Biography & Autobiography

"I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead." — Samuel Goldwyn

• Free and Fearless Inquiry

  Cora Du Bois was one of the first female anthropologists and a talented ethnographer whose work focused on social psychology.

  Laura NaderSep 1, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

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  Saint Joan

  "Much of Didion's writing about LA reads not as accurate description of the city but as penance for her great sin of leaving New York."

  Colin DickeyAug 23, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

• Gathering What We Have Lost: The Buried Song of William Goyen

  Ask a person on the street about William Goyen, and you're likely to get a blank stare. Ask a writer, and you'll see a slow change come over her face …

  Peter GrandboisAug 6, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

• The Uncooperative Facts of an Elusive Life

  Kawashima Yoshiko was a cross-dressing Japanese spy who commanded her own army.

  Tobie Meyer-FongAug 4, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

• Chasing the Writer

  Suzanne Berne reviews Viviane Forrester's biography on the life of Virginia Woolf.

  Suzanne BerneJul 31, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

• Uptown/Downtown

  I started the sensationally titled "Words Without Music" with trepidation.

  Glen RovenJul 25, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

  • Music

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  Fortune’s Fool

  Peter Birkenhead reviews Terry Alford's biography of John Wilkes Booth.

  Peter BirkenheadJul 22, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

• Choices Aren’t Even Choices

  By choosing love, tranquility, and comfort, in how did i get here? Jesse Browner despairs that he has sold himself out on the most fundamental level.

  Karen KarboJul 17, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

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  Bloody Artistry

  Mario Vargas Llosa on loving bullfighting as a dance, a sport, and an artistic influence.

  Bill HillmannJul 7, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

  • Fiction

• Jerry Stahl Faces Down a New Terror

  A new memoir by ex-junkie cum dad Jerry Stahl on aging and the radical weirdness of fatherhood.

  Tony O’NeillJul 5, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

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  Susan Sontag: Critic and Crusader

  Steve Wasserman's opus on Susan Sontag, critic and crusader.

  Steve WassermanJul 1, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

  • Philosophy & Religion

• How Cherokee Territory Became the “Deep South”

  Two men find themselves on opposite ends of a battlefield. One was General Andrew Jackson — the other was John Ross, a fighter with the Cherokee regiment …

  Andrew ZaleskiJun 19, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

  • History