New Books In Biography

By any measure, Julius Caesar is one of the most significant and famous figures in Roman history. Self-identified as a "popular" politician, he advocated for effective government to better the lives of average Romans,but believed such a government could not be based upon the existing democracy. Only through his personal authority and the massive organization he built to overthrow the government could the prosperity of all Rome's citizens be ensured. Through a careful analysis of the ancient sources, especially Caesar's own writings, David Potter offers us a stunning and original portrait of this great general and statesman. Master of Rome: A Life of Julius Caesar (Oxford UP, 2025) reveals Caesar as a highly organized manager with an extraordinary ability to adjust to circumstances while maintaining the ancient equivalent of a positive "media presence." After his death, Caesar's followers put forward a narrative of his life that made his rise to power seem inevitable, but Caesar's own writing tells us a diffe

Rising authoritarianism. Covid. Inflation. Wealth disparity. War. Climate change. While every time period is marked by apocalyptic fears, it certainly seems like our current anxieties aren't ill placed. And yet, art and literature persist.In captivating and culturally savvy prose, Ed Simon grapples with the notion that writers and their work ought to distract readers from the dire situation we face in these fetid days of the Anthropocene. In Writing During the Apocalypse: Reflections on the Great Unraveling (Bloomsbury, 2026) he also addresses the wider question of what it's like to write during what could be the last decades of human civilization, arguing that to craft imaginative spaces through the magic of words isn't superfluous. Instead it exists at the core of human experience – as it always has and always will. Ed Simon is the Public Humanities Lecturer in the English Department of Carnegie Mellon University and the founding editor of The Pittsburgh Review of Books. He is a contributing editor to The

When maps come up short and the path ahead is uncertain, how do we find our way? Visionary climate leader Katharine K. Wilkinson offers a compassionate and empowering guide to navigating from ache to action, doubt to possibility. Through transformational programs and books, including the national bestseller All We Can Save, Wilkinson has inspired hundreds of thousands of climate journeys. In Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home (Amber Lotus, 2026) she shares a proven process for looking inward with care, outward with curiosity, and forward with courage. Ultimately, readers chart a course toward playing their unique part in our collective healing. With her singular blend of warmth and rigor, Wilkinson lights the way through stirring personal essays, interwoven with the wisdom of other climate leaders and the beauty of poetry, art, and song. A book to sit with and savor, Climate Wayfinding also invites engagement with journaling prompts, practical exercises, and guides for conve

On October 28, 1917, just days after the Bolsheviks seized power, the great Council of the Russian Orthodox Church voted to restore the patriarchate, which had been abolished by Peter the Great two centuries earlier. The Council chose Tikhon (Bellavin), the son of a humble village parish priest, to be head of Russia's largest religious confession. At the time, the majority of Orthodox Christians were devoutly religious. Tikhon's vision of the Church, which he began putting into practice during his years as the Orthodox bishop of North America (1898-1907), was that of an organic body which welcomed the participation of all believers. The Bolsheviks had other ideas. They aimed to create a revolution that would be carried out by the state on behalf of the people. And they sought to eradicate religion as "superstition" and not only to disestablish the Church, but to destroy it altogether. Although the alternate Russia which Tikhon represented would be crushed by the superior force of the Bolsheviks, he helped nav

Eleanor Houghton, in conversation with Duncan McCargo and Alexis Wolf Meet the real, thinking, feeling woman that was Charlotte Brontë, as told in this biography by the surviving witnesses to her life – the clothes that she once wore.These garments were present as she penned Jane Eyre, as she walked the cobbled streets of Haworth, and as she stood with her fiancé at the altar in the summer of 1854. Yet, until now, their testimonies had remained unheard.Renowned Brontë scholar and dress historian Eleanor Houghton's innovative, richly illustrated biography, Charlotte Brontë's Life Through Clothes (Bloomsbury 2026), finally gives voice to the gowns, bonnets, shawls, corsets, parasols and boots that make up the novelist's wardrobe.Secrets are revealed in their very fibres. Brontë's steel busked corset tells the story of corporate espionage and forbidden love, whilst her striped, silk dress shows how she coped with the new-found pressures of fame. When exposed to 21st century technology, a tiny sample of fabri

How do people rebuild their lives after unimaginable upheaval—and what stories do they tell along the way? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with author Philip Boris Uninsky to discuss his deeply personal and revealing book, Invented Lives from Troubled Times: A Jewish Family’s Forms of Resilience after Surviving Pogroms, Revolution, and the Holocaust (Cherry Orchard Books, 2025). Blending family memory with archival research, Uninsky traces the story of an extended Jewish family that endured some of the twentieth century’s most devastating events—pogroms, revolution, and the Holocaust. But rather than focusing only on loss, the book explores resilience in all its complexity. Family memories, sometimes shaped by exaggeration, humor, misdirection, and reinvention, reveal how survivors crafted new identities in the aftermath of trauma. Through decades of research and personal observation, Uninsky uncovers a remarkable range of responses to survival. Some family members became quiet, responsible cit

The first in-depth exploration of the work of artist Cory Arcangel, a pioneer of DIY-new media art whose influential “hacks” subvert the confines of Big Tech. Cory Arcangel (b. 1978)—perhaps best known for Super Mario Clouds, the most referenced artistic game hack in art history—became one of the first artists from a new generation of punk DIY–new media geeks to capture the attention of the art world.Combining the hands-on skills from the 1990s net art scene and the 2010s post-internet art’s fondness for memes and the generic image, Arcangel demonstrated the way cultural expressions are intimately connected to media technologies and how these technologies can be pranked for cultural critique. In The Cory Arcangel Hack: Digital Culture and Aesthetic Practice (MIT Press, 2025), Eivind Røssaak shows how Arcangel’s body of work defines a particular strain of postconceptual art that is fundamental for understanding the digital world we live in.Today, the question is not what comes first, humans or machines, but

Meg Groff dedicated forty years of her life to fighting for justice for victims of domestic violence in rural and suburban Pennsylvania. Not If I Can Help It: A Family Lawyer's Battles for Justice for Victims of Domestic Violence and the Poor (Rivertowns Books, 2025)recounts some of the most harrowing, infuriating, yet inspiring stories from Groff's work as a Legal Aid attorney representing women and children whose only resource is the sheer courage they exhibit every day. Among others, you'll meet: Lacey, a penniless single mom whose multimillionaire in-laws sued for custody of her two young sons, only to find their high-priced attorneys outmaneuvered by the blue-jean-wearing Groff; Annette, who won two hard-fought family court cases with Groff's help before being savagely murdered by her husband-who then tried to legally force their four children to visit him weekly in prison; and Muriel, whose estranged husband stalked and threatened her with impunity, until Groff-with the connivance of an u

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary acumen and capacious imagination, he developed a unique style of criticism―his friend Hannah Arendt called it pearl-diving―that sought out fragments of redemption in the ruins of bourgeois civilization. In Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver (Yale UP, 2026), award-winning author Peter E. Gordon tells Benjamin’s story in a vivid and poetic style, inviting the reader to look beyond the image of Benjamin as a tragic figure of German-Jewish history and portraying him as a complex personality of unique and multifaceted gifts. Tracing Benjamin’s life from his Berlin childhood to his Parisian exile. Abe Silberstein is a Ph.D. student in the joint program in History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biograp

Salt lakes are some of the most beautiful and unusual landscapes that you can find on this planet, even as they can be quite alien to people used to fresh bodies of water. They're also uniquely threatened, both by everyday human activity such as farming and industry and by the looming problem of anthropogenic climate change. As the lakes dry up, the consequences to the surrounding ecosystems can be devastating; meanwhile, people who live nearby can suffer from declining air quality, toxic levels of exposure to minerals in the lakebeds, and long-term health concerns. In Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History (W. W. Norton, 2026) that's part memoir and part history and geography, Caroline Tracey describes a series of journeys across North America and Central Asia that brought her close to numerous different salt lakes. She outlines their history, the threats facing them, their ecological and cultural significance, and how people are trying to protect and conserve them. And even as she does the work of telling their h

A memoir of basketball, dedication, and longevity from Boston Celtics legend Robert Parish Growing up in the heart of Louisiana, Robert Parish and his three younger siblings played baseball, football, and tennis―but never basketball. Still, by seventh grade, Parish stood 6'6" and couldn't escape the attention of Coleman Kidd, the junior high basketball coach who saw potential before Parish could see it in himself. And though he was the worst player on the team that first season―handed the last jersey left, No. 00―it would become the number that now hangs in the Boston Garden rafters. In The Chief: The Story of the Boston Celtics’ Most Enigmatic Icon (Triumph, 2026), the famously reserved Parish opens up for the first time about the full scope of his life―from attending a predominantly white high school during the uneasy years of integration to becoming the anchor of one of the greatest teams in NBA history. With honesty, humility, and plenty of dry humor, Parish reflects on his start with the Golden State W

The Gastronomica podcast returns to the air, bringing listeners new interviews with authors from the latest issues of Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies. In this episode, Alyssa James of Gastronomica’s Editorial Collective hosts award-winning writer and historian Camille Bégin for a discussion of “Chiang Mai 2015,” a creative nonfiction account of a family trip and a search for sustenance that becomes entangled with questions of illness, climate, and care. In her memoir of failed culinary tourism, a story set against the smoky skies of northern Thailand, Camille asks what it means to travel, to look for meaning, and to eat ethically. In conversation with Alyssa, Camille talks about how the haze shapes her story, reflects on the politics of culinary tourism, and shows how food can become a small anchor in times of crisis. “Chiang Mai 2015” was published in the Spring 2025 issue of Gastronomica (25.1) and is available online here. Camille Bégin is the author of Taste of the Nation: The New Deal Search

Melissa Auf der Maur's new memoir, Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A '90s Rock Memoir(DaCapo, 2026) is a remarkably open-hearted, clear-eyed memoir of the '90s Alternative era by the bassist of Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins Even the Good Girls Will Cry begins with Auf der Maur's bohemian upbringing in Montreal, where her early, deep connection to art and music gave her entry to the colorful and thriving local creative scene. Working as a cassette DJ and ticket girl, she would see (and sometimes meet) the luminaries who'd pass through town--Nirvana, Jane's Addiction, Pavement, Sonic Youth. Thanks to a thrown beer bottle and a long-shot fan letter to a PO Box, her band Tinker scored a life-changing opening slot for The Smashing Pumpkins and, sensing her natural talent on bass, Billy Corgan recommended her to Courtney Love, just one of the many uncanny threads that weaves destiny throughout this riveting memoir. Whisked from her local scene and thrust into the eye of a hurricane of grief on a global stage, Meliss

The military general who became Emperor Hirohito’s prime minister, Tojo Hideki is most often remembered as an iron-fisted leader who dragged Japan into World War II and—after spectacular losses—was eventually executed as a war criminal. Yet Tojo was far more than his ignominious end. In fact, as Dr. Peter Mauch argues in Tojo: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Most Controversial World War II General (Harvard University Press, 2026), he was one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished military statesmen. Over a career of some forty years, Tojo successfully launched himself into the highest echelons of political power. He was not only a tactical genius, Dr. Mauch shows, but also a savvy administrator, a fierce imperialist, and a deeply loyal advisor to the emperor. Tojo’s career took off with the notorious Kwantung Army in Manchuria, where he played a key role in escalating the Sino-Japanese War during the 1930s. As he rose through the ranks, becoming minister of war and then army chief of staff, he honed the e

My guest today is Cathryn J. Prince the author of For the Love of Labor: The Life of Pauline Newman (U Illinois Press, 2026). From her start as one of the youngest activists in US history, Pauline Newman helped shape the International Ladies' Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) into a dominant force in industrial America. Cathryn J. Prince follows Newman’s life from a youth split between Lithuania and New York City sweatshops to her work as an advisor to New Deal–era labor secretary Frances Perkins. Newman’s long hours at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory informed her entrée into labor activism. In the following years, she tirelessly advocated for workers, ran for New York Secretary of State as a socialist, and became the first woman to serve as the ILGWU general organizer. Her interest in the health of workers led to service on the Joint Board of Sanitary Control and a decades-long term as education director of the ILGWU health center. Membership in Eleanor Roosevelt’s circle opened doors to government positions

Novelist, playwright, journalist, essayist, and editor, Sholem Aleichem was one of the founding giants of modern Yiddish literature. The creator of a pantheon of extraordinary characters, his literature provided readers with a window into the world of Eastern European Jews as they confronted the forces of modernity that tore through Russia at the end of the 19th century. But just as compelling as the fictional lives of his characters, was Sholem Aleichem's own life story. Born Sholem Rabinovitch in Ukraine in 1859, he endured an impoverished childhood, married into wealth, and then lost it all through bad luck and worse business sense. Turning to his pen to support himself, he switched from writing in Russian and Hebrew to Yiddish in order to create a living body of literature for the Jewish masses. Jonathan Brent, Executive Director at YIVO, Jeremy Dauber, author of the recently published book, The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem: The Remarkable Life and Afterlife of the Man Who Created Tevye, and Adam Kirsch join

Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy’s Greatest Pessimist by David Bather Woods An engaging biography of one of the most influential Western philosophers and a thought-provoking exploration of how to live with Arthur Schopenhauer’s pessimism.Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) almost wasn’t one of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth century. Born in the Free City of Danzig to a family of shipping merchants, he was destined for a life of imports and exports until his father died in a suspected suicide. After much deliberation, the young Schopenhauer invested his inheritance in himself and his philosophical vocation. But the long road to recognition was a difficult one, with Schopenhauer spending all but the last decade of his life in total obscurity. Yet his ideas and style went on to influence great thinkers, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Sigmund Freud, as well as artists such as the composer Richard Wagner and writers Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, Samuel Becket

Around 1830, opera houses stopped using castrati, and Rome and the Vatican became home to their glorious singing, engineered by surgery and intensive vocal training. Castrati were long mired in secrecy, obfuscations, and lies about their origin and conditions, not least the last of them, Alessandro Moreschi. In Castrato Phantoms: Moreschi, Fellini, and the Sacred Vernacular in Rome (Zone Books, 2026), musicologist Professor Martha Feldman declines to accept these deep-seated mysteries and concealments. After a decade and more of digging through archives and family histories comes her exciting transdisciplinary and quasi-cinematic account of Moreschi, whose recordings preserve the only sonic trace of a solo castrato.Yet Moreschi’s story extends far beyond him. It opens up intrigues, politics, and histories of the Vatican, everyday histories of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Rome, the world of Roman opera, the city’s unique mélange of sacred and vernacular tropes, and representations of Rome by iconic film d

The beginnings of contemporary Jewry are often associated with Jewish figures in Western Europe such as Moses Mendelssohn. But in his book, The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism, Eliyahu Stern offers a new and provocative narrative for understanding contemporary Jewish life, which begins in the East, with the leading East European mystic and rabbinic scholar of the 18th century, Elijah ben Solomon, or the “Vilna Gaon.” Eliyahu Stern joined in conversation with Jeremy Dauber for a discussion about the Vilna Gaon, his influence on modern Judaism, and why his legacy has been claimed by traditionalists, enlighteners, Zionists and the Orthodox. Winner of the 2012 Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publication Finalist for the 2013 Sami Rohr Prize in Jewish Literature Eliyahu Stern was the Tell fellow at the YIVO Institute in 2004. This book talk originally took place on November 7, 2013. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show

Marc Chagall is widely recognized as the preeminent Jewish artist of the 20th century, but little is known of his work to preserve Jewish culture. In this program, his granddaughter Bella Meyer interweaves images of Chagall’s artwork and personal letters to reflect on his life, passion for Yiddish and dedication to perpetuating Jewish heritage and culture. This program originally took place on February 17, 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography