New Books in Biography
চ্যানেল বিস্তারিত
New Books in Biography
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...
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William R. Brody, "Uncommon Sense: Rethinking Ordinary Problems in Extraordinary Ways" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)
Today I’m speaking with William R. Brody about his book, Uncommon Sense: Rethinking Ordinary Problems in Extraordinary Ways (Johns Hopkins University...
Mary Lisa Gavenas, "Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay" (Penguin, 2026)
As detailed in Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay (Penguin, 2026) by Mary Lisa Gavenas, as the only woman in Forbes’ Greatest Business Stories...
Douglas Waller, "The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner" (Penguin, 2026)
Frank Wisner was one of the most powerful men in 1950s Washington, though few knew it. Reporting directly to senior U.S. officials--his work largely h...
Zaakir Tameez, "Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation" (Henry Holt, 2025)
A landmark biography of Charles Sumner, the unsung hero of the American Civil War and ReconstructionCharles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist...
Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King
Caroline Bicks became the first scholar granted extended access by Stephen King to his private archives, a treasure trove of manuscripts that document...
Adam Henig, "Baseball's Outcast: The Story of Ron LeFlore" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
When twenty-three-year-old Ron LeFlore played his first organized baseball game, it was in a yard at the State Prison of Southern Michigan where he wa...
From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg: Memoir and Testimony
After escaping the Vilna Ghetto and surviving winter in the forest among partisan fighters, Avrom Sutzkever was airlifted to Moscow in 1944. The renow...
Twelve Lives: Creating Literary Community with Raymond Williams, PhD
From the moment I began working with the New Books Network, my vision was bigger than author interviews. I envisioned my platform one where people cou...
Myung-jin Han with Nicolas Levi, "I Was a North Korean Diplomat: Inside the Secret World of Pyongyang's Foreign Service" (Independently Published, 2026)
Nicolas Levi is a researcher at the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He has authored numerous books...
Yanara Friedland, "Thanatographies" (U Alabama Press, 2026)
Yanara Friedland is a writer, translator, and educator born in Berlin. She is the author of Uncountry: A Mythology (2016) winner of the Noemi Press Fi...
Audrey Borowski, "Leibniz in His World: The Making of a Savant" (Princeton UP, 2026)
Described by Voltaire as “perhaps a man of the most universal learning in Europe,” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) is often portrayed as a ratio...
Kate Crane, "Whatever Happened to Eddy Crane?: A Memoir and an Investigation" (Hanover Square Press, 2026)
Kate Crane's new memoir, Whatever Happened to Eddy Crane?: A Memoir and an Investigation" (Hanover Square Press, 2026) starts when Crane was in eighth...
Rory Naismith, "Offa: King of the Mercians" (Yale UP, 2026)
In Offa: King of the Mercians (Yale UP, 2026), Professor Rory Naismith presents an authoritative biography of Offa of Mercia, revealing his importance...
Elizabeth Rosner, "Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening" (Catapult, 2025)
This illuminating book Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening (Catapult, 2025) weaves personal stories of a multilingual upbringin...
David Potter, "Master of Rome: A Life of Julius Caesar" (Oxford UP, 2025)
By any measure, Julius Caesar is one of the most significant and famous figures in Roman history. Self-identified as a "popular" politician, he advoca...
Ed Simon, "Writing During the Apocalypse: Reflections on the Great Unraveling" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
Rising authoritarianism. Covid. Inflation. Wealth disparity. War. Climate change. While every time period is marked by apocalyptic fears, it certainly...
Katharine K. Wilkinson, "Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home" (Amber Lotus Publishing, 2026)
When maps come up short and the path ahead is uncertain, how do we find our way? Visionary climate leader Katharine K. Wilkinson offers a compassionat...
Scott M. Kenworthy, "The People's Patriarch: Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and Revolutionary Russia" (Oxford UP, 2026)
On October 28, 1917, just days after the Bolsheviks seized power, the great Council of the Russian Orthodox Church voted to restore the patriarchate,...
Eleanor Houghton, "Charlotte Brontë's Life in Clothes" (Bloomsbury 2026)
Eleanor Houghton, in conversation with Duncan McCargo and Alexis Wolf
Meet the real, thinking, feeling woman that was Charlotte Brontë,...
Eivind Røssaak, "The Cory Arcangel Hack: Digital Culture and Aesthetic Practice" (MIT Press, 2025)
The first in-depth exploration of the work of artist Cory Arcangel, a pioneer of DIY-new media art whose influential “hacks” subvert the confines of B...
Philip Boris Uninsky, "Invented Lives from Troubled Times: A Jewish Family’s Forms of Resilience after Surviving Pogroms, Revolution, and the Holocaust" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2025)
How do people rebuild their lives after unimaginable upheaval—and what stories do they tell along the way? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down...
Meg Groff, "Not If I Can Help It: A Family Lawyer's Battles for Justice for Victims of Domestic Violence and the Poor" (Rivertowns Books, 2025)
Meg Groff dedicated forty years of her life to fighting for justice for victims of domestic violence in rural and suburban Pennsylvania. Not If I Can...
Peter E. Gordon, "Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver" (Yale UP, 2026)
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary acumen...
Caroline Tracey, "Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History" (W. W. Norton, 2026)
Salt lakes are some of the most beautiful and unusual landscapes that you can find on this planet, even as they can be quite alien to people used to f...
Robert Parish with Jake Uitti, "The Chief: The Story of the Boston Celtics’ Most Enigmatic Icon" (Triumph, 2026)
A memoir of basketball, dedication, and longevity from Boston Celtics legend Robert Parish
Growing up in the heart of Louisiana, Robert P...
Chiang Mai 2015
The Gastronomica podcast returns to the air, bringing listeners new interviews with authors from the latest issues of Gastronomica: The Journal for Fo...
Melissa Auf der Maur, "Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A '90s Rock Memoir" (DaCapo, 2026)
Melissa Auf der Maur's new memoir, Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A '90s Rock Memoir(DaCapo, 2026) is a remarkably open-hearted, clear-eyed memoir of t...
Peter Mauch, "Tojo: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Most Controversial World War II General" (Harvard UP, 2026)
The military general who became Emperor Hirohito’s prime minister, Tojo Hideki is most often remembered as an iron-fisted leader who dragged Japan int...
Cathryn J. Prince, "For the Love of Labor: The Life of Pauline Newman" (U Illinois Press, 2026)
My guest today is Cathryn J. Prince the author of For the Love of Labor: The Life of Pauline Newman (U Illinois Press, 2026). From her start as one...
The Remarkable Life and Afterlife of Sholem Aleichem
Novelist, playwright, journalist, essayist, and editor, Sholem Aleichem was one of the founding giants of modern Yiddish literature. The creator of a...
David Bather Woods, "Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy's Greatest Pessimist" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy’s Greatest Pessimist by David Bather Woods
An engaging biography of one of the mo...
The Vilna Gaon and the Making of Modern Judaism
The beginnings of contemporary Jewry are often associated with Jewish figures in Western Europe such as Moses Mendelssohn. But in his book, The Genius...
Martha Feldman, "Castrato Phantoms: Moreschi, Fellini, and the Sacred Vernacular in Rome" (Zone Books, 2026)
Around 1830, opera houses stopped using castrati, and Rome and the Vatican became home to their glorious singing, engineered by surgery and intensive...
Marc Chagall: Reflections of a Granddaughter
Marc Chagall is widely recognized as the preeminent Jewish artist of the 20th century, but little is known of his work to preserve Jewish culture. In...
Kalpana Karunakaran, "A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras" (Context, 2026)
In this intimate, yet simultaneously anthropological, exploration of the life of her maternal grandmother Pankajam (1911–2007), Kalpana Karunakaran ac...
H. S. Jones, "Liberal Worlds: James Bryce and the Democratic Intellect" (Princeton UP, 2025)
James Bryce (1838–1922) was a leading figure in Britain’s Liberal Party and a distinguished historian, a versatile scholar-politician who moved seamle...
Ethelene Whitmire, "The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram" (Viking, 2026)
On the eve of World War II, a handsome young scholar arrived in Paris. The queer, Black son of a housecleaner, who had nevertheless been decorated in...
Terese Svoboda, "Hitler and My Mother-In-Law" (OR Books, 2025)
Hitler and My Mother-in-Law (OR Books, 2025) is a riveting memoir that explores the intersection of truth—both familial and political—through the colo...
Dana A. Williams, "Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship" (Amistad, 2025)
An insightful exploration that unveils the lesser-known dimensions of this legendary writer and her legacy, revealing the cultural icon's profound imp...
Charles Delgadillo and James Stacey, eds., "Heartland Utopia: William Allen White on the Ideal Midwestern Town" (UP of Kansas, 2026)
For William Allen White, the ideal Midwestern community was a utopian vision of what America could be: a prosperous, happy community built on equality...