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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:

society & culture

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41:16

Twelve Lives: Creating Literary Community with...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/19

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 could connect what they were hearing about the past to their own lives in the present and, in that way, perhaps see themselves as an important part of a continually-evolving community. Through this work, I have been fortunate to connect, not only authors, but also with readers and thinkers who, like me, are committed to the preservation and expansion of

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50:12

Myung-jin Han with Nicolas Levi, "I Was a North...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/18

Nicolas Levi is a researcher at the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He has authored numerous books related to North Korea and is a regular commentator on the country’s elite social and political structures. I Was a North Korean Diplomat: Inside the Secret World of Pyongyang's Foreign Service (Independently Published, 2026) is Levi’s tenth book, a collaborative work based on extensive dialogues with Han Jin-myung (a pseudonym), a former member of

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63:03

Yanara Friedland, "Thanatographies" (U Alabama Press,...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/18

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 Fiction Book Award and Groundswell (2021) selected for Essay Press's Book Award and Thanatographies (U Alabama Press, 2026). Her work explores the effects of dislocation on memory and language, engaging with multilingual and transhistorical spaces through archival research and in collaboration with other artists. She teaches creative writing and

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61:11

Audrey Borowski, "Leibniz in His World: The Making of...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/17

Described by Voltaire as “perhaps a man of the most universal learning in Europe,” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) is often portrayed as a rationalist and philosopher who was wholly detached from the worldly concerns of his fellow men. Leibniz in His World: The Making of a Savant (Princeton UP, 2026) provides a groundbreaking reassessment of Leibniz, telling the story of his trials and tribulations as an aspiring scientist and courtier navigating the learned and courtly circles of early modern

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43:38

Kate Crane, "Whatever Happened to Eddy Crane?: A...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/15

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 grade and her father, a truck mechanic in an industrial neighborhood of Baltimore, left for work and didn't come home. City detectives figured he must have run away, but Kate had a deep-rooted instinct: he must have been killed. Kate, her mother, and her younger sister were left stunned, with no answers, no explanation, and no concrete resolution on

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63:06

Elizabeth Rosner, "Third Ear: Reflections on the Art...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/14

This illuminating book Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening (Catapult, 2025) weaves personal stories of a multilingual upbringing with recent scientific breakthroughs in interspecies communication, revealing how the skill of deep listening enriches our curiosity and empathy toward the world around us. This book braids personal narrative with scholarly inquiry to examine the power of listening in building interpersonal empathy and social transformation. The daughter of Holocaust

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51:51

Rory Naismith, "Offa: King of the Mercians" (Yale UP,...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/14

In Offa: King of the Mercians (Yale UP, 2026), Professor Rory Naismith presents an authoritative biography of Offa of Mercia, revealing his importance as the king who stood at the turning point of Anglo-Saxon history.Offa ruled the Mercian heartland of the west midlands from 757 to 796. But while Alfred the Great and his dynasty are seen as agents of a new beginning that resulted in a unified Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Offa is best remembered as the builder of a great dyke and as a symbol of an older,

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50:58

David Potter, "Master of Rome: A Life of Julius...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/11

By any measure, Julius Caesar is one of the most significant and famous figures in Roman history. Self-identified as a "popular" politician, he advocated for effective government to better the lives of average Romans,but believed such a government could not be based upon the existing democracy. Only through his personal authority and the massive organization he built to overthrow the government could the prosperity of all Rome's citizens be ensured.Through a careful analysis of the ancient

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66:05

Ed Simon, "Writing During the Apocalypse: Reflections...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/09

Rising authoritarianism. Covid. Inflation. Wealth disparity. War. Climate change. While every time period is marked by apocalyptic fears, it certainly seems like our current anxieties aren't ill placed. And yet, art and literature persist.In captivating and culturally savvy prose, Ed Simon grapples with the notion that writers and their work ought to distract readers from the dire situation we face in these fetid days of the Anthropocene. In Writing During the Apocalypse: Reflections on the Great

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33:37

Katharine K. Wilkinson, "Climate Wayfinding: Healing...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/08

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 compassionate and empowering guide to navigating from ache to action, doubt to possibility.Through transformational programs and books, including the national bestseller All We Can Save, Wilkinson has inspired hundreds of thousands of climate journeys. In Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home (Amber Lotus, 2026) she shares a proven

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29:51

Eleanor Houghton, "Charlotte Brontë's Life in...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/06

Eleanor Houghton, in conversation with Duncan McCargo and Alexis WolfMeet the real, thinking, feeling woman that was Charlotte Brontë, as told in this biography by the surviving witnesses to her life – the clothes that she once wore.These garments were present as she penned Jane Eyre, as she walked the cobbled streets of Haworth, and as she stood with her fiancé at the altar in the summer of 1854. Yet, until now, their testimonies had remained unheard.Renowned Brontë scholar and dress historian

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83:00

Scott M. Kenworthy, "The People's Patriarch: Tikhon...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/06

On October 28, 1917, just days after the Bolsheviks seized power, the great Council of the Russian Orthodox Church voted to restore the patriarchate, which had been abolished by Peter the Great two centuries earlier. The Council chose Tikhon (Bellavin), the son of a humble village parish priest, to be head of Russia's largest religious confession. At the time, the majority of Orthodox Christians were devoutly religious. Tikhon's vision of the Church, which he began putting into practice during his

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47:36

Philip Boris Uninsky, "Invented Lives from Troubled...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/05

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 with author Philip Boris Uninsky to discuss his deeply personal and revealing book, Invented Lives from Troubled Times: A Jewish Family’s Forms of Resilience after Surviving Pogroms, Revolution, and the Holocaust (Cherry Orchard Books, 2025).Blending family memory with archival research, Uninsky traces the story of an extended Jewish family that

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43:55

Eivind Røssaak, "The Cory Arcangel Hack: Digital...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/05

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 Big Tech. Cory Arcangel (b. 1978)—perhaps best known for Super Mario Clouds, the most referenced artistic game hack in art history—became one of the first artists from a new generation of punk DIY–new media geeks to capture the attention of the art world.Combining the hands-on skills from the 1990s net art scene and the 2010s post-internet art’s

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33:45

Meg Groff, "Not If I Can Help It: A Family Lawyer's...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/04

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 Help It: A Family Lawyer's Battles for Justice for Victims of Domestic Violence and the Poor (Rivertowns Books, 2025)recounts some of the most harrowing, infuriating, yet inspiring stories from Groff's work as a Legal Aid attorney representing women and children whose only resource is the sheer courage they exhibit every day. Among others, you'll

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52:37

Peter E. Gordon, "Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver"...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/04

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary acumen and capacious imagination, he developed a unique style of criticism―his friend Hannah Arendt called it pearl-diving―that sought out fragments of redemption in the ruins of bourgeois civilization. In Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver (Yale UP, 2026), award-winning author Peter E. Gordon tells Benjamin’s story in a vivid and poetic style, inviting the

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46:13

Caroline Tracey, "Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History"...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/03

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 fresh bodies of water. They're also uniquely threatened, both by everyday human activity such as farming and industry and by the looming problem of anthropogenic climate change. As the lakes dry up, the consequences to the surrounding ecosystems can be devastating; meanwhile, people who live nearby can suffer from declining air quality, toxic levels of

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40:49

Chiang Mai 2015

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/03

The Gastronomica podcast returns to the air, bringing listeners new interviews with authors from the latest issues of Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies. In this episode, Alyssa James of Gastronomica’s Editorial Collective hosts award-winning writer and historian Camille Bégin for a discussion of “Chiang Mai 2015,” a creative nonfiction account of a family trip and a search for sustenance that becomes entangled with questions of illness, climate, and care. In her memoir of failed culinary

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57:54

Robert Parish with Jake Uitti, "The Chief: The Story...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/03

A memoir of basketball, dedication, and longevity from Boston Celtics legend Robert Parish Growing up in the heart of Louisiana, Robert Parish and his three younger siblings played baseball, football, and tennis―but never basketball. Still, by seventh grade, Parish stood 6'6" and couldn't escape the attention of Coleman Kidd, the junior high basketball coach who saw potential before Parish could see it in himself. And though he was the worst player on the team that first season―handed the last

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45:12

Melissa Auf der Maur, "Even the Good Girls Will Cry:...

New Books in Biography & Memoir ·

2026/04/02

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 the '90s Alternative era by the bassist of Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins Even the Good Girls Will Cry begins with Auf der Maur's bohemian upbringing in Montreal, where her early, deep connection to art and music gave her entry to the colorful and thriving local creative scene. Working as a cassette DJ and ticket girl, she would see (and sometimes meet)

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