New Books in Biography & Memoir

Marshall Poe
  • 3.8 (80)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED DAILY

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

  1. 1D AGO

    Terese Svoboda, "Hitler and My Mother-In-Law" (OR Books, 2025)

    Hitler and My Mother-in-Law (OR Books, 2025) is a riveting memoir that explores the intersection of truth—both familial and political—through the colorful and complex life of the author's mother-in-law. In a time like our own of intense propaganda and manipulation, the only WWII female correspondent who covered both theaters of war, Pat Hartwell identified Hitler from a pile of ashes for the US military, and the troops awarded her with a million-dollar painting from Hitler's study. Really? She was the only woman in the CBS news room, assistant to the head of the Office of War Information, VP of one of the largest public relations companies in the world, third in command of UNICEF where she convinced Matisse to provide artwork for free, editor of her own Arizona newspaper where she hustled naïve art on the side, and eventually head of the Hawai’ian arts council, a state of extremely complex political and social stakeholders, where she left a legacy of preventing art fraud. Her story is a fascinating journey through history, art, and deception. The memoir delves into the art of invention and the shapeshifting of memory and truth, interwoven with humorous yet profound moments. It examines the comical Soviet efforts to conceal Hitler's death, McCarthy's investigations, and the author's own struggle to compete with both her mother and her mother-in-law. Threaded throughout are insights into organizations that malign the word "mother" and, of course, plenty of mother-in-law jokes. With meticulous research and a unique perspective, Hitler and My Mother-in-Law challenges the boundaries of narrative honesty, offering a powerful exploration of propaganda, identity, and the personal reckoning that defines the art of memoir. It's a gripping mix of history, family, humor, and a biting reflection on the politics of truth—past and present. New Books in Women’s History Podcast Jane Scimeca, Professor of History at Brookdale Community College www.janescimeca.com @janescimeca.bsky.social Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

    45 min

  2. 4D AGO

    Dana A. Williams, "Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship" (Amistad, 2025)

    An insightful exploration that unveils the lesser-known dimensions of this legendary writer and her legacy, revealing the cultural icon's profound impact as a visionary editor who helped define an important period in American publishing and literature. A multifaceted genius, Toni Morrison transcended her role as an author, helping to shape an important period in American publishing and literature as an editor at one of the nation's most prestigious publishing houses. While Toni Morrison's literary achievements are widely celebrated, her editorial work is little known. Drawing on extensive research and firsthand accounts, this comprehensive study discusses Morrison's remarkable journey from her early days at Random House to her emergence as one of its most important editors. During her tenure in editorial, Morrison refashioned the literary landscape, working with important authors, including Toni Cade Bambara, Leon Forrest, and Lucille Clifton, and empowering cultural icons such as Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali to tell their stories on their own terms. Toni Morrison herself requested that Dana Williams be the one to tell this story, even giving her the book's title. From the manuscripts she molded, the authors she nurtured, and the readers she inspired, Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship (Amistad, 2025) demonstrates how Toni Morrison has influenced American culture beyond the individual titles or authors she published. Morrison's contribution as an editor transformed the broader literary landscape and deepened the cultural conversation. With unparalleled insight and sensitivity, Toni at Random charts this editorial odyssey. Dr. N'Kosi Oates is a curator. He earned his Ph.D. in Africana Studies from Brown University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

    50 min

  3. 5D AGO

    Charles Delgadillo and James Stacey, eds., "Heartland Utopia: William Allen White on the Ideal Midwestern Town" (UP of Kansas, 2026)

    For William Allen White, the ideal Midwestern community was a utopian vision of what America could be: a prosperous, happy community built on equality, opportunity, and neighborly generosity. This anthology collects White’s famous and obscure writings and presents him as the iconic voice of the Midwestern small town. William Allen White, the editor of The Emporia Gazette in Kansas, was an American institution. When he died in 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt commented that America had lost one of its “wisest and most beloved editors.” White understood the value of his unique brand as “the voice of Main Street,” and would often preach his vision of the kind of nation the United States ought to be. From his view in Emporia, White’s imagined Midwestern town was a dream for the nation to strive toward. He saw himself as a pioneer sowing the seeds of a great harvest to come, and he believed that the small-town civilization he venerated exemplified what was best in America. In Heartland Utopia: William Allen White on the Ideal Midwestern Town (UP of Kansas, 2026), Charles Delgadillo and Jason Stacy have gathered nearly twenty-five years of White’s fiction and nonfiction focused on his idealized Midwestern community and how this utopian vision changed over time. Charles Delgadillo is a lecturer in history at the California State University, Pomona, and the author of Crusader for Democracy: The Political Life of William Allen White, published by Kansas. Jason Stacy is Distinguished Research Professor of history and social science pedagogy at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. His books include Spoon River America: Edgar Lee Masters and the Myth of the American Small Town and Walt Whitman's Selected Journalism. You can hear another interview with him about his Spoon River America here on the New Books Network. Daniel Moran’s writing about literature and film can be found on Pages and Frames. He earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers, he teaches research and writing and co-hosts the long-running podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found here on the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

    54 min

  4. 5D AGO

    Glen Oglaza, "When I Stories" (Pegasus, 2024)

    As news reporters, we are in the story-telling business, the eye witnesses to history, writing, it's ‎said, ‘the first draft of history'.‎ The fall of the Berlin Wall. Lockerbie. Hillsborough. Dunblane. Mad Cow disease. 9/11. ‎These are all events that have entered our national, and international, consciousness. Events so ‎momentous that we can all say where we were, what we were doing, when the Berlin Wall fell, or ‎when the planes hit the Twin Towers. Award-winning television news reporter and political ‎correspondent, Glen Oglaza, can say exactly where he was when these events happened. He was ‎there, he had a front-row seat as history unfolded. And in this informative and fascinating account of ‎those years, he allows the reader to be there too. From Thatcher and the miners' strike, to the Gulf ‎War, the Good Friday Agreement and Tony Blair at Number Ten, captivating national and global ‎events are all given an intriguing new inside angle. ‎ Glen Oglaza is an award-winning television news reporter and political correspondent with more than twenty-five years' experience with ITN and Sky News. At ITN, he covered many of the biggest stories of the 1980s and 1990s, and was part of the award-winning ITN teams covering the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the plight of the Kurds in the wake of the First Gulf War, and the massacre in Dunblane. He was BAFTA-nominated for his coverage of the London Poll Tax riot. As a political correspondent, he covered the governments of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron. Glen is also an accomplished poet with several volumes of poetry published these Religion Fake News and Misdemeanors, No Words, always and his latest collection Spam and other poems. In this podcast we discuss Glen's books When I Stories and More When I Stories (Pegasus, 2024), starting in local journalism in Television news with ITN and Sky News, and the great events he covered during his career. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

    1h 17m

  5. MAR 7

    Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry | Filmmaker Q&A

    February 24—Following a screening of the documentary Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry during the weekend of Feb. 20–22, 2026, filmmaker Laura Dunn and Mary Berry, executive director of The Berry Center, joined Library of America for an online Q&A focused on the film and its subject: author, poet, farmer, and activist Wendell Berry and his home in Henry County, KY. Hosted by Ben Lasman, online content and community manager for Library of America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

    1h 2m

  6. MAR 6

    Vladka Meed's "On Both Sides of the Wall"

    Vladka Meed, born Feigele Peltel, was just a teenager when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939. Increasingly devastated by the deportation and murder of 300,000 Jews—including her mother, brother, and sister—who were sent from Warsaw to the death camp of Treblinka, she heeded the call for armed resistance, joining the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), established in Warsaw in July 1942. With her typically “Aryan” looks and fluency in Polish, Vladka could pose as a Gentile, so the ZOB asked her to live on the Aryan side of the wall and serve as a courier. In this role, she smuggled weapons across the wall, helped Jewish children escape from the ghetto, assisted Jews hiding in the city, and established contact with both Jews in the labor camps and with the partisans in the forest. In this newly revised translation of the original Yiddish memoir, which was published in 1948, Vladka’s son, Steven D. Meed, preserves the testimony and memory of his mother for a new generation of readers. Join YIVO for a discussion with Steven D. Meed about this translation, led by Samuel Kassow. This discussion originally took place on December 1, 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

    56 min

  7. MAR 5

    Daniel Brook, "The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin" (W. W. Norton & Co, 2025)

    More than a century ago, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, dubbed the "Einstein of Sex," grew famous (and infamous) for his liberating theory of sexual relativity. Today, he's been largely forgotten. In The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin (W. W. Norton & Co, 2025)journalist Daniel Brook retraces Hirschfeld's rollicking life and reinvigorates his legacy, recovering one of the great visionaries of the twentieth century. In an era when gay sex was a crime and gender roles rigid, Hirschfeld taught that each of us is their own unique mixture of masculinity and femininity. Through his public advocacy for gay rights and his private counseling of patients toward self-acceptance, he became the intellectual impresario of Berlin's cabaret scene and helped turn his hometown into the world's queer capital. But he also enraged the Nazis, who ransacked his Institute for Sexual Science and burned his books. Driven from his homeland, Hirschfeld traveled to America, Asia, and the Middle East to research sexuality on a global scale. Through his harrowing lived experience of antisemitic persecution and a pivotal late-in-life interracial romance, he came to see that race, like gender, was a human invention. Hirschfeld spent his final years in exile trying to warn the world of the genocidal dangers of racism. Deep Acharya is a PhD student and a George L. Mosse fellow of Modern European Cultural History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison working on the history of fatherhood in 20th century Germany. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

    50 min

  8. MAR 4

    Richard Vinen, "The Last Titans: How Churchill and De Gaulle Saved Their Nations and Transformed the World" (Simon & Schuster, 2026)

    A compelling dual biography of Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle that shines new light on two of the greatest figures of the 20th century.Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle were thrown together by war. They incarnated the resistance of Britain and France to the existential threat from Nazi Germany, and their ultimate victory over Hitler has ensured their achievements will never be forgotten. But, as The Last Titans: How Churchill and De Gaulle Saved Their Nations and Transformed the World (Simon & Schuster, 2026) shows, that is only a part of a complex story. Both men influenced their countries, and the world around them, long after the war was won.There was a paradox in the parallel and intertwined lives of these extraordinary men. De Gaulle—tall, gauche, and incorruptible—exhibited qualities often associated with the English. Churchill—short, charming, witty, and a bon vivant—resembled the quintessential politician of the French Third Republic. Their working relationship was rarely smooth, but they appreciated each other’s stature: de Gaulle said Churchill was “the great artist of a great history,” while Churchill recognized de Gaulle as “l'homme du destin.”Richard Vinen explores what made these men exceptional and how profoundly they were influenced by their national cultures. Beyond personal intrigue, Vinen makes a wider point that Britain and France are both haunted by perceptions of past greatness. He retraces the paths of two leaders who once helmed superpowers but lived to see their nations weakened by two world wars and the loss of empires.Written with extraordinary narrative verve, The Last Titans offers a fresh exploration into the lives of de Gaulle and Churchill. By bringing their two stories into one, each man is seen anew and we gain fresh insights into their achievements and their legacy today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

    1h 46m
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3.8
out of 5
80 Ratings

About

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

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