind the joke lies an intriguing truth. We remember…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Rehearsing the Future: The Thought and Practice of James and Grace Lee Boggs with Michael Doan (AK Press, 2026)
In Rehearsing the Future: The Thought and Practice of James and Grace Lee Boggs (AK Press, 2026), Michael Doan explores the work and legacy of James and Grace…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
The Expanded Editions of Elie Wiesel with Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg and Ariel Burger
In this latest Books for Better Understanding video from Notre Dame Press, Jake Kildoo facilitates a conversation between Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg and…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
A Protestant Air: Gide, Sartre, Barthes, and the Religion of Literary Modernity with Clémentine Fauré-Bellaïche (Cornell UP, 2026)
A Protestant Air: Gide, Sartre, Barthes, and the Religion of Literary Modernity (Cornell UP, 2026) focuses on the Protestant connection linking three…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Pink Auteur, Red Outlaw: Adachi Masao and Japan's Cinema of Revolution with William Andrews (Awai Books, 2026)
Pink Auteur, Red Outlaw: Adachi Masao and Japan’s Cinema of Revolution (Awai Books, 2026) is the first-ever English-language book on Adachi Masao. Based on…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Safar: Finding Home, History, and Culture through Punjabi Food in the American West with Madhushree Ghosh (Bloomsbury, 2026)
In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Madhushree Ghosh about her memoir Safar: Finding Home, History, and Culture through Punjabi Food in the…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Outed: LBJ’s Confidant and the Arrest that Transformed a Presidency with Timothy Stewart-Winter (U Chicago Press, 2026)
Timothy Stewart-Winter joins Michael Stauch to discuss the arrest that transformed Lyndon Johnson’s presidency. In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson’s longest-serving…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Justice Was Her Calling: The Fierce and Fascinating Life of Dorothy Kenyon with Jennifer L. Brinkley (U California Press, 2026)
Before Ruth Bader Ginsburg persuaded the Supreme Court to strike down sex discrimination, Dorothy Kenyon drew the legal blueprint. Justice Was Her Calling: The…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Water, Carbon, Time: Exploring Peatlands in a Warming World with Jennifer de Mooy (U Minnesota Press, 2026)
Water, Carbon, Time: Exploring Peatlands in a Warming World was published by University of Minnesota Press in 2026. Water, Carbon, Time is the story of…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
An Inconvenient Woman: The Extraordinary Life of Lillian Smith, the Southerner Who Defied Jim Crow America with Keri Leigh Merritt (St. Martin's Press, 2026)
Born in Florida to a religious family, Lillian Smith (1897-1966) was a white Southern woman living in the Jim Crow South who defied all stereotypes: She lived…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Presidentess: The Life of First Lady Julia Gardner Tyler with Christopher J. Leahy and Sharon Williams Leahy (UP of Kansas, 2026)
The first full biography of the controversial and complex First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler--an unjustly scandalized New Yorker, the second wife to President…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution with Jesse Wegman (Celadon Books, 2026)
David N. Gellman interviews Jesse Wegman on The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People’s Constitution (Celadon Books, 2026). Jesse…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Walking with Beth: Conversations with My 100-Year-Old Friend with Merilyn Simonds (Random House Canada, 2025)
In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Merilyn Simonds about her bestselling memoir, Walking with Beth: Conversations with My 100-Year-Old Friend…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Inquisition for Blood: The Making of a Black Female Serial Killer in the Jim Crow South with Lauren Nicole Henley (LSU Press, 2026)
For three years in the early 1900s, a serial killer zigzagged across the rice belt region of the United States, using an everyday ax to slaughter Black…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
A Room of His Own: Joseph Brodsky and the Making of a Bilingual Poet with Daria S. Smirnova (Academic Studies Press, 2025)
A Room of His Own: Joseph Brodsky and the Making of a Bilingual Poet (Academic Studies Press, 2025) makes the original and persuasive claim that Brodsky’s…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Flannery and Regina: The Andalusia Chronicles with Carol Loeb Shloss
The story of two women in the mid-twentieth-century South navigating financial independence, a changing rural landscape, and social norms. Flannery and Regina…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
The Afterlife of a Fascist Murder: Giacomo Matteotti in Myth and Memory, 1924-2024 with Amy King (Cambridge UP, 2026)
In this episode, I speak with Dr Amy King of Bristol University about her book, The Afterlife of a Fascist Murder: Giacomo Matteotti in Myth and Memory…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Bernardo de Gálvez: Spanish Hero of the American Revolution with Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia (UNC Press, 2026)
Although Spain was never a formal ally of the United States during the American Revolution, its entry into the war definitively tipped the balance against…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Our Common Life: Folksong from the Front Porch to the Concert Hall with Stephen Wade
Our Common Life: Folk Song from the Front Porch to the Concert Hall (U Illinois Press, 2026) by Stephen Wade is part memoir, part meditation on American…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Cool Heat: Anita O'Day and Her Dangerous Jazz Life with James Gavin (Equinox, 2026)
How did Anita O'Day-the legendary jazz singer who, along with Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, and Stan Getz, led the so-called "cool school" of modern…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night with Julian Sancton
I spoke with writer and The Hollywood Reporter editor Julian Sancton about his New York Times bestselling book, Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
How Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on Washington with Marcia Chatelain
There is no shortage of footage immortalizing the men who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, when 250,000 Americans gathered beneath…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
The Last of the Ellis Island Jews: A Brooklyn Memoir with Joel Dinerstein (SUNY Press, 2026)
Joel Dinerstein's The Last of the Ellis Island Jews (SUNY Press, 2026) is a tragicomic memoir of a dysfunctional, working-class Brooklyn Jewish family that…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Thomas Jefferson Survives: American Independence in His Time and Ours with Peter S. Onuf and Francis D. Cogliano (Liveright, 2026)
“Does Thomas Jefferson still matter?” ask two leading historians on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson has been…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Emmy Waldman, "Filial Lines: Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel, and Comics Form" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Filial Lines: Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel, and Comics Form (Cambridge UP, 2026) by Dr. Emmy Waldman is the first book to place the autobiographical projects…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
What Is Life Worth? New Edition with Reflections 25 Years After 9/11 with Kenneth R. Feinberg (Rivertowns, 2026)
Kenneth R. Feinberg's What is Life Worth? New Edition with Reflections 25 Years After 9/11 (Rivertown Books, 2026) shares the story that inspired the acclaimed…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Ru Marshall, "American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Castaneda" (OR Books, 2026)
A gripping exposé of deception, cult power, and the long shadow of Carlos Castaneda, the man behind the biggest literary hoax of the twentieth century. Twenty…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Tess Chakkalakal, "A Matter of Complexion: The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt" (St. Martin's Press, 2025)
In A Matter of Complexion: The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt (St. Martin's Press, 2025), Tess Chakkalakal gives readers the first comprehensive…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Michael R. Fischbach, "I Did It for My Country: Sirhan Sirhan, Palestine, and the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy" (Columbia UP, 2026)
In June 1968, a twenty-four-year-old Palestinian immigrant named Sirhan B. Sirhan assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy, marking yet another killing in a…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Randal Maurice Jelks, "My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy" (Broadleaf Books, 2026)
Celebrated poet, essayist, playwright, and American artist Langston Hughes is one of the few American writers who consistently wrote about democracy from a…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Andrew Brandt, "Smarter about Sports: My Life Navigating Athletes, Agents, Media, and the Business of the NFL" (Triumph Books, 2026)
For more than two decades, Andrew Brandt has lived at the intersection of money, law, and sports—first as a player agent, then as vice president of the Green…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Jerome Sauvage, "Witness to North Korea: Three Years on the Ground in the DPRK" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
Jerome Sauvage served as the United Nations Resident Coordinator and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Resident Representative in North Korea from 2009…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Sarah Trad, "A House in the Lebanese Mountains: Recipes & Stories from Beit Trad" (Thames & Hudson, 2026)
High in the Lebanese mountains above Beirut sits Beit Trad, an eighteenth-century family home that Sarah Trad transformed into a guesthouse devoted to…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Charlie Walker, "On Thin Ice: An Explorer's Memoir of Siberia, Surveillance and Survival" (Duckworth, 2026)
In February 2022, British explorer Charlie Walker flew to Siberia's Sakha Republic to walk a thousand miles up frozen rivers to the Arctic Ocean, through…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Ian Brown, "70: A Diary of My Seventy-First Year" (Penguin Random House, 2026)
In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with award-winning author and journalist Ian Brown about his memoir, 70: A Diary of My Seventy-First Year…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Ben Westhoff ed.,"Lives Interrupted: The Fentanyl Tragedy" (Arsenault Family Foundation, 2026)
An account of the North American fentanyl crisis told through stories and photographs of its victims Lives Interrupted: The Fentanyl Tragedy (Arsenault Family…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Sara McDougall, "Justice for Jehanne: The Tale of a Medieval Survivor" (Princeton UP, 2026)
In the winter of 1472, the city of Dijon, France, became the stage for a remarkable legal drama. On the mayor’s orders, an investigator named Jaques Borestel…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Kirby, "Fairy" (Palimpsest Press, 2026)
In this episode, NBN host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Kirby about their joyful and powerful new book, Fairy (Palimpsest Press, 2026). In Fairy, Kirby continues…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Ashley Kahn, "Days of Miracle and Wonder: Paul Simon and the Trials and Triumphs of Graceland" (Atria Books, 2026)
In 1984, Paul Simon was at a professional and personal crossroads. His new marriage was failing and his career was in danger of stalling. He was forty-two…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Leah Kim, "Mom, Unfiltered: Maternal Mental Health and Finding Freedom Through Motherhood (Bloomsbury, 2026)
In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Leah Kim about her powerful book, Mom, Unfiltered: Maternal Mental Health and Finding Freedom Through…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Filmmaker Peter Santenello on Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches from Across the Country We Call Home
Have you ever swapped stories on a porch with Amish snowbirds in Florida? Searched for reindeer with the Siberian Yupik in Alaska? Been a guest on a houseboat…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
David Keohan, "The Wind Beneath the Stone: My Quest to Unearth a Piece of Ireland's Folklore" (Bloomsbury and Chelsea Green, 2026)
When world kettle-bell lifting champion David Keohan heard the old tales of stone-lifting, he was captivated, setting off on a quest to rediscover these famous…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Muy Lang Lim, "In the Shadow of the Khmer Rouge: A Child Survivor's Memoir" (NUS Press, 2026)
As a child, Lim Muy Lang grew up in a prosperous Sino-Khmer family in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. When the Khmer Rouge…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Brian Jay Jones, "George Lucas: A Life" (Little, Brown and Company, 2016)
The essential biography of the influential and beloved filmmaker George Lucas. On May 25, 1977, a problem-plagued, budget-straining independent science-fiction…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Robyn Hitchcock, "Stranded in the Future" (Akashic Books, 2026)
Robyn Hitchcock's second memoir, Stranded in the Future (Akashic Books, 2026), explores the formation of his seminal 1970s band the Soft Boys, and the…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Patricia A. Billingsley, "Lorca in Vermont: The Spanish Poet and His American Lover" (High Road Books, 2026)
A groundbreaking reassessment of the relationship between Federico García Lorca and American poet Philip Cummings and its impact on the poems in Lorca's…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Ed Park, "Three Tenses" (Random House, 2026)
Three Tenses (Random House, 2026) by Ed Park is not quite a memoir, not quite fiction, not quite poetry and not quite prose—and yet it transcends the sum of…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Jane Draycott, "Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome" (Yale UP, 2025)
Fulvia was born into wealth, privilege, and prestige around the year 80 BCE, yet there was nothing inherently special about her—she was not a saint, an…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Jessica Riskin, "The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck" (Penguin, 2026)
In the early nineteenth century, the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed the first evolutionary theory of life and, with it, a new science…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Andrew Fisher, "Nathan Straus: From Macy's Magnate to International Humanitarian" (Rutgers UP, 2026)
In New York City in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centauries, Nathan Straus was famous as a co-owner of the Macy’s and Abraham and Straus department…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Emile Chabal, "The Age of Hobsbawm: The Life of a Revolutionary Historian" (Harvard UP, 2026)
Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) was one of the foremost European intellectuals of the twentieth century. He published hundreds of articles on modern history and…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Happy to Help: Adventures of a People Pleaser
As a big sister, Girl Scout, personal assistant, sitcom sidekick, and, finally, mother of three, Amy believed it was her destiny to be a people pleaser. She…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Sandip Roy, "Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal" (Seagull Books, 2026)
Chapal Rani was one of India’s most famous performers of jatra, Bengal’s popular theater. Traditionally, all the roles, including female roles, were played by…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Edward E. Andrews, "Newport Gardner's Anthem: A Story of Slavery, Struggle, and Survival in Early America" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Newport Gardner's Anthem: A Story of Slavery, Struggle, and Survival in Early America (Cornell UP, 2025) explores the remarkable life of Occramer Marycoo, an…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Scott Peeples, "How Many Roads: A Life of Bob Dylan" (Reaktion, 2026)
Scott Peeple's How Many Roads: A Life of Bob Dylan (Reaktion, 2026) chronicles Bob Dylan’s rise from apprenticeships in Minneapolis cafés and Greenwich Village…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Echoes of Incense on the Shikoku Pilgrimage with Don Weiss
Amy Chavez talks to Don Weiss, currently mid-way through the Shikoku Pilgrimage — Japan's 1,300 km Buddhist route that has been walked for almost as many…
- New Books in Biography & Memoir
Shimon Redlich, "Bridge Builder: My Life Since the Holocaust" (Academic Studies Press, 2026)
How do you build bridges after living through one of history's greatest ruptures? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with historian Shimon Redlich to…