Biographical Bonanza!

I've been marveling about what a spectacular year this has been for fiction -- just about every major novelist has a new book out this fall. But this fall also offers a biography bonanza! There are new biographies and memoirs from just about every time period. Here's just a sampling of the wide variety of subjects covered in new books, some biographies and some memoirs: George Carlin (he was working with Tony Hendra on his memoir for several years before he died), Ted Kennedy, Abigal Adams, Louisa May Alcott, Donald Barthelme (this book won the Oregon Book Award this year), Gabriel Garcia Marquez, John Cheever, Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabth, Graham Greene, Louis Brandeis, Patricia Highsmith, Dorthea Lange, Flannery O'Connor, Ayn Rand, Cornelius Vanderbil (the book won the National Book Award), Woodrow Wilson, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt (multiple books), Pat Tillman, Rayond Carver, Leslie Caron, Margaret Drabble, Mary Karr, Rita Mae Brown, Janis Ian, Harold Evans, Mary Piper....Whew! I'm getting exhausted just listing them all -- and there's many more I haven't even mentioned!

Today I'm going to highlight just a couple. Open: An Autobiography, by Andre Agassi, is an amazingly honest memoir from one of the greatest tennis players in history and one of the most intriguing personalities in the game. Agassi was aided in writing his book by J.R. Moehringer, Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist and author of one of Broadway Book's bestselling memoirs, The Tender Bar. Good writing is not something you can always count on in a "celebrity memoir," but given Moehringer's assistance on the project, I think you will be quite satisfied with this one.

The other book I wanted to point out is Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, by Terry Teachout. This biography tells the story of the twentieth century's most influential jazz musician, a great artist who was also a great man, an entertainer so irresistibly magnetic that he knocked the Beatles off of the top of the charts four decades after he cut his first record. In his new book, Teachout has drawn on a cache of important new sources unavailable to previous biographers, including hundreds of candid after-hours recordings made by Armstrong himself.

If you -- or someone in your life -- enjoys delving into the lives of others -- contemporary or historical, famous or infamous, widely known or little known -- you are sure to find something to please just about every taste.

Day Eleven: The Life & Times of I.F. Stone

Welcome to Day Eleven in The 24 Days of Books. Today we're going to talk about a biography -- and we are bursting to the seams with incredible biographies and memoirs this winter. American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F. Stone by D.D. Guttenplan is a serious look at one of America’s most influential newsmen. A Popular Front columnist and New Deal propagandist, a fearless opponent of McCarthyism and feared scourge of official liars, a political activist whose accomplishments proved the enduring power of American radicalism, the legendary I.F. Stone left a permanent mark on our politics and culture. From the Depression through the Viet Nam war, this indefatigable journalist produced impeccably sourced articles and columns and was always in the thick of the opposition. This book is a stirring reminder of how much difference one person can make.

For many more gift-giving ideas, check out our gargantuan December newsletter, which you can read by clicking here.

Day Three: Louis Brandeis

Welcome to Day Three of The 24 Days of Books! Today’s book is a humdinger of a biography. Louis D. Brandeis: A Life by Melvin I. Urofsky is the first full-scale biography of the distinguished Supreme Court justice to appear in twenty-five years. Named by Woodrow Wilson to the court in 1916, Brandeis had at least three full legal careers before that. Along with others, he developed the concept of the modern law firm, in which specialists manage different areas of the law. He was the author of the right to privacy, and pioneered the idea of pro bono publico work by attorneys. He still ranks today as one of the nation’s leading progressive reformers.

The child of intellectuals who fled Europe and settled in Kentucky, Brandeis attended Harvard Law School, and he soon became known as a reformer. In 1908, he defended an Oregon law that established maximum hours for women workers! Brandeis witnessed and suffered from anti-Semitism all of his life, and his experiences led him to become a powerful force in American Jewish affairs. This is a huge and galvanizing biography, a revelation of one man’s effect on American society and jurisprudence, and the electrifying story of his time.

For many more gift-giving ideas, check out our gargantuan December newsletter, which you can read by clicking here.

Biography Bonanza

Tis the season for literary biographies. Three of the four cover reviews in March in the Sunday Book Review of the New York Times (including the one coming this Sunday, the 22nd) feature new biographies of famous American authors.

Brad Gooch's new book, Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor (Little, Brown & Co), reviewed by Joy Williams, started the literary parade on March 1st. O'Connor, who died in 1964, was a novelist and short story writer, perhaps best known for her collection A Good Man is Hard to Find.

On March 15th, Geoffrey Wolf reviewed Cheever: A Life (Knopf), by Blake Blailey, author of the fascinating biography of Richard Yates (Revolutionary Road). Cheever, who died in 1982, was also best known for his short fiction but also published several novels, including The Wapshot Chronicle, Bullet Park, and Falconer.

And this Sunday we get Colm Toibin's review of Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme (St. Martin's Press), written by Tracy Daugherty, professor of English at Oregon State University. Barthelme, who died in 1989, published 126 short stories in The New Yorker in his career and published sixteen books in his lifetime, including four novels. Toibin calls this book an "admiring, comprehensive, and painstaking" biography of Barthelme.

We have all these books, so come read up on these great and interesting American authors.

Happy Birthday to You, and You...and You?

Guess who was born 200 years ago today, February 12, 1809? If you said "Abraham Lincoln," you're right! Then again, if you said "Charles Darwin," you're also right. These two great men were born on exactly the same day: one in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky and the other on an English country estate. [For those of you for whom such things matter, that date makes them Aquarians.]

Both are famous, influential change-makers with long-lasting reputations. Both are known for their clear and insightful thinking and writing. Both lost their mother in early childhood, and each lost a beloved child. Besides a common date of birth, they share many traits and experiences. Yet we almost never think of them side-by-side and rarely if ever discuss the Civil War in the same conversation as evolution. A new book from Adam Gopnik (author of Paris to the Moon and Through the Children's Gate), Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life, does just that. As Gopnik says, "the point is that when we do come across those who write well and see clearly, we're right to make them heroes." One reviewer described this book as having 'succulent prose and incisive reasoning." How can you resist?

If you want to read more about either man, we've got books in spades. Some of the Darwin offerings include The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution (David Quammen), Darwin's Origin of Species: A Biography (Janet Browne), and, of course, The Origin of Species itself (Charles Darwin). Our Lincoln shelves are groaning with books, including Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer (Fred Kaplan), A. Lincoln: A Biography (Ronald C. White, Jr.), Looking for Lincoln: The Making of an American Icon (Kunhardt, et al), Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (James M. McPherson), and, of course, Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals.

And if today also happens to be your birthday? Wow, are you in great company -- and happy birthday to you too!

Our Seventh President

Andrew Jackson, the country's seventh president, was a battle-hardened warrior, a significant yet dimly recalled president. In his new biography of Jackson, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, Jon Meacham tells the story of this contradictory man. Meacham, the editor of Newsweek magazine, draws on newly discovered family letters and papers to help shape this inside story. Doris Kearns Goodwin, a masterful biographer herself, has this to say about American Lion: "A master storyteller, Meacham interweaves the lives of Jackson and the members of his inner circle to create a highly original book." At this time of significant change and challenge in this country, this book provides tremendous insight into a different tumultuous time and can provide guidance for our times. You'll never again look at the face on a $20 bill again the same way!