The most recommended new biographies

This uplifting picture book biography inspired me!

Young Evelyn loved playing music, but at age 10, she suffered dramatic hearing loss. With encouragement from a music teacher, she learned to feel musical vibrations and embraced percussion. Facing discrimination because of her disability, she persisted–and won entrance to a top music school and eventually, worldwide recognition.

A feel-good, inspiring biography of courage and dedication that left me cheering for Evelyn and wanting to learn more about her music!

Meant to be entertaining as well as informative, this book romps without reverence through the lives and writings of historians, some from beyond the Western world, from ancient Greece to today. That’s 2500 years of written history!

You'll discover that, rather than being just the sober history that teachers may have taught you, historians have come in all forms and with all kinds of minds. They’ve argued with each other, sometimes been fools, showed themselves entirely human—and yet left us some of the world’s greatest texts of religion, literature, and learning.

Cohen defines “historian” controversially as well as liberally, to include Shakespeare, novelists, political figures, and television personalities. But then, as humans, don’t we all have a past and think historically? Food for thought—and fun along the way.

I love true stories of strong women who defy our expectations. Iceland’s fishing industry in the early 1800s would seem to be a man’s world.

But Captain Thurídur was one of many women who rowed out into the icy North Atlantic in open boats—and in winter, no less—to catch the fish that powered Iceland’s colonial economy.

Haunted by a ghost, a believer in elves and omens, Thurídur could read the waves and weather like no one else. Her catches were legendary. Best, in her 50 years at sea, not one of her crewmembers drowned. 

Rhea Ewing’s Fine is a must read for anyone interested in gender.

It’s a compassionate and nuanced compilation of interviews with people across the gender spectrum about their experience with gender and how they make sense of it. There’s no agenda, and there’s no simple takeaway, just a glimpse into real people’s lived experiences.

The comic/graphic novel format adds brilliantly to the reader’s exploration of what gender is and how it works.

I found this a profoundly moving book. Late Light describes the author’s own journey, an Indonesian Australian making a home for himself in England, as he finds strange parallels opening up between his own life and the lives of the "unloved" animals he encounters.

Malay’s voice is intelligent, questioning, gentle, and meditative – quietly, movingly, he asks questions that reach through to the heart of what it means to be alive today.

Did you think I would only recommend one Queer Eye book on my list? Do you know me at all?

Love That Story has a lot of laughs, of course, but like the author, the depths of compassion laced with gentle education speaks to the heart of everything I wish I’d always known. Do not read unless you want to better understand this lovely soul. You might just finish this book as a better version of yourself.

This book got my attention when I heard a radio interview with the author, R. Eric Thomas.

I’ve gone through a really difficult period with my health that has lasted through most of my forties, and Thomas describes his own challenges that emerged at midlife.

He brings a light touch to the difficulties of this life phase—including career issues, family struggles, loss, and illness—while also acknowledging the darker times and periods of depression that I could relate to.

In the end, his tone is as optimistic as it is realistic, and he shows how beauty can be found even in the wreckage of our dreams about what life would be. 

My favorite things about this memoir are its humor and Franklyn’s literary voice, which is distinctive and authentic.

I was horrified and heartbroken reading about the abandonment and abuse he experienced as an effeminate gay boy, yet in the face of all that, he maintains a comic outlook. As a devoutly trained boy moving through a series of Catholic schools, he struggles inwardly with his sexual orientation and his faith.

I was shocked to learn about the lamentable US foster care system of the 1950s, but I had to keep reading to see how Franklyn would survive and where he would wind up. In the end, you will find him a compassionate and perceptive observer.

Practically every page of this book has something fascinating to say about music, and Denk has an appealing, charming, often funny voice that one doesn’t often encounter in books about classical music.

As an amateur pianist I learned more about technique from Denk than I ever expected from a memoir, from how to use my thumb “as a transit system” to rolling chords at different speeds as if I were “unrolling a carpet.”

He teaches us how to listen more acutely to the messages in music, whether it’s Bach, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Chopin, or Philip Glass, and page by page, he shines a new light on the music we think we know and how an artist approaches it.

Many years ago, I worked in the film industry as a studio teacher. I spent a week in an onset classroom with Jennette McCurdy and found her to be intelligent, creative, witty, and generous—an absolute treat to hang out with. I had no idea of the darkness infecting her life nor of the abuse she endured.

My default genre is literary fantasy, in particular featuring alternative worlds. But every year, I try to explore other genres, and lately, I’ve been reading memoirs. No matter how great the world-building, for me it’s always the characters that ultimately make a story, and McCurdy depicts the “characters” of her world with sharp observation. 

Hers was my favorite memoir from the past few years, and not just because of the personal connection. Her writing reflects the intelligence, creativity, wit, and generosity I had witnessed. She tells it raw and real. It may be triggering… show more.