Biography & Autobiography

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

• What Is Left to Say About Gore Vidal?

  Since his death in 2012, Gore Vidal's vice has been further disclosed in splashy books. Jay Parini's "Empire of Self," however, is a new and full biography.

  Tom Arnold-ForsterOct 22, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

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  More than One-Liners: A New Biography of Gore Vidal

  "Perhaps that's the best we can say about anybody who's gone: we could do with him now."

  Mark StoreyOct 20, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

• Pop Music, Not Confession

  Weighing in at a hefty 670 pages, "Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink" is an impressively detailed, career-spanning narrative.

  Joe BonomoOct 11, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

  • Music

• An All or Nothing Gamble: Václav Havel and His Spiritual Revolution

  It is difficult not to romanticize the Havel story.

  Wendy WillisSep 30, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

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  Marvin’s Muse

  Jan Gaye, Marvin Gaye's second wife, has finally written her own book, a memoir called After the Dance: My Life with Marvin Gaye.

  Lary WallaceSep 18, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

• This Is Not a Charm Contest: The Life and Afterlife of Iceberg Slim

  A memoir of a former petty black crook who reforms himself in prison becomes one of the landmark nonfiction works about the pre-civil rights African American experience.

  Shehryar FazliSep 17, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

• Nabokov’s Geographies

  Houman Barekat on Robert Roper's "Nabokov in America: On the Road to Lolita."

  Houman BarekatSep 12, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

• 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