Category Archives: Biography

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro

05 Monday Aug 2019

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Through a DNA website, Dani’s husband submitted their DNA as a lark. And in one day Dani’s life as she ever had known it was turned upside down.  With the speed of the Internet and You-Tube, her personal mystery unravels at top speed!

“Fascinating… With thoughtful candor, [Shapiro] explores the ethical questions surrounding sperm donation, the consequences of DNA testing, and the emotional impact of having an uprooted religious and ethnic identity. This beautifully written, thought-provoking genealogical mystery will captivate readers from the very first pages.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“For all the trauma that the discovery put her through, Shapiro recognizes that what she had experienced was ‘a great story’—one that has inspired her best book.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Page after page, Shapiro displays adisarming honesty and an acute desire to know the unknowable.” —Booklist (starred review)

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How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery and Rebecca Green

01 Monday Jul 2019

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Sy is the author of the Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness and one of her best friends is Vicki Croke who wrote one of my favorite books, Elephant Company: the inspiring story of an unlikely hero and the animals who helped him save lives in World War.  I knew I was in for a treat.  Animals have so much to teach us about being better humans.

“How to Be a Good Creature is a rare jewel, full of empathy and the profound wisdom Sy has received from animals she has loved over her extraordinary lifetime. This sweet book is a triumphant masterpiece that I’m recommending to everyone.”—Stacey O’Brien, author of Wesley the Owl

“I don’t know anyone whose animal empathies and scientific bona fides I admire more than Montgomery’s—from the curiosity she holds for a tarantula to the tender longing she has for an octopus. Told with characteristic humility and gorgeous language, How to Be a Good Creature is a remarkable achievement.”—Eliot Schrefer, author of Endangered, a National Book Award finalist

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Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb

12 Wednesday Jun 2019

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In this page-turning memoir, therapist Lori Gottlieb describes her work helping patients, as well as her experience visiting a therapist. Gottlieb writes with humor and empathy about her patients and herself, and I became invested in all of her characters.

Now being developed as a television series with Eva Longoria and ABC!

*An O, The Oprah Magazine’s Best Nonfiction Book of 2019*  

*A People Magazine Book of the Week*
*An Apple Best Books Pick for April*
*An April IndieNext Pick*
*A Book of the Month Club Selection*
*A Publishers Marketplace Buzz Book*
*A Newsday, Apple iBooks, Thrive Global, Refinery29,
and Book Riot Most Anticipated Book of 2019*

“An irresistibly addictive tour of the human condition.”–Kirkus, starred review

“Rarely have I read a book that challenged me to see myself in an entirely new light, and was at the same time laugh-out-loud funny and utterly absorbing.”–Katie Couric

“This is a daring, delightful, and transformative book.”–Arianna Huffington, Founder, Huffington Post and Founder & CEO, Thrive Global

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Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal by Ben Macintyre

29 Friday Mar 2019

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During World War II, Englishman Eddie Chapman is recruited by Germany to become a spy, only to turn himself in and become a double agent for England. This work of nonfiction contains characters as colorful as any in fiction. A true story that often seems too incredible to be real.

“Agent Zigzag is a true-history thriller, a real spy story superbly written. It belongs to my favorite genre: the ‘Friday night book’–start it then, because you will want to stay with it all weekend.” —Alan Furst

“A portrait of a man who double-crossed not only the Nazis, but just about every other principle and person he encountered. In doing so, Eddie Chapman made all thriller writers’ jobs harder, because this spy tale trumps any fiction.” —Men’s Journal

“Superb. Meticulously researched, splendidly told, immensely entertaining and often very moving.”—John le Carré

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Small Fry: a Memoir by Lisa Brennan-Jobs

04 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by in 20th century, Biography, memoir, Non-fiction, United States

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A tender coming of age story about a young girl trying to reconcile two very different lifestyles between her mother and father….. who just happens to be Steve Jobs.   This is not a celebrity biography.  She is true to her young voice throughout plus you will fall in love with her snapshots of 1970’s-80’s northern California.

“Entrancing… Brennan-Jobs is a deeply gifted writer… Her inner landscape is depicted in such exquisitely granular detail that it feels as if no one else could have possibly written it. Indeed, it has that defining aspect of a literary work: the stamp of a singular sensibility… Beautiful, literary, and devastating.”―New York Times Book Review

“Brennan-Jobs skillfully relays her past without judgement… staying true to her younger self. It is a testament to her fine writing and journalistic approach that her memoir never turns maudlin or gossipy. Rather than a celebrity biography, this is Brennan-Jobs’s authentic story of growing up in two very different environments, neither of which felt quite like home.”―Booklist (starred review)

“Brennan-Jobs’s narrative is tinged with awe, yearning, and disappointment… Bringing the reader into the heart of the child who admired Jobs’s genius, craved his love, and feared his unpredictability.”―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre

28 Friday Dec 2018

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A nonfiction spy book that’s as gripping as fiction. Kim Philby was an English intelligence officer in the 1940s and 50s who was secretly working for the Soviet Union, as part of the “Cambridge Five” spy ring. This book is a great mix of history, action, and espionage.

“Macintyre has produced more than just a spy story. He has written a narrative about that most complex of topics, friendship…When devouring this thriller, I had to keep reminding myself it was not a novel. It reads like a story by Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, or John Le Carré, leavened with a dollop of P.G. Wodehouse…[Macintyre] takes a fresh look at the grandest espionage drama of our era.”—Walter Isaacson, New York Times Book Review

“Macintyre does here what he does best — tell a heck of a good story. A Spy Among Friends is hands down the most entertaining book I’ve reviewed this year.” —Boston Globe

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A Shepherd’s Life: Modern Dispatches from a Ancient Landscape by James Rebanks

17 Monday Dec 2018

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While you are waiting to obtain a copy of Educated: a Memoir by Sara Westover ( the holds list is still in the 800’s), you might want to try this book.  Mr. Rebanks, the latest in a long family line of Herdwick sheep farmers, has become an international phenomenon with his evocative prose and blunt observations on the rugged lives and culture of his native English Lake District (Wellesley Books).  He rejects everything about school as a boy but ends up at Oxford.  While most memoirs are about people trying to leave a place, James is determined to remain on the land of his ancestors.

“Captivating… A book about continuity and roots and a sense of belonging in an age that’s increasingly about mobility and self-invention. Hugely compelling” ―Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“A gorgeous book, unsentimental but exultant, vivid and profound, and a fierce defense of small-scale farming against the twin threats of agribusiness and tourism.” ―National Geographic

“May well do for sheep what Helen Macdonald did for hawks.” ―The Guardian (UK)

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From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein

28 Friday Sep 2018

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While this is written by a former stenographer in the Obama administration, politics don’t play that large a role in the book. Instead, this memoir is primarily about a young woman navigating life after graduating college, trying to find a career path in Washington, and falling in love. There are a lot of fun stories about working for the president (such as getting to fly on Air Force One) balanced with relationship heartbreak and the author’s dreams of becoming a writer.

“[Dorey-Stein] writes with wit and self-deprecating humor but is fully aware, too, of the pomposity and petty spite of official Washington. She’s at her best and funniest when recalling the physically unhealthy and vaguely ridiculous work of following the president wherever he goes.”—The Wall Street Journal

“History lesson meets soap opera. In this poignant, brutally honest, and often-funny work of self-reflection, Dorey-Stein pulls no punches and tells all she learned from and about the president who ‘taught me to look up.’”—Booklist

“Hilarious . . . Dorey-Stein writes with honesty and panache.”—Publishers Weekly

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Bobby Kennedy : a Raging Spirit by Chris Matthews

06 Friday Jul 2018

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This book is recommended by a Weston library patron.

“Matthews is skilled at weaving tension and conflict throughout the book. One doesn’t just read the words, but experiences the tension and emotions….The depth of Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit provides insight into this man’s spirit and what drove him to greatness. Matthews does an excellent job of pulling Bobby out from behind any family shadows to give us an in-depth portrait of what could have been.”  –New York Journal of Books

“If you love reading about politics, if you ever loved the Kennedys or were fascinated by them, if you love biographical history or if you just like a good yarn about a brooding soul who turns into an uplifting, magnetic force—Chris Matthews’ “Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit” Should be your next read. It’s well-researched, dramatically told. It brings those times—Camelot and after—back to life.” –Lesley Stahl, Correspondent for 60 Minutes

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I Am, I Am, I Am : Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell

23 Saturday Jun 2018

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A writer examines her life through a series of “near death” experiences, including a childhood illness, almost getting attacked, and giving birth. While the premise sounds bleak, the book is ultimately hopeful and beautifully written.

“I Am I Am I Am is a gripping and glorious investigation of death that leaves the reader feeling breathless, grateful, and fully alive. Maggie O’Farrell is a miracle in every sense. I will never forget this book.”—Ann Patchett

“Her stories are harrowing, but the purpose of these essays is not to frighten. It is to affirm. She did not die; she lived through all of these experiences and now recounts each one in vivid, fully alive detail — remembering the feeling of the wind in her hair, the roughness of the grass, the jolt of the plane, the sharpness of the machete.”
—Minneapolis-Star Tribune

“Astounding…awe-inspiring…a tour de force”  —Booklist, starred review

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