Biographies

The genius of women : from overlooked to changing the world book cover

The genius of women : from overlooked to changing the world

Janice Kaplan

305.420922 /Kaplan
Nonfiction, Biographies, History

"We tell girls that they can be anything, so why do 90 percent of Americans believe that geniuses are almost always men? New York Times bestselling journalist Janice Kaplan explores the powerful forces that have rigged the system--and celebrates the women geniuses past and present who have triumphed anyway. Even in this time of rethinking women's roles, we define genius almost exclusively through male achievement. When asked to name a genius, people mention Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and Steve Jobs. As for great women? In one survey, the only female genius anyone listed was Marie Curie. Janice Kaplan, the New York Times bestselling author of The Gratitude Diaries, set out to determine why the extraordinary work of so many women has been brushed aside. Using her unique mix of memoir, narrative, and inspiration, she makes surprising discoveries about women geniuses now and throughout history, in fields from music to robotics. Through interviews with neuroscientists, psychologists, and dozens of women geniuses at work in the world today--including Nobel Prize winner Frances Arnold and AI expert Fei-Fei Li--she proves that genius isn't just about talent. It's about having that talent recognized, nurtured, and celebrated. Across the generations, even when they face less-than-perfect circumstances, women geniuses have created brilliant and original work. In The Genius of Women, you'll learn how they ignored obstacles and broke down seemingly unshakable barriers. The geniuses in this moving, powerful, and very entertaining book provide more than inspiration--they offer a clear blueprint to everyone who wants to find her own path and move forward with passion." --

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Rad women worldwide : artists and athletes, pirates and punks, and other revolutionaries who shaped history book cover

Rad women worldwide : artists and athletes, pirates and punks, and other revolutionaries who shaped history

Kate Schatz

305.420922 /Schatz
Nonfiction, Biographies, History

"From the authors of the New York Times bestselling book Rad American Women A-Z, comes a bold new collection of 40 biographical profiles, each accompanied by a striking illustrated portrait, showcasing extraordinary women from around the world. In Rad Women Worldwide, writer Kate Schatz and artist Miriam Klein Stahl tell fresh, engaging, and inspiring tales of perseverance and radical success by pairing well researched and riveting biographies with powerful and expressive cut-paper portraits. Featuring an array of diverse figures from Hatshepsut (the great female king who ruled Egypt peacefully for two decades) and Malala Yousafzi (the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize) to Poly Styrene (legendary teenage punk and lead singer of X-Ray Spex) and Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft (polar explorers and the first women to cross Antarctica), this progressive and visually arresting book is a compelling addition to women's history"--

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The book of gutsy women book cover

The book of gutsy women

Hillary Rodham Clinton

920.72 /Clinton
Nonfiction, Biographies, History

The Clintons share stories of the gutsy women who have inspired them-- women with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done. So how did they do it? The answers are as unique as the women themselves. Meet civil rights activist Dorothy Height, LGBTQ trailblazer Edie Windsor, and swimmer Diana Nyad. Discover writers like Rachel Carson and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. They, and nearly every single one of the over 120 women in this book were fiercely optimistic-- they had faith that their actions could make a difference. And they were right. -- adapted from jacket

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Credo : the Rose Wilder Lane story book cover

Credo : the Rose Wilder Lane story

Peter Bagge

BIOGRAPHY Lane, Rose Wilder
Nonfiction, Biographies, History, Political, Graphic Novels

"Peter Bagge returns with a biography of another fascinating twentieth-century trailblazer-the writer, feminist, war correspondent, and libertarian Rose Wilder Lane. Following the popularity and critical acclaim of Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story and Fire!! The Zora Neale Hurston Story, Credo: The Rose Wilder Lane Story is a fast-paced, charming, informative look at the brilliant Lane. Among other achievements, she was a founder of the American libertarian movement and a champion of her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder, in bringing the classic Little House on the Prairie series to the American public. Much like Sanger and Hurston, Lane was an advocate for women's rights who led by example, challenging norms in her personal and professional life. Anti-government and anti-marriage, Lane didn't think that gender should hold anyone back from experiencing all the world had to offer. Though less well-known today, in her lifetime she was one of the highest-paid female writers in America and a political and literary luminary, friends with Herbert Hoover, Dorothy Thompson, Sinclair Lewis, and Ayn Rand, to name a few. Bagge's portrait of Lane is heartfelt and affectionate, probing into the personal roots of her rugged individualism. Credo is a deeply researched dive into a historical figure whose contributions to American society are all around us, from the books we read to the politics we debate."--

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How we fight for our lives : a memoir book cover

How we fight for our lives : a memoir

Saeed Jones

BIOGRAPHY Jones, Saeed
Memoir, Biographies, LGBTQ+, Nonfiction

Haunted and haunting, Jones's memoir tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence--into tumultuous relationships with his mother and grandmother, into passing flings with lovers, friends and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another--and to one another--as we fight to become ourselves.

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Grace : the Jeff Buckley story book cover

Grace : the Jeff Buckley story

Tiffanie DeBartolo

781.66092 /Buckley
Nonfiction, Biographies

"California, 1991. All his life, people have told Jeff Buckley how much he looks like his father, the famous '60s folksinger he barely knew. But Jeff believes he has gifts of his own: a rare, octave-spanning voice and a songwriting genius that has only started to show itself. After he falls in love with a mysterious girl in New York, he sets out to make a name for himself outside his father's shadow. What follows are six turbulent years of music, heartbreak, hope, and daring--culminating in a tragedy that's still reverberating in the music world today. Written by Tiffanie DeBartolo and with art by Pascal Dizin and Lisa Reist, this graphic novel biography uses archival material provided by Jeff's mother, Mary Guibert, to reveal the young songwriter in the process of becoming a legend."--Amazon.com.

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Jeff Buckley is the perfect subject for a graphic biography. Can't wait to read the whole thing! -Melody

Abandon me : memoirs book cover

Abandon me : memoirs

Melissa Febos

BIOGRAPHY Febos, Melissa
Biographies

"In her dazzling Abandon Me, Febos captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection -- with family, lovers, and oneself. First, her birth father, who left her with only an inheritance of addiction and Native American blood, its meaning a mystery. As Febos tentatively reconnects, she sees how both these lineages manifest in her own life, marked by compulsion and an instinct for self-erasure. Meanwhile, she remains closely tied to the sea captain who raised her, his parenting ardent but intermittent as his work took him away for months at a time. Woven throughout is the hypnotic story of an all-consuming, long-distance love affair with a woman, marked equally by worship and withdrawal. In visceral, erotic prose, Febos captures their mutual abandonment to passion and obsession -- and the terror and exhilaration of losing herself in another. At once a fearlessly vulnerable memoir and an incisive investigation of art, love, and identity, Abandon Me draws on childhood stories, religion, psychology, mythology, popular culture, and the intimacies of one writer’s life to reveal intellectual and emotional truths that feel startlingly universal." (Amazon Summary)

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A house on stilts : mothering in the age of opioid addiction, a memoir book cover

A house on stilts : mothering in the age of opioid addiction, a memoir

Paula (Paula J.) Becker


Biographies

"A House on Stilts tells the story of one woman’s struggle to reclaim wholeness while mothering a son addicted to opioids. Paula Becker’s son Hunter was raised in a safe, nurturing home by his writer/historian mom and his physician father. He was a bright, curious child. And yet, addiction found him. More than 2.5 million Americans are addicted to opioids, some half-million of these to heroin. For many of them, their drug addiction leads to lives of demoralization, homelessness, and constant peril. For parents, a child’s addiction upends family life, catapulting them onto a path no longer prescribed by Dr. Spock, but by Dante’s Inferno. Within this ten-year crucible, Paula is transformed by an excruciating, inescapable truth: the difference between what she can do and what she cannot do." (Amazon Summary)

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Going the distance : The Life and Works of W.P. Kinsella book cover

Going the distance : The Life and Works of W.P. Kinsella

William O. Steele

eBOOK
Biographies

"This frank and authoritative biography explores the life and often controversial work of W.P. Kinsella, the author who penned iconic lines such as “If you build it, he will come.” Kinsella’s work was thrust into the limelight when, in the spring of 1989, his novel Shoeless Joe was turned into the international blockbuster Field of Dreams.... Having been granted full access to Kinsella’s personal diaries, correspondence and unpublished notes, and with hours of personal interviews with Kinsella, his friends and his family, biographer William Steele offers insight into Kinsella’s personal life while balancing it with the critical analysis and commentary his fiction has inspired." (Amazon Summary)

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The far away brothers : two young migrants and the making of an American life book cover

The far away brothers : two young migrants and the making of an American life

Lauren Markham

305.868 /Markham
Biographies

"Growing up in rural El Salvador in the wake of the civil war, the United States was a distant fantasy to identical twins Ernesto and Raul Flores—until, at age seventeen, a deadly threat from the region’s brutal gangs forces them to flee the only home they’ve ever known. In this urgent chronicle of contemporary immigration, journalist Lauren Markham follows the Flores twins as they make their way across the Rio Grande and the Texas desert, into the hands of immigration authorities, and from there to their estranged older brother in Oakland, CA. Soon these unaccompanied minors are navigating school in a new language, working to pay down their mounting coyote debt, and facing their day in immigration court, while also encountering the triumphs and pitfalls of teenage life with only each other for support. With intimate access and breathtaking range, Markham offers an unforgettable testament to the migrant experience." (Amazon Summary)

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