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Star Power
Joseph Roach looks at new biographies on Richard Potter and Sarah Bernhardt to find the origin of the modern celebrity.
Biography & Autobiography
"I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead." — Samuel Goldwyn
Biddy Mason: A Free Woman in Los Angeles
Candace Cooper reviews "Biddy Mason Speaks Up (Fighting for Justice)," a new book by Arisa White and Laura Atkins.
Benjamin Moser and the Smallest Woman in the World
Magdalena Edwards tells of her experience with Benjamin Moser, author of the forthcoming “Sontag: Her Life and Work.”
Johnson and Company
Leo Damrosch’s new book paints a vivid portrait of the 18th-century “Literary Club.”
Reading Gandhi Reading
Amit Chaudhuri reviews the new critical edition of Gandhi’s autobiography.
Finding and Losing Rosemary Kennedy
John F. Muller looks at two recent books that examine the oft-overlooked life of Rosemary Kennedy.
The Great Deflector
Fran Ross’s mind was shrewd and skewering, and perhaps her writings will never sit easy among those who look for programmatic answers.
“My Life Is My Message”: Ramachandra Guha’s “Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914–1948”
Yugank Goyal reviews a massive new biography of Gandhi.
Cad of the Century: Two New Biographies of Ben Hecht
Liesl Olson digs into two new biographies of Ben Hecht by Adina Hoffman and Julien Gorbach.
Tell It Slant: The Visionary Architecture of Claude Parent
Claude Parent’s designs were decades ahead of their time.
Chaucer’s Traces
Marion Turner's "Chaucer: A European Life" depicts the poet’s life in vivid detail, yet it tries too hard to accommodate Chaucer to our own century.
Friends Like These: On Thoreau and Emerson
Daegan Miller reviews Jeffrey S. Cramer’s new book about the friendship of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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