Instagram Facebook X-twitter Linkedin

Sign Up

Get the latest ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

All Coverage

All Biography Coverage

Biography

Book Clubs: Living between the lines

Feature by Julie Hale

Four standout biographies of American female writers will foster excellent discussion for reading groups.

Tracy Daugherty’s The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion chronicles the life of essayist, journalist and fiction writer Didion, who made her name in the 1960s with era-defining works like Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album. The first biography on Didion, Daugherty’s brisk and fluid book contains a plethora of interesting topics for conversation, from the gender dynamics of Didion’s carefully constructed literary persona to the impact of her home state of California on her outlook and writing as they both evolved over the course of the 1960s and ’70s.

In Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, Ruth Franklin sheds new light on the background of visionary fiction author Jackson, who wrote the famously creepy novel The Haunting of Hill House (the basis for the 2018 Netflix series). Along the way, Franklin traces the roots of Jackson’s dark aesthetic, which mined the quiet tensions of wifehood in postwar America and specifically her own tumultuous marriage to create chilling psychological horror. How much have things improved for women, and specifically female artists? Ask your group, if you dare.

Read our review of Shirley Jackson by Ruth Franklin.

Caroline Fraser’s Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder proves that Wilder’s life was a lot tougher and more complicated than she depicted in her Little House books. Using rare source materials, Fraser documents the financial hardships, risky farm enterprises and vagaries of nature that dogged the Wilder and Ingalls families. Fraser’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography raises tricky questions of how American history has often been romanticized rather than truthfully portrayed. If you have any diehard Little House fans in your group, make sure they’re ready for a no-holds-barred reevaluation of the classic series and the family that inspired it.

Read our interview with Caroline Fraser.

Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry is an impassioned investigation of Hansberry, who deserves to be remembered for much more than her iconic play, A Raisin in the Sun. Hansberry used her platform to promote civil rights and support African leaders fighting against colonialism, and she joined one of the first lesbian organizations in America. (Hansberry was married to activist Robert B. Nemiroff but identified as a lesbian.) Like Didion’s, Hansberry’s life can spur conversation about many fascinating, thorny aspects of midcentury America.

Four standout biographies of American female writers will foster excellent discussion for reading groups.

Tracy Daugherty’s The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion chronicles the life of essayist, journalist and fiction writer Didion, who made her name in the 1960s with era-defining works…

NonfictionFictionYA FictionYABiography

The Hold List: Remarkable people in remarkable times

Feature by the editors of BookPage

These books highlight heroes who give courage to our souls—but most of all, they reveal the true, relatable humanity beneath their subjects’ seemingly supernatural heroism.

The Black Rose by Tananarive Due

The story of Madame C.J. Walker, the first self-made female millionaire, is one of the most remarkable American success stories. Her life inspired Netflix’s recent series “Self Made,” but I prefer The Black Rose, a gripping work of historical fiction by award-winning author Tananarive Due that chronicles Walker’s rags-to-riches rise. The first person in her family born free, Walker survived an abusive marriage and raised a daughter on a meager salary before launching a hair-care empire for black women. Ambitious and tenacious, Walker held fast to the idea that women like her deserved to feel beautiful and were willing to pay for it—despite naysayers all around, including famous men like Booker T. Washington. But money talks, and Walker’s success soon spoke for itself. She never forgot where she came from, giving back until her untimely death at 51.

—Trisha, Publisher

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

Mackenzi Lee followed The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue with another smashingly entertaining historical road trip, this time focused on aspiring doctor Felicity Montague. Entering the medical field was nearly impossible for an 18th-century woman (even a rich, white woman), and Lee strikes the perfect balance between inspiration and historical realism. This is not a simple “girl power” fable. Felicity confronts her own internalized misogyny as she comes to appreciate women whose dreams and personalities are different from her own but no less valid or deserving of respect. The characters in Lady’s Guide know they are outliers in their own time, but they press forward anyway, confident that they are blazing a path for the generations of women who will come after them.

—Savanna, Associate Editor

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

The Mirabal sisters of Julia Alvarez’s powerful novel may sound like the stuff of myth, but they were real. Four women, known as “the Butterflies,” joined an underground movement in the late 1950s against President Rafael Trujillo and became legends of resistance for the Dominican people. Three sisters died in the process, but they mobilized a nation to liberate itself from a decades-long dictatorship. Alvarez’s novel, like many feminist Latin American works, is rebellious even in its form, mixing timelines and genres in a polyphonic, metafictive masterpiece. During dark times, our impulse can be to protect ourselves before others, to stay silent out of fear. Stirring to its very core, Alvarez’s novel captures the crucial shift when a person decides to stand up for what they truly believe in, no matter the cost.

—Cat, Deputy Editor

The Life of Frederick Douglass by David F. Walker, illustrated by Damon Smyth & Marissa Louise

Few Americans are more remarkable than Frederick Douglass. To learn about his extraordinary life and work, you could read the autobiographies he wrote during his lifetime, or one of the thorough biographies that have been penned since his death. Or, for a totally different avenue into the history of abolition, you could read David F. Walker’s stunning graphic biography. Written in the voice of Douglass himself and illustrated with at times violent, at times beautiful scenes from Douglass’ life, this book offers a high-­level portrait that is more humanizing, vivid and heart-stirring than words alone could paint. When the world seems full of impassable obstacles, The Life of Frederick Douglass is a helpful reminder of how to knock them down.

—Christy, Associate Editor

Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough

Blood Water Paint is an incredible true story. Artemisia Gentileschi, the daughter of an art dealer in Rome during the early 1600s and a talented painter in her own right, was attacked and raped by one of her father’s business associates. Defying convention, Gentileschi pressed charges against her attacker, risking everything—including her future as an artist—to seek justice for herself. Joy McCullough tells Gentileschi’s story in 99 poems, interspersed with the prose stories of Susanna and Judith, the biblical women depicted in two of Gentileschi’s best-known paintings. Gentileschi’s voice on the page is arresting, and her determination to prevail and carve out a life for herself as an artist, even in the face of horror and trauma, is unforgettable. You’ll never look at Gentileschi’s paintings the same way again.

—Stephanie, Associate Editor

Each month, BookPage staff share special reading lists comprised of our personal favorites, old and new. 

These books highlight heroes who give courage to our souls—but most of all, they reveal the true, relatable humanity beneath their subjects’ seemingly supernatural heroism.
NonfictionNatureBiography

Book Clubs: October 2020

Feature by Julie Hale

For the spookiest month of the year, reading groups will love this quartet of slightly unsettling titles.

Sorcery abounds in Pam Grossman’s Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power. Grossman goes deep into the subject of witchery, digging into imagery, symbolism and—through evaluations of Salem, Massachusetts, and other storied locales—the significance of witches in history. She also looks at depictions of witches in books, movies and television shows. Grossman, a popular podcaster and active witch, writes with authority and wit, spinning a magical narrative that book clubs will find both instructive and playful. This book is a provocative study of an endlessly fascinating figure and a treat for mere mortals in search of a rewarding seasonal read.

The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini by Joe Posnanski unpacks America’s fascination with the extraordinary escape artist and magician. Posnanski gives a captivating account of the elusive Houdini (1874–1926), whose real name was Ehrich Weiss and who grew up in an immigrant family in Wisconsin. There are many rich ideas at play in this book, including the power of the media and the ways pop culture icons come into being. A whimsical selection for reading groups, it’s a captivating look at one of magic’s greatest practitioners and how his influence still lingers today.

A strong stomach is not required for readers to enjoy Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History, zoologist Bill Schutt’s intriguing study of a dark subject. Schutt traces cannibalism across species and eras, investigating myths and misconceptions while documenting cannibalism’s place in the evolutionary process. His narrative is lively and well organized, and it brims with concepts that are ripe for discussion, such as cultural taboos, the survival instinct and genetics.

In Witches of America, Alex Mar travels across the country to investigate the world of modern covens, mystics and pagans. Mar is an admitted disbeliever, but as she meets with members of the occult in New England and the Midwest, she finds her perspective shifting. She gives readers inside access to these arcane groups and reveals how they find a foothold in contemporary society. Book clubs will appreciate Mar’s evenhanded consideration of topics such as faith and the supernatural. Written with intelligence and an eye for eerie detail, her book is a can’t-miss Halloween pick.

For the spookiest month of the year, reading groups will love this quartet of slightly unsettling titles. Sorcery abounds in Pam Grossman’s Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power. Grossman goes deep into the subject of witchery, digging into imagery, symbolism and—through evaluations…
NonfictionFood & DrinkBlack HistoryBiographyAmerican History

Fall’s biggest biographies

Feature by BookPage contributors

Big names, big personalities and big legacies. The subjects of this fall’s most captivating biographies need no introduction.

Mad at the World
By William Souder

John Steinbeck just might be the novelist for our time. In his sprawling epic The Grapes of Wrath, he captured Americans’ peculiar yearning for a life not their own, the promise of wealth beyond the veil of desolation and the wretched impossibility of such a promise. Steinbeck’s other epic, East of Eden, illustrates the ragged desperation of human nature, wreaking destruction rather than carrying hope. William Souder’s bracing Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck vividly portrays the brooding and moody writer who could never stop writing and who never fit comfortably into the society in which he lived.

Souder, whose biography of John James Audubon was a Pulitzer finalist, traces Steinbeck’s love of stories to his childhood. As a teenager, Steinbeck immersed himself in Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, which he translated later in life, and in adventure tales and classics such as Treasure Island, Madame Bovary and Crime and Punishment. This early reading gave him glimpses into the shadowy corners of the human heart and provided him with models for telling tales of people engaged in heroic struggles against the injustices of their eras.

Steinbeck was a born storyteller who was a bit out of step with his times; many of his social realist novels appeared during the innovations of modernism. But Steinbeck remains widely read and relevant today, as vibrantly illuminated by Mad at the World.

—Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

★ Eleanor
By David Michaelis

Fueled by 11 years of research, the new biography of Eleanor Roosevelt by David Michaelis (N. C. Wyeth) is both compelling and comprehensive, making use of previously untapped archival sources and interviews. Michaelis, who actually met Roosevelt when he was just 4 years old, trains his careful attention on virtually all aspects of her incredible life and times to craft a fast-moving, engrossing narrative.

Eleanor follows its subject from birth to her death in 1962. Roosevelt’s life journey took her from a shy, often ignored child, whose mother shamed her with the nickname “Granny,” to a dynamic first lady and then a “world maker” when, as one of the country’s first delegates to the United Nations, she spearheaded the adoption of the first Universal Declaration of Human Rights in history. Of course, Eleanor Roosevelt’s life was also entwined with that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Eleanor was so intrinsically linked with the New Deal and World War II, it’s sometimes easy to forget that she was born in 1884 and was almost 36 years old when the 19th Amendment passed in 1920.

Michaelis never neglects the politics and history that marked the life of this remarkable, fascinating woman. At the same time, his impeccable storytelling and seamless integration of dialogue and quotations allow him to create an intimate, lively and emotional portrait that unfolds like a good novel. As America faces another challenging period in its history, there may be no better time for readers to turn to the life of one of our nation’s truly great leaders for inspiration.

—Deborah Hopkinson

His Truth Is Marching On
By Jon Meacham

It’s been only a few months since the death of civil rights giant John Lewis, and though eloquent tributes from leaders like Barack Obama have attempted to sum up his legacy, it will ultimately fall to future generations to fully assess his contributions to the cause of racial equality in America. One of our most prominent contemporary historians, Pulitzer Prize winner Jon Meacham, offers an appreciative early assessment in His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope.

Meacham frankly admits that his book makes no attempt at a full-scale biography of Lewis. Instead, he focuses on the tumultuous period from 1957 to 1966, when Lewis rose from obscurity in a family of sharecroppers in Troy, Alabama, to national prominence in the civil rights movement. This “quietly charismatic, forever courtly, implacably serene” man was motivated by a fierce commitment to nonviolence and above all by his unswerving attachment to the vision he shared with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. of a “beloved community”—in Lewis’ words, “nothing less than the Christian concept of the kingdom of God on earth.”

Meacham makes a persuasive case for his claim that “John Robert Lewis embodied the traits of a saint in the classical Christian sense of the term.” At a moment when events have once again forced Americans to confront the evils of racism, His Truth Is Marching On will inspire both courage and hope.

—Harvey Freedenberg

★ The Man Who Ate Too Much
By John Birdsall

American cookery rests squarely on the shoulders of the late, great James Beard. His life and experiences are extremely well known and have been written about extensively. Yet in his new book, The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard, John Birdsall—a gastronomic expert in his own right, having twice won a James Beard Award—gives foodies a fresh, intimate look at Beard. He writes with candor, wit and vibrancy, as if Beard himself is speaking through Birdsall’s pen, retelling his colorful life and inviting us into his world. And Birdsall doesn’t mince words, delivering a raw, revealing look into how and why Beard had to tread cautiously as he navigated the world as a closeted gay man during the often unforgiving 20th century.

Birdsall’s strength as a food writer shines, with mouthwateringly descriptive prose about cuisine peppered throughout the book. He also provides touchstones to what was going on globally, including both World Wars, the World’s Fair of 1939, the Vietnam War, Watergate and the civil rights movement, giving context for the major events that affected Beard’s life.

The Man Who Ate Too Much is meticulously researched. Additionally, Birdsall’s insightful style allows readers to feel Beard’s successes and failures, highs and lows, and revelations and discoveries as they become deeply familiar with the family, friends, colleagues and rivals who impacted his life.

—Becky Libourel Diamond

★ The Dead Are Arising
By Les Payne and Tamara Payne

Pulitzer Prize winner Les Payne’s monumental and absorbing The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X peers into the gaps left by Malcolm X’s autobiography, taking us more deeply into the intimate details of his life, work and death.

In 1990, investigative reporter Payne began conducting hundreds of interviews with Malcolm X’s family members, childhood friends, classmates and bodyguards, as well as with FBI agents, photographers, U.N. representatives, African revolutionaries and presidents and the two men falsely imprisoned for killing Malcolm X. Drawing on these conversations, Payne traces Malcolm X’s story from his childhood in Omaha, Nebraska, through his teenage years in Lansing, Michigan, where Malcolm learned to resist the racial provocations of his white classmates. Payne chronicles Malcolm X’s time in prison, where fellow inmate John E. Bembry challenged Malcolm X by telling the young prisoner, “If I had some brains, I’d use them.” This encouraged Malcolm X to read all he could and to not only engage others with words but also support those words with facts from experts. In vivid detail, Payne retells the events leading up to Malcolm X’s assassination, offering fresh information about those involved.

The Dead Are Arising is essential reading. Completed after the author’s death in 2018 by Tamara Payne, Les’ daughter and the book’s primary researcher, it captures the vibrant voice of a revolutionary whose words resonate powerfully in our own times.

—Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

★ Red Comet
By Heather Clark

In Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, biographer and Plath scholar Heather Clark lifts the poet’s life from the Persephone myth it has become and examines it in all its complexity. Clark admirably identifies and resists the morbid tendency to look at every moment, every work, as a signpost on the way to Plath’s tragic suicide. She also liberates the supporting cast of Plath’s life from the damning and one-dimensional roles they often occupy as part of the death-myth of Plath’s life. Her husband, Ted Hughes; his lover, Assia Wevill; Plath’s mother, Aurelia Plath—they are not villains but people who created art of their own, who loved and fought with Plath, who were not always good or right.

Clark’s detailed, multidimensional treatment infuses Plath’s life and work with dignity, character and a sense of interiority. We get the full scope of Plath’s incredible talent here, rightfully established as complicated, radiant and worthy of deep consideration. Plath was a genius. She was a woman living in a time of great social restriction for women. She had complicated and human relationships. She was mentally ill, and this mental illness both illumined her work and colored her perspective on the world. All of these things are held alongside one another without conflict in Clark’s book. Red Comet allows Plath to emerge from the shadows, shining in all her intricacy and artistry.

—Anna Spydell

Big names, big personalities and big legacies. The subjects of this fall's most captivating biographies need no introduction.
Mad at the World By William Souder John Steinbeck just might be the novelist for our time.…
NonfictionAudioSocial ScienceNatureMemoirBiography

Audiobooks: Don’t know what to listen to next? We’ve got some ideas

Feature by bookpagedev

Calling all runners, crafters, road warriors and vigorous house-cleaners: If you’re in need of a new audiobook, read on for some of the best new nonfiction productions. All true stories, all extraordinary listens.

All Creatures Great and Small (15.5 hours)

It’s been more than 50 years since James Herriot’s beloved stories were published, stealing hearts with his humorous tales about the 1930s Yorkshire Dales, where he served the memorable townsfolk as a young country veterinarian. This January, fans will settle in for PBS Masterpiece’s adaptation of the series, but this tie-in, read by star Nicholas Ralph, will transport you while you wait. Is there anything better than cozy stories told in a Scottish accent? Don’t be surprised if, while walking your dog, for example, you’re stopped by a stranger across the street who asks what you’re listening to because you just look so dang happy.

Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee (7.5 hours)

Shannon Lee, daughter of kung fu master Bruce Lee, shares the stories behind her father’s guiding philosophy to “be water,” to accept oneself rather than try to go against one’s nature. As Lee explains, water is “soft yet strong, natural yet able to be directed, detached yet powerful, and above all, essential to life.” Lee’s book entertains as it inspires, and she sounds like an old pro as its narrator, confidently inviting us to join in this philosophy of self-acceptance.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (14.5 hours)

Robin Miles narrated Isabel Wilkerson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Warmth of Other Suns, and she delivers another smooth, energetic performance for Caste, Wilkerson’s latest masterpiece. In Caste, Wilkerson spins years of research into an accessible yet profound case for an unacknowledged caste system within the United States. More than race, more than class, Wilkerson believes that the language of caste best describes the hierarchy of power in our country, and she thoroughly demonstrates this claim through insights about the similar caste systems in India and Nazi Germany and through personable anecdotes from her own personal experience. These stories, brought to life by Miles’ trademark clarity, warmth and gravitas, provide readers with a new lens on the world that, once peered through, will change the way they see things forever.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Discover more of our most highly recommended audiobooks.

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X (18 hours)

For a listener seeking a full immersion in history, we recommend you download this monumental, National Book Award-winning biography from Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Les Payne, a 30-year project completed after Payne’s death by his daughter, Tamara Payne. This book embroiders the full canvas surrounding the story of Malcolm X, providing a total sense of context, complete with corrected historical records and rewind-that-back-and-listen-again revelations. Award-winning narrator Dion Graham is one of the finest in the business, and he commands your attention, warmly but firmly demanding, Listen up—this is the story of Macolm X like you’ve never heard before.

I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are (5 hours)

Funny woman and TV genius Rachel Bloom (you know her from “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”) narrates her own memoir about awkwardness and fame, and it’s everything you could hope for. Her writing runneth over with personality, and her audiobook nearly explodes with it. She does hilarious voices, she makes audio-related asides to translate a text-only quip, and she cannonballs through her most irreverent jokes with such glee such that you have no choice but to laugh till it hurts.

Memorial Drive (5 hours)

Former U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey narrates her debut memoir, Memorial Drive, with both steady skill and heart-wrenching tenderness. As a poet, she understands the subtle power of phrasing, emphasis and a well-timed pause. Yet as she tells the story of her mother’s murder by Trethewey’s ex-stepfather when Trethewey was 19, there is an understandable rawness just below the surface. Her voice catches with deep emotion as she recounts the story of why it took her 35 years to turn this harrowing story of fear, loneliness and loss into a memoir. The content is tragic, but Trethewey’s lingering Mississippi inflection is soothing as she lays out her tale, and listeners will feel totally at ease as they tune in to hear a master at work.

Notes on a Silencing (11 hours)

How do you talk about something that you’ve been forced to stay silent about? Lacy Crawford does the seemingly impossible in her memoir: She tells the full story of her rape by two boys while at a New England boarding school, and then narrates it for the audiobook. Her clear voice provides her younger self with a level of truth that has too long been withheld and offers moments of levity amid the darkness. The younger Lacy is likable and bold as she navigates her trauma and the cruelty of her school. This memoir is a masterful depiction of how to tell a story, especially the hardest one you could ever think to write.

★ Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America (12 hours)

The history of immigration in America gets a personal and, through author Maria Hinojosa’s narration, supremely entertaining and moving treatment in this part memoir, part work of social science. Hinojosa’s family immigrated to the United States from Mexico when she was an infant, and she tangles her history with the nation’s to offer one of the finest audiobooks of the year.

Hinojosa is the anchor and executive producer of "Latino USA" on NPR, and she knows how to spin a story, boldly capturing moments of triumph and pain, and performing voices that conjure the unexpected strength of her mother, that mock the unjust or the racist and that transport the listener to each and every event she recounts here. She understands exactly what America offers and how it has failed immigrants, and she packages the story in journalistic objectivity and an arresting, honest performance.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Maria Hinojosa reveals what it was like to narrate her memoir: “I am the character, she is me!”

Vesper Flights (10.5 hours)

Helen Macdonald’s collection of nature essays offers a balance of comfort and clear-eyed concern, Some of the essays are short and sweet (a vignette on her father and a goat is laughably brief), but her pieces that connect her love of nature to the wider world are when this book really shines. She draws threads between migraines and climate change, between nostalgia for the natural world and Brexit, and between flocks of birds and our own relationship to the changing environment. With deep affection and a frank yet gentle tone, she shares her wide knowledge and unique perspective like the gifts that they are.

Where I Come From: Stories From the Deep South (7.5 hours)

For Southern listeners, to hear Rick Bragg narrate his own missives from the Deep South is to be transported to a porch on a summer evening. This collection combines some of his finest columns from Southern Living and Garden & Gun, in which he explores down-home topics such as Tupperware, trucks and the importance of a good knife. There’s nothing quite so calming as a rhythmic Southern drawl, capturing the most romantic bits of a rural life.

Calling all runners, crafters, road warriors and vigorous house-cleaners: If you’re in need of a new audiobook, read on for some of the best new nonfiction productions. All true stories, all extraordinary listens.
NonfictionMemoirFilmBiography

Book Clubs: December 2020

Feature by Julie Hale

Entertaining yet substantial, briskly paced yet informative, these celebrity memoirs and biographies are perfect for the busy month of December.

In Inside Out, actor Demi Moore comes to terms with her troubled past. As the daughter of alcoholic parents, Moore had an unstable and traumatic childhood, and her early career as a model left her feeling insecure about her appearance. Although she went on to achieve success in Hollywood, starring in such films as St. Elmo’s Fire and Ghost, she struggled for years with drug addiction. Throughout this candid, accomplished memoir, Moore is upfront about her marriages to Bruce Willis and Ashton Kutcher, and she provides fascinating insight into the movie business.

Esteemed actor Sally Field shares her personal story in her memoir, In Pieces. Born in Pasadena, California, in 1946, Field opens up about her solitary childhood, her alcoholic mother and the stepfather who abused her. She began acting as a teen, going on to star in blockbusters including Norma Rae and Forrest Gump. With sensitivity and a wonderful command of narrative, she reflects on important past relationships, including her romance with Burt Reynolds, and on the impulses that drive her acting. The result is a well-rounded, well-written portrait of an artist that will appeal to anyone who loves a good celebrity memoir.

Written by bestselling biographer Sheila Weller, Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge is an illuminating study of an American icon. Carrie Fisher, perhaps best known for portraying Princess Leia in the Star Wars films, was the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actor Debbie Reynolds. In this well-researched biography, Weller chronicles Fisher’s Hollywood up-bringing, her rise as an actor, her marriages and her experiences with bipolar disorder and drugs. Fisher’s intelligence and strength shine through in this lively narrative, which is rich with movie history and personal anecdotes, as well as themes of family and feminism.

Illustrator and author Edward Sorel revisits the golden age of Hollywood in Mary Astor’s Purple Diary: The Great American Sex Scandal of 1936. Sorel explores the life of actor Mary Astor, star of The Maltese Falcon and other classics, who kept a diary of her sexual affairs. In the 1930s, her ex-husband discovered the diary and used it against her during his legal battle for custody of their daughter. Sorel digs in to weighty topics including public image, the power of journalism and the female experience in show business, and his nifty illustrations add to the book’s appeal.

Entertaining yet substantial, briskly paced yet informative, these celebrity memoirs and biographies are perfect for the busy month of December.

In Inside Out, actor Demi Moore comes to terms with her troubled past. As the daughter of alcoholic parents, Moore had an unstable and traumatic…

NonfictionMemoirBiography

Book Clubs: March 2021

Feature by Julie Hale

Celebrate Women’s History Month with terrific nonfiction titles spotlighting female pioneers and groundbreakers.

Adam Hochschild’s spirited biography Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes chronicles the life of Rose Pastor Stokes (1879–1933), a Russian refugee of Jewish descent who married millionaire James Graham Phelps Stokes. The two became members of the Socialist Party and mixed with figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois and anarchist Emma Goldman. Hochschild’s enthralling narrative shines a light on Pastor Stokes’ work as a champion of the working class and of the feminist cause. Pick this one if your group is ready for a dynamic discussion of social justice, women’s rights and the often overlooked history of American activism during the early 20th century.

In Horror Stories, musician Liz Phair—perhaps best known for her 1993 release Exile in Guyville—looks back at some painfully formative moments in her life. She writes with vibrancy and honesty about being unfaithful to her first husband, getting into a street brawl in Shanghai and giving birth to her son after 32 hours of labor. She's refreshingly upfront about her own personal shortcomings, but she's also compassionate about them, allowing her to connect with readers who've experienced their own missteps. Book groups will appreciate Phair’s skills as a memoirist and find rich topics for conversation, including the female experience in the music industry and riot grrrl-era feminism. 

Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century by John Loughery and Blythe Randolph provides an in-depth look at a legendary lady. Dorothy Day (1897–1980) was a noted journalist, pacifist and advocate for labor and women’s rights. A Brooklyn native, she was also part of the Greenwich Village scene that included poet Hart Crane and playwright Eugene O’Neill. This lively biography documents her personal and political evolution in wonderful detail. Brimming with history and discussion topics related to religion and progressivism, it’s an inspired choice for Women’s History Month.

In her brave, probing memoir Recollections of My Nonexistence, essayist and activist Rebecca Solnit recounts her coming-of-age as a writer. Solnit settled in San Francisco as a teenager during the 1980s. While in grad school, she entered the writing world—an arena dominated by men—and worked to overcome gender barriers and find her place as an artist. Solnit’s astute observations of the literary life and the San Francisco art scene make for fascinating reading, and her evolving sense of her own identity and empowerment will prompt lively conversation among readers.

Celebrate Women’s History Month with terrific nonfiction titles spotlighting female pioneers and groundbreakers.

Children's & YABiography

Tips for Teachers: The magic of Tomie dePaola

Feature by Emmie Stuart

Tips for Teachers is a monthly column in which experienced teacher and children’s librarian Emmie Stuart shares book recommendations and a corresponding teaching guide for fellow elementary school teachers.

One of my most vivid memories from childhood is when Mrs. Tarkington read Tomie dePaola’s Strega Nona to my kindergarten class. The richly illustrated Italian folktale of a kindly witch, her overflowing pasta pot and mischievous Big Anthony has been engraved on the walls of my imagination ever since.

Every October, I gather my own kindergarteners on the rug and watch the their faces as I recite its familiar opening lines: “In a town in Calabria, a long time ago, there lived an old lady everyone called Strega Nona, which meant ‘Grandma Witch.’” Afterward, I pull out my photographs of Tomie and introduce him as the author and illustrator of more than 260 books. 

Indeed, dePaola’s books are mingled throughout my entire repertoire of library lessons. By the time they reach the fourth grade, students at my elementary school have become familiar with his style and can quickly identify a dePaola illustration, even if they’ve never seen the book before.

DePaola died on March 30, 2020. Like most of his readers, I wasn’t ready for a world without him. In the days following his death, I revisited all of his books in my own personal collection, studying his heartfelt language and lingering over his cheerful and deceptively simple illustrations. I wanted to identify the elements that make his work so transcendent and timeless. Why did I love his books just as much now, in adulthood, as I did when I was a child? 

Perhaps the answer lies in dePaola’s personal picture book philosophy. He once explained, “A picture book is a small door to the enormous world of the visual arts, and they’re often the first art a young person sees.” dePaola’s sincere love and respect for children is evident in all of his work. His books are playful and earnest. Their stories mingle sadness with hope and darkness with light. 

Generations of dePaola’s fans will find hours of delight in Barbara Elleman’s The Worlds of Tomie dePaola, a comprehensive study of the author-illustrator’s life and work. In this revised and updated version of her 1999 book, Tomie dePaola: His Art and His Stories, Elleman, a children’s literature scholar, offers readers an in-depth look at his life, work and legacy. The book includes color photographs that provide glimpses into dePaola’s home and studio, as well as Elleman’s insights about dePaola’s artistic techniques and anecdotes that capture a life lived intentionally, full of love and joy.

After reading it cover to cover (twice), my love and admiration for dePaola’s work and life of generosity was deepened. Share dePaola’s books with your students because, to quote another beloved children’s book creator, Trina Schart Hyman, the world of Tomie dePaola is “loved, needed, and meaningful.” 

Modeled after the organizational categories Elleman uses to structure The Worlds of Tomie dePaola, here’s how I use dePaola’s books with my students. 

Autobiographical tales

Nana Upstairs & Nana Downstairs, Oliver Button Is a Sissy, Tom, and The Art Lesson form the foundation of a first-grade unit in which we answer, “How can stories tell us more about an author-illustrator?” As a class, we fill in a graphic organizer that shows how dePaola uses personal memories in his stories and illustrations. 


After we read and discuss The Art Lesson, students participate in a directed drawing activity of a turkey, then use art supplies to create their own turkey. We hang everyone’s creative turkeys on a bulletin board to remind us that there is no a right or wrong way to create an artistic interpretation. 

Strega Nona

I begin to generate excitement about Strega Nona by identifying the Caldecott Honor medal on its cover. Next, I locate Italy on a world map and briefly define the folktale genre, then read the story aloud. Sometimes I play the audio edition, which is read by Peter Hawkins. His excellent narration and the production’s musical accompaniment enhance the story wonderfully.

Since this is the first dePaola book I share with kindergarteners, I take time to introduce dePaola himself to children. We all walk over to the shelf where his books are in the library; I hold up a photograph of dePaola and tell students, “This is one of my very favorite author-illustrators. I hope you will love his books too!”

Next, I hand out my magic pot activity sheet and invite students to illustrate what they would want to fill their own magical pots with. Together, we read the poem “Strega Nona’s Magic Pasta Pot” by Susan Kilpatrick. Students who memorize the poem by the end of the month earn a special prize. 

Folktales

Over the course of the school year, my second graders read four of dePaola’s folktales, two in the fall semester and two in the spring. In the fall, we read The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush and The Legend of the Bluebonnet. Afterward, students work in pairs to compare and contrast the stories using a Venn diagram. In our next lesson, students use liquid watercolors to paint sunset skies.

In the spring, we study Ireland and read Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato and Jamie O’Rourke and the Pooka. We discuss how folktales usually include a lesson, then we identify the morals in the Jamie O’Rourke books. Sometimes we take a scientific approach and use potatoes to learn about the properties of osmosis, energy or simple machines. 

Christmas stories

It’s no surprise that Christmas was dePaola’s favorite holiday. His Christmas books provide the foundation for my December lessons. As we learn about customs around the world, I share The Legend of Old Befana (Italy), The Night of Los Posadas (Santa Fe, New Mexico) and The Legend of the Poinsettia (Mexico). We learn about American holiday traditions by reading An Early American Christmas, The Night Before Christmas and Tomie dePaola’s Christmas Tree Book. I find picture books that relate the biblical story of Christmas to be overly saccharine and sometimes inaccurate, but not so with dePaola’s reverent and luminous renditions. Start with The Story of the Three Wise Kings, The Birds of Bethlehem and The Friendly Beasts. 

Religious and spiritual themes

In December, I read The Clown of God with my fourth graders. By this point, they have become familiar with dePaola books and are immediately excited when they see the book’s cover. Before we read, we locate Sorrento, Italy, on a map and briefly discuss the Italian Renaissance.

After they recover from the book’s moving ending, students reflect on their gifts and how these gifts can bring happiness to others. We discuss the character of Giovanni, and I invite students to share the value of older people in their personal lives and our community. Last, we use tissue paper and contact paper to create stained-glass cards in a nod to the round stained-glass windows in the book’s illustrations for grandparents or other important older adults.  

Mother Goose and other collections

Never assume that kindergartners begin school knowing nursery rhymes. Tomie dePaola’s Mother Goose illustrates rhymes collected by English folklorists Peter and Iona Opie. Use the collection to practice oral language skills. My favorite oral language exercises are echoing (I read a line and students repeat it), clapping (clap the rhyming words) and act-it-out activities. Many nursery rhyme collections represent cultures around the world. Use dePaola’s collection as your anchor text but share several additional titles with students. Some of my favorites are Susan Middleton Elya and Juana Martinez-Neal's La Madre Goose, Nina Crews' The Neighborhood Mother Goose and Salley Mavor's Pocketful of Posies. Be sure to display them in your classroom’s reading nook.  

Informational books


Is there a snack more beloved than popcorn? Tomie dePaola's The Popcorn Book explains the history and science behind this amazing confection. It’s an ideal book for collaboration across grades.

I begin by giving older students (I’ve done this with both third and fourth graders) a pre-quiz to see how much they know about popcorn. Once we've read the book together, I divide students into small groups and assign each group an area of popcorn history to research. The groups are responsible for synthesizing and restating the information in The Popcorn Book as well as their own research in language that can be understood by younger students. Students add their information to an oversized class timeline.

Together, we work on public speaking skills. When we’re finished, I invite a younger class to “pop” into the classroom for a popcorn party where the older students present the history of popcorn. It’s so neat to watch older students teaching the younger students, and of course, I provide a popcorn snack for everyone! 

One of my most vivid memories from childhood is when Mrs. Tarkington read Tomie dePaola’s Strega Nona to my kindergarten class. The richly illustrated Italian folktale of a kindly witch, her overflowing pasta pot and mischievous Big Anthony has been engraved on the walls of my imagination ever since.

NonfictionBlack HistoryBiography

Book Clubs: May 2021

Feature by Julie Hale

These terrific titles shed new light on fascinating figures and monumental moments that have shaped our world today, and will make you wish you had read them years ago.

Erica Armstrong Dunbar illuminates the life of a freedom fighter in Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge. Born into enslavement in Mount Vernon, Virginia, Ona Judge moved with George and Martha Washington to Philadelphia, where, under Pennsylvania law, enslaved people were to be freed after six months—an edict Washington flouted. When Judge fled the Washington household, she became the center of a protracted search. Books clubs may view Washington in a new light after reading Dunbar’s revealing narrative, which also explores social justice, gender and notions of heroism.

In The Compton Cowboys: The New Generation of Cowboys in America's Urban Heartland, Walter Thompson-Hernández tells the remarkable story of the Compton, California, ranch where local youngsters have the opportunity to learn firsthand about the long history of America’s Black cowboys. The narrative focuses on a core group of characters, including single mother Keiara, who hopes to win a rodeo championship. A lively blend of reportage and history, the book provides a fundamental new perspective on the concept of the American cowboy and its legacy within the Black community.

Gareth Russell’s Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII provides fresh insight into the life of Catherine Howard, whose brief reign as queen of England ended when she was charged with treason and executed. Too often a side character in the story of her husband, Catherine is given new depth and dimension in Russell’s narrative, which focuses on her innermost circle and explores the court intrigue that brought about her end. Rich in detail and talking points, including Tudor politics and the role of aristocratic women in the 16th century, this compelling biography is a can’t-miss pick.

In Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster, Adam Higginbotham delves into the mysteries behind the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl atomic energy station. The Soviet government tried to cover up the truth about the catastrophe, which sent radioactive clouds across parts of the Soviet Union and Europe. Incorporating newly available archival material and extensive interviews, Higginbotham pieces together the events that led to the accident and dispels the mythology that has since surrounded it in this darkly fascinating book.

These terrific titles shed new light on fascinating figures and monumental moments that have shaped our world today, and will make you wish you had read them years ago.

Biography

High-flying biography

Review by James Webb

Gregory Boyington, otherwise known as Pappy, was a media darling before there was such a term. A Marine Corps fighter ace and leader of the famed Black Sheep Squadron during World War II, Boyington used and was used by the press during his long and tumultuous life. His fame took him all the way into the television age when Baa Baa Black Sheep, based on his autobiography, became a hit TV series during the 1970s. Author Bruce Gamble skillfully unravels the highs and lows of Boyington's paradoxical story in Black Sheep One: The Life of Gregory Pappy Boyington. Raised by an alcoholic mother and her common-law husband, Boyington managed to overcome the obstacles of his home life by entering the military, which would ultimately prove to be his salvation as well as his damnation. The Marine Corps trained him as a pilot and rewarded his sometimes reckless courage, but it also introduced him to his nemesis alcohol. The camaraderie and culture of the military made consumption of alcohol almost a requirement.

Despite his drinking binges, Boyington managed to down more Japanese planes than any other Marine fighter pilot and was awarded the Medal of Honor. Gamble's extensive use of military records, interviews and contemporary accounts all give Black Sheep One a wealth of detail. His prose style is clear and he dispassionately recounts the events of Boyington's career without condemning his excesses or extolling his virtues. Black Sheep One succeeds both as biography and history, but its strength lies in its power as a cautionary tale. Looking back at photos of his boyish face as a winning pilot, and later, at the alcohol-ravaged features of an old man, the reader can't help but wonder about the price of Boyington's success.

 

Gregory Boyington, otherwise known as Pappy, was a media darling before there was such a term. A Marine Corps fighter ace and leader of the famed Black Sheep Squadron during World War II, Boyington used and was used by the press during his long…

Biography

Through thick and thin

Review by Rebecca Bain

In his follow-up to the best-selling The Last Lecture, co-written with Randy Pausch, Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow explores the friendship of 11 girls, now women in their mid-40s, who grew up together in Ames, Iowa.

The Girls From Ames grew in response to a piece Zaslow wrote about the enduring bonds of women's friendships. He received an email from Jenny Benson Litchman that gave a few details on how the girls met (three were born within a week of each other in a local hospital), what growing up together had been like, and how they still keep in almost daily contact with each other.

Intrigued, Zaslow took a year's leave from work to spend time with the "girls," hoping, no doubt, to find the key to what has kept them so close for so many years. Instead, he discovered what many women could have told him: the friends of one's youth are often the friends who matter the most. They are the ones with whom a million secrets have been shared, fragile dreams have been explored and countless pranks have been pulled. These are the friends who know the best and the worst about each other and, as English poet Robert Southey wrote, they are completely persuaded of each other's worth.

Still, it is extraordinary how these women (10 now, since the early death of one) have maintained such close contact with each other despite lives that have taken them all across the country (none lives in Ames today). They've shared the joys of marriage and childbirth, the pain of divorce, the tragedy of the deaths of children, the fears surrounding breast cancer. They've cried oceans of tears together and laughed so hard they've wet their pants. Or as Cathy says in The Girls From Ames, when asked why their bond remains so strong: "We root each other to the core of who we are, rather than what defines us as adults–by careers or spouses or kids. There's a young girl in each of us who is still full of life. When we're together, I try to remember that."

Rebecca Bain writes from Nashville.

In his follow-up to the best-selling The Last Lecture, co-written with Randy Pausch, Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow explores the friendship of 11 girls, now women in their mid-40s, who grew up together in Ames, Iowa.

The Girls From Ames grew in response to a…

NonfictionFictionWomen's FictionTravelHistoryCrafts, Hobbies & HomeBlack HistoryBiography

Black History Month: A symphony of varied voices

Review by Robert Fleming

With the arrival of Black History Month comes the expectation of a host of African-American books, geared not only to that unique, highly creative community but to the general population as well. Mainstream publishers now understand that there is a large readership waiting for books that reflect African-American issues and concerns, so it is not unusual that the bookshelves are full of new volumes during the month of February. In the roundup that follows, we at BookPage have selected a precious few of the large collection of books currently available.

Fiction

Some African-American literary critics often lament the alleged lack of gifted young black novelists coming up, mistakenly comparing the young lions to legends such as James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. However, the emergence of such talents as R.M. Johnson, the author of the acclaimed The Harris Men, has quieted many of the naysayers. His latest novel, Father Found, chronicles the obsession of Zale Rowen, founder of Father Found, an organization that finds absent dads and forces them to fulfill their emotional and financial obligations. Zale's zeal for a social cause costs him dearly, bringing him to serious illness and crisis in this timely, disturbing novel that is certain to win Johnson much attention.

Venise Berry's All of Me follows her best-selling debut, So Good, with a humorous, insightful look at America's obsession with weight as Serpentine Williamson, a Chicago TV reporter blessed with the good life, learns the importance of self-esteem when everything she holds dear is threatened. This is Berry at her best, wry and knowing, using a new twist on the triumph-over-adversity motif.

While veteran novelist Kristin Lattany may be best known for her most popular book, The Landlord, her new work, Do unto Others offers us a different side of the author with the absorbing story of Zena and her husband Lucious, whose world is rocked by the entry of an unpredictable young African girl into their household. The novel is a scathing reminder of the futility of racism, the assumptions of Afrocentrism, and the occasional absurdity of political correctness.

The notion of May/December romance gets a fresh coat of paint in Patty Rice's novel Somethin' Extra, when Genie Gatlin, who specializes in safe married men, meets David Lewis, a man 30 years her senior. He shows her the full range of love and commitment, despite her fears and doubts. Rice writes with a candid, realistic view of amour that pulls very few punches.

Jeffrey Renard Allen's exceptional debut epic, Rails Under My Back, tells the complex story of the lives and loves of two brothers, Lucifer and John Jones, and their wives, Gracie and Sheila McShan. This multilayered, intricate fable delves deep into the themes of love, survival, responsibility, and trust, as the choices of the parents bear unforeseen consequences for their children. Sweeping, experimental, and rewarding.

Nonfiction

Call him an intellectual, call him an activist, Harvard University professor Cornel West is a man who defies category with an encyclopedic mind that is stumped by no topic or realm of study. His stand-out collection of social commentary, memoir, interviews, and essays, The Cornel West Reader, attests to his prowess as cultural analyst and academic philosopher-theologian with its astute observations on everything from Marxist theory and black sexuality to black-Jewish relations and rap.

A rare opportunity to enter the minds of three pivotal African-American leaders is presented by Dr. Sondra Kathryn Wilson, literary executor of the James Weldon's Johnson Papers and editor of In Search of Democracy: The NAACP Writings of James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and Roy Wilkins 1920-1977. Every page of this collection of essays, reports, speeches, and editorials yields a wealth of information about this trio of extraordinary men.

Biographies of noted African Americans have become very popular in recent years, gaining both in quality and critical notice. Maverick social critic Michael Eric Dyson, currently Ida B. Wells-Barnett University professor and professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University in Chicago, has reinterpreted our common perceptions of civil rights Rev. Martin Luther King with his latest book, I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. King, Dyson says, would have been a supporter of affirmative action, socialism, and a modest degree of separatism. In this controversial evaluation, the black spokesman was allegedly cynical about whites, believed America had spurned him, and suffered mightily from depression. This is a book destined to spark debate and a firestorm of criticism.

In the latest celebration of the genius of trumpeter Louis Armstrong, editor Thomas Brothers has sifted through the extensive archives of the master jazz horn man to compile Louis Armstrong: In His Own Words, an intriguing mix of letters, autobiographical sketches, magazine articles, and essays spanning Satchmo's long, eventful life. This assemblage reveals Armstrong to be a smart, clever wit, a master communicator, and a colorful human being with a heart as big as his musical sound.

With two competing books and a film on former boxing champion Rubin Hurricane Carter currently available, former New York Times reporter James Hirsch's Hurricane is one of the most engrossing takes on the ups and downs of the man who became an international cause celebre when wrongly convicted for the 1967 murder of three whites. Carter was later freed when evidence of police corruption was uncovered. Much care is taken in Hirsch's book to render Carter's spiritual and political transformation, as well as his lengthy legal battle.

Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., the director of W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African American Research, has been a very busy man. First he, with Lynn Davis serving as his photographer, has produced a wonderful travel book on Africa's hidden past, Wonders of the African World, following his journey through 12 of the continent's most beautiful countries. A companion to a PBS TV special, the book gets much of its distinctive flavor from Gates's inspired narrative, which is accompanied by 66 photos, seven full-color maps, and over 130 illustrations. Definitely an item worth having for anyone wishing to know more about the mystery that is Africa.

Possibly Gates's greatest achievement comes in his editing, with an assist from fellow Harvard Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah, of the landmark Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. For anyone wishing to learn more about Africa or America, this resource fills the bill with over 3,500 entries, hundreds of maps, tables, charts, and photographs. Every conceivable topic, from culture to politics, is covered in detail and expertly cross-referenced in this incredible fount of facts, figures, and general information.

The release of the splendid African Ceremonies by writer Angela Fisher and photographer Carol Beckwith has been the subject of much talk in recent weeks. A spectacular visual treat, the book redefines the coffee-table volume with its breathtaking images and sensitive text on the daily ritual of tribal culture. What the book says so skillfully is that no matter how different the external trappings of regional life may appear, the age-old rites of passage remain essentially the same. National Geographic, eat your heart out.

Robert Fleming is a journalist in New York City.

With the arrival of Black History Month comes the expectation of a host of African-American books, geared not only to that unique, highly creative community but to the general population as well. Mainstream publishers now understand that there is a large readership waiting for books…

Biography

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Review by Michael Paulson

Eleanor of Aquitaine led a remarkable life: queen of England and France, participant in a Crusade, mother of Richard the Lionheart, patron of troubadours, benefactor of convents, and actor in numerous court intrigues that decided the fates of kingdoms and helped shape the political boundaries of medieval Europe. Courageous, opinionated, and ambitious, she inspired great loyalty in vassals yet incurred the wrath of noblemen and prelates in her drive to acquire power for herself and her children.

The author of six previous books about English history, Alison Weir tackles familiar territory with Eleanor of Aquitaine. She ostensibly chronicles the life of Eleanor, though the book also provides a tableau of 12th-century Europe. It is saturated with episodes demonstrating the Byzantine nature of dynastic politics and the intensely complex machinations involved in the often bloody chess game that characterized Europe at this time. This lends a healthy vitality to the events Weir describes: This book doesn't read as history, this book is history.

Moreover, Weir seasons her account with voluminous and vivid detail culled from an impressive collection of sources. We discover that kings wore hairshirts and submitted themselves to monks for flagellation as penance for their myriad sins and that nobles often employed the claim of consanguinity as grounds for divorce, paving the way for new and more politically rewarding marriages that created a mosaic of extremely fluid alliances. Such morsels crop up throughout, adding layers of depth to a period often labeled the Dark Ages.

The title notwithstanding, much of the book revolves around the men in Eleanor's life; after all, she was married at different times to the kings of France and England. Both marriages were arranged in large part because of Eleanor's claim to the vast, wealthy duchy of Aquitaine in France, and Weir carefully shows how the unions deteriorated into acrimony. But the queen's legacy reached all the way to the War of the Roses 300 years later, which marked the end of the line she and Henry founded, and she left her distinctive imprint on the map of Europe.

Eleanor of Aquitaine led a remarkable life: queen of England and France, participant in a Crusade, mother of Richard the Lionheart, patron of troubadours, benefactor of convents, and actor in numerous court intrigues that decided the fates of kingdoms and helped shape the political boundaries…

Sign Up

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Sign up now

Recent Reviews

All Reviews

Author Interviews

More Interviews

Recent Features

All Features