New Books in Biography

A major American writer, thinker, and activist, Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) transformed herself from a traditional, Radcliffe-educated lyric poet and married mother of three sons into a path-breaking lesbian-feminist author of forceful, uncompromising prose as well as poetry. In doing so, she emerged as an architect and exemplar of the feminist movement, breaking ranks to denounce the male-dominated literary establishment and paving the way for women writers to take their places in the cultural mainstream. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished materials, including Rich's correspondence and in-depth interviews with many people who knew her, Hilary Holladay provides a vividly detailed, full-dimensional portrait of a woman whose work and life continue to challenge and inspire new generations in The Power of Adrienne Rich: A Biography (Princeton UP, 2025). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

A veteran of the Second World War and the Korean War, Francis L. Sampson was a real-life hero whose exploits inspired one of the most famous war films of all time, Saving Private Ryan. From rural beginnings in northwestern Iowa, Sampson’s life would take him from the University of Notre Dame to the battlefields of Normandy on D-Day, the ambitious failure of Operation Market Garden, the harshness of a winter as a POW of the Germans during the closing stages of the Second World War, to the fall of North Korean capital Pyongyang in the early stages of the Korean War. Part of the very rare breed of Parachute Chaplains, in his case with the 101 st Airborne Division, Sampson spent much of his career as an army chaplain in the center of maelstroms of the 20th century. Throughout it all, Sampson offered a valuable Christian witness in the darkest of times and the most difficult of circumstances.This second edition of his memoirs, Look Out Below!: A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre (Catholic U of America Press, 2023) contains material on his service during the Korean War and occupation duty in Germany and Japan as well as the Second World War, with a new historical introduction by University of Scranton Professor Sean Brennan.Allison Isidore is a Religious Studies Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa and is the Assistant Director for the American Catholic Historical Association. Her research interest is focused on the twentieth-century American Civil Rights Movement and the Catholic Church’s response to racism and the participation of Catholic clergy, nuns, and laypeople in marches, sit-ins, and kneel-ins during the 1950s and 1960s. She tweets from @AllisonIsidore1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Life of an Enslaved African in the Ottoman Empire and Iran: The Autobiography of Mahboob Qirvanian provides a translation of a compelling autobiography that chronicles the life of Mahboob Qirvanian, from childhood and enslavement in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire to his eventual liberation in Iran. The Life of an Enslaved African in the Ottoman Empire and Iran is a poignant and compelling account of one man’s journey through struggle, resilience, and unimaginable suffering. In the early twentieth century, Mahboob Qirvanian recorded his personal experiences of forced migration and enslavement as he navigated his path from captivity in Africa to full citizenship and a reconstructed identity in Iran. Written in Persian and Arabic, this remarkable autobiography serves as a powerful testament to Mahboob’s endurance, suffering, and ultimate transformation. Through insightful analysis, Behnaz A. Mirzai places Mahboob’s narrative – the only known account by a former African slave in Iran – within the context of the political upheavals of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran and the Tanzimat reforms of the Ottoman Empire. This book not only sheds light on Mahboob’s personal story and the historical injustices of slavery but also engages with broader themes of displacement, identity, and social justice. In doing so, it invites readers to reflect on the enduring legacies of racial inequality and the ongoing struggles for freedom and dignity in the modern world. Behnaz A. Mirzai is a professor of Middle Eastern history at Brock University and senior guest researcher at Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies at University of Bonn. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

A conversation with Fr. Bogdan Bucur and Dr. Razvan Porumb This publication represents the officially authorized translation of The Journal of Joy (SVS Press, 2025), carefully rendered to uphold the integrity of the original text in Romanian. The ethos Steinhardt recommends to Christians is that of an aristocrat minus the stiff upper lip and aloofness, a style molded by kindness, calm, good manners, respect for the dignity of others, and thus for one's own dignity. Christ Himself, he emphasizes, always possessed ‘knightly’ traits: He is discreet, respectful; He knocks on the door and waits, never discouraged by a refusal; He is not suspicious but trusts, not greedy but gives abundantly; He forgives easily and completely; He is attentive and polite (‘Friend,’ He says to Judas, whose betrayal He knows well). In Him, there is no moralism or legalism, but rather the ability to discern in every person, beyond sin, the person that God calls and enables to love. Beyond totalitarianism, which is the fascination with power and death, and beyond market society, which holds up profit as its only god … If the journal of this resistance opens up for the future, it does so precisely because it is a Journal of Joy. Olivier Clément, from the Preface to the French edition of the Journal of Joy This is the Journal of Joy, a joy founded on the Resurrection, unconquerable by the manifest powers of death. Now at last available in English, its joy can help transform the petty anxieties that beset us. Archpriest Andrew Louth, Professor Emeritus, Durham University Translation by Paul Boboc, revised by Peter Andronache, with further revisions and explanatory notes by Peter Andronache, Bogdan G. Bucur, Nicolae Drăgușin, Brenda Mikitish, and Răzvan Porumb. Foreword by Răzvan Porumb. About the Author: Nicu Steinhardt, known in his later monastic years as Father Nicolae de la Rohia, was born in 1912 near Bucharest to Jewish parents. A refined scholar who had established himself as one of the most erudite voices of his generation, he was imprisoned by the repressive communist regime in 1960. Steinhardt asked to be baptized in his cell—“illicitly”—and eventually found profound joy amid the suffering and despair of the prison. After an extraordinary experience of Christ, the intense happiness accompanying him perpetually transfigured the cruel and gloomy surroundings into a luminous world permeated by God’s love and grace—which is why writing the Journal in the early 1970s was essential, even in the knowledge it would be banned by the communists. Nicolae Steinhardt, then a monk at Rohia, passed away in March 1989, nine months before the 1989 December Revolution toppled the communist dictatorship. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

At the height of the civil rights movement, Charles C. Diggs Jr. (1922-1998) was the consummate power broker. In a political career spanning 1951 to 1980, Diggs, Michigan's first Black member of Congress, was the only federal official to attend the trial of Emmett Till's killers, worked behind the scenes with Martin Luther King Jr., and founded the Congressional Black Caucus. He was also the chief architect of legislation that restored home rule to Washington, DC, and almost single-handedly ignited the American anti-apartheid movement in the 1960s. Drawing on extensive archival research, including Diggs's rarely seen personal papers, FBI documents, and original interviews with family members and political associates, political scientist Marion Orr reveals that Diggs practiced a politics of strategic moderation. Orr argues that this quiet approach was more effective than the militant race politics practiced by Adam Clayton Powell and more appealing than the conservative Chicago-style approach of William Dawson--two of Diggs's better-known Black contemporaries.Vividly written and deeply researched, House of Diggs is the first biography of Congressman Charles C. Diggs Jr., one of the most consequential Black federal legislators in US history. Congressman Diggs was a legislative lion whose unfortunate downfall punctuated his distinguished career and pushed him and his historic accomplishments out of sight. Now, for the first time, House of Diggs restores him to his much-deserved place in the history of American politics. Marion Orr is the Frederick Lippitt Professor of Public Policy and professor of political science and urban studies at Brown University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

A fascinating story of how three musicians, who escaped the Nazis, inspired Iceland's modern classical music. In Iceland in the 1930s, classical music was only beginning to be seriously practiced, at the same time when musicians of Jewish heritage were fleeing Nazi Germany and Austria. Despite the country's strict immigration policy, three outstanding young musicians were allowed to settle there: Robert Abraham, Heinz Edelstein, and Victor Urbancic. Their influence on Iceland's music scene as conductors, instrumentalists, teachers, and scholars proved invaluable. In Music at World's End: Three Exiled Musicians from Nazi Germany and Austria and Their Contribution to Music in Iceland (SUNY Press, 2025) the first in-depth study of the lives and careers of these three musicians, musicologist Árni Ingólfsson examines their formative years in Germany and Austria, their dramatic escapes from the Nazi regime, and their triumphs and frustrating setbacks in their new homeland, a country in which Jews were virtually unknown. This fascinating case study is a valuable addition to studies of musical exile during World War II and beyond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

An urgent exploration of how antisemitism has shaped Jewish identity and how Jews can reclaim their tradition, by the celebrated White House speechwriter and author of the critically acclaimed Here All Along. At thirty-six, Sarah Hurwitz was a typical lapsed Jew. On a whim, she attended an introduction to Judaism class and was astonished by what she discovered: thousands of years of wisdom from her ancestors about what it means to be human. That class sparked a journey of discovery that transformed her life. Years later, as Hurwitz wrestled with what it means to be Jewish at a time of rising antisemitism, she wondered: Where had the Judaism she discovered as an adult been all her life? Why hadn’t she seen the beauty and depth of her tradition in those dull synagogue services and Hebrew school classes she’d endured as a kid? And why had her Jewish identity consisted of a series of caveats and apologies: I’m Jewish, but not that Jewish . . . I’m just a cultural Jew . . . I’m just like everyone else but with a fun ethnic twist—a dash of neurosis, a touch of gallows humor—a little different, but not in a way that would make anyone uncomfortable. Seeking answers, she went back through time to discover how hateful myths about Jewish power, depravity, and conspiracy have worn a neural groove deep into the world’s psyche, shaping not just how others think about Jews, but how Jews think about themselves. She soon realized that the Jewish identity she’d thought was freely chosen was actually the result of thousands of years of antisemitism and two centuries of Jews erasing parts of themselves and their tradition in the hope of being accepted and safe. In As a Jew: Reclaiming Our Story from Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us (HarperOne, 2025), Hurwitz documents her quest to take back her Jewish identity, how she stripped away the layers of antisemitic lies that made her recoil from her own birthright and unearthed the treasures of Jewish tradition. With antisemitism raging worldwide, Hurwitz’s defiant account of reclaiming the Jewish story and learning to live as a Jew, without apology, has never been timelier or more necessary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

One of Abraham Lincoln's staunchest and most effective allies, Judge David Davis masterminded the floor fight that gave Lincoln the presidential nomination at the 1860 Republican National Convention. This history-changing event emerged from a long friendship between the two men. It also altered the course of Davis's career, as Lincoln named him to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1862. In David Davis, Abraham Lincoln's Favorite Judge (University of Illinois Press, 2025), Raymond J. McKoski offers a biography of Davis's public life, his impact on the presidency and judiciary, and his personal, professional, and political relationships with Lincoln. Davis lent his vast network of connections, organizational and leadership abilities, and personal persuasiveness to help Lincoln's political rise. When Davis became a judge, he honed an ability to hear each case with complete impartiality, a practice that endeared him to Lincoln but one day put him at odds with the president over important Civil War-era rulings. McKoski details these cases while providing an in-depth account of Davis's role in Lincoln's two unsuccessful campaigns for U.S. Senate and the fateful run for the presidency. Raymond J. McKoski is a retired Illinois Circuit Judge and adjunct professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

The Royal We (Akashic Books, 2025) is a poetic survey of a time set in a magical city that once was and is no more. It is a memoir written by Roddy Bottum, a musician and artist, that documents through prose his coming of age and out of the closet in 1980s San Francisco, a charged era of bicycle messengers, punk rock, street witches, wheatgrass, and rebellion. The book follows his travels from Los Angeles, growing up gay with no role models, to San Francisco, where he formed Faith No More and went on to tour the world relentlessly, surviving heroin addiction and the plight of AIDS, to become a queer icon. The book is an elevated wallop of tongue and insight, much more than a tell-all. There are personal tales of historical pinnacles like Kurt and Courtney, Guns N’ Roses, and recaps of gold records and arena rock—but it’s the testimonies of tragedy and addiction and preposterous life-spins that make this work so unique and intriguing. Bottum writes about his dark and harrowing past in a clear-eyed voice that is utterly devoid of self-pity, and his emboldened and confident pronouncements of achievement and unorthodox heroism flow in an unstoppable train that’s both captivating and inspirational. A remarkable portrayal of a creative individual in emergence, a gay man figuring out how to be a gay man, and a detailed look at the nuance of 1980s pre–tech boom San Francisco, The Royal We will be greatly appreciated by people who loved Kathleen Hanna’s Rebel Girl, Patti Smith’s Just Kids, Hua Hsu’s Stay True, and other memoirs about the artist’s life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Speranza: Poems by Jane Wilde (Liverpool UP, 2025) by Dr. Eibhear Walshe and Dr. Eleanor Fitzsimons is the first contemporary edition of the poetry of Jane Wilde, née Elgee, who also wrote as Speranza. Speranza was, in her time, renowned worldwide, with essays, poetry and translated work published in Ireland, England, America and beyond. She was a key figure in the nationalist Young Ireland movement of the 1840s, and her poetry records the hardship experienced by the Irish people - famine and migration in particular. She was also an early advocate for women’s rights, who campaigned for the admission of women to higher education. This edition, which contains several previously unpublished poems, will make the poetry of this emblematic figure in nineteenth-century Irish writing accessible to a contemporary audience for the first time. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography