Biography & Memoir

Biography & Memoir

episodes

Interviews with biographers and memoirists about their new books.

Tony Lee Moral, "A Century of Hitchcock: The Man, the Myths, the Legacy" (UP of Kentucky, 2026)

May 22, 2026

A Century of Hitchcock

Tony Lee Moral

For over a century, Alfred Hitchcock has remained one of cinema's most influential directors. Known as the Master of Suspense, this visionary filmmake…

Tom Meschery, "The Mad Manchurian: From the Internment Camps of Tokyo to the Hardwood Courts of the NBA" (Coffeetown Press, 2025)

May 19, 2026

The Mad Manchurian

Tom Meschery
Hosted by Paul Knepper

I was born in Harbin, Manchuria, (later China), in 1938. At the outbreak of the Second World War my mother, sister and I, along with other non-combata…

Shannon McKenna Schmidt, "You Can't Catch Us: Lady Bird Johnson’s Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode With Her" (Sourcebooks, 2026)

May 10, 2026

You Can't Catch Us

Shannon McKenna Schmidt
Hosted by Jane Scimeca

From the author of The First Lady of WWII comes You Can't Catch Us: Lady Bird Johnson’s Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode With H…

Lucy Stewart, "The Japanese Garden: Ella Christie and Cowden" (Birlinn, 2026)

May 7, 2026

The Japanese Garden

Lucy Stewart
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

As detailed in The Japanese Garden: Ella Christie and Cowden (Birlinn, 2026) by Lucy Stewart, at the turn of the twentieth century, Scottish adventure…

Mary Lucia, " What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Weirder and Harder to Relate To" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)

May 7, 2026

What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Weirder and Harder to Relate To

Mary Lucia
Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan

In What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Weirder and Harder to Relate To (U Minnesota Press, 2025) an iconic rock DJ of the Twin Cities tells her harrowing st…

Lerone Martin, "Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King Jr." (Amistad, 2026)

May 5, 2026

Young King

Lerone Martin
Hosted by Sullivan Summer

We know who Martin Luther King Jr. became, but who was he at the beginning of his life? How did his youth inform his outlook and activism? Before Mar…

Nicholas Thompson, "The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports" (Random House, 2025)

May 4, 2026

The Running Ground

Nicholas Thompson

In this episode, Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, and University of Puerto Rico professors Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera and Maritza Stanchich, discuss …

Sheep. Benjamin Y. Fong and Paul Prescod, "Rustin's Challenge" (2026)

May 4, 2026

Rustin's Challenge

Benjamin Y. Fong and Paul Prescod

There was no more trenchant and substantive critic of the Left from the Left in the 1960s and 1970s than Bayard Rustin. Some liberals and leftists tod…

Stephen B. Young, "Adam Smith and Modern Economics: Reclaiming the Moral High Ground" (de Gruyter, 2026)

May 3, 2026

Adam Smith and Modern Economics

Stephen B. Young
Hosted by Alfred Marcus

For more than two centuries, economists and researchers have struggled with the conundrum of reconciling Adam Smith’s views on economics and ethics. W…

Roger Frie, "Edge of Catastrophe: Erich Fromm, Fascism and the Holocaust" (Oxford UP, 2024)

May 3, 2026

Edge of Catastrophe

Roger Frie

Erich Fromm, the prominent twentieth-century public intellectual and psychoanalyst, was recognized for his courageous stand against fascism, racism, a…

Nicholas Tochka, "The Musical Lives of Charles Manson: The Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Invention of the Sixties" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

May 3, 2026

The Musical Lives of Charles Manson

Nicholas Tochka
Hosted by Bradley Morgan

Nicholas Tochka analyzes the role of rock music in the life of Charles Manson, the Family, and the August 1969 Tate-LaBianca killings, which also give…

Dylan Baun, "Beirut Radical: A Global Microhistory from the Sixties to the Lebanese Civil War" (I.B. Tauris, 2026)

May 2, 2026

Beirut Radical

Dylan Baun
Hosted by Roberto Mazza

Imad Yusuf Nuwayhid was born in 1944 in the Lebanese village of Ras al-Matn. He came of age in the 1960s, splitting time between Beirut and Europe. An…

William R. Brody, "Uncommon Sense: Rethinking Ordinary Problems in Extraordinary Ways" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

April 28, 2026

Uncommon Sense

William R. Brody
Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

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)

April 28, 2026

Selling Opportunity

Mary Lisa Gavenas
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

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)

April 26, 2026

The Determined Spy

Douglas Waller
Hosted by AJ Woodhams

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 …

Zaakir Tameez, "Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation" (Henry Holt, 2025)

April 25, 2026

Charles Sumner

Zaakir Tameez
Hosted by AJ Woodhams

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

April 23, 2026

Monsters in the Archives

Caroline Bicks

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)

April 20, 2026

Baseball's Outcast

Adam Henig
Hosted by Paul Knepper

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…

Twelve Lives: Creating Literary Community with Raymond Williams, PhD

April 19, 2026

Twelve Lives

Raymond Williams
Hosted by Sullivan Summer

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…

From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg: Memoir and Testimony

April 19, 2026

From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg

Justin Cammy
Hosted by YIVO Institute

After escaping the Vilna Ghetto and surviving winter in the forest among partisan fighters, Avrom Sutzkever was airlifted to Moscow in 1944. The renow…