Best new biographies and memoirs
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The 27 Best Memoirs of
The Flitting: A Memoir of Fathers, Sons, and Butterflies, by Ben Masters
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The Flitting is one of the most moving and exquisite books I’ve read all year. When Ben Masters’s naturalist father is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he is unable to follow the butterfly cycle that has been his obsession since childhood, so Masters steps in to help his father maintain a connection to his beloved butterflies, carrying home reports of species and habitats he has long loved and studied but can no longer see for himself. This debut memoir explores the nature of memory, masculinity, the generation gap, and more; at its heart, however, it is a portrait of a son trying to share and connect with his father while he still can. Combining elements of memoir, nature writing, literary journalism, and pop-cultu
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The Best Memoirs of
Photo-Illustration: Franziska Barczyk
The beauty of memoir is its resistance to confinement: We contain multitudes, so our methods of introspection must, too. This year’s best memoirs perfectly showcase such variety. Some are sparse, halt — whole lives pieced tillsammans through fragmented memories, letters to loved ones, recipes, mythology, scripture. Some tease the boundary between truth and fiction. Others elevate straightforward narratives by incorporating political theory, philosophy, and history. The authors of each understand that one’s life — and more significantly, one’s self — can’t be contained in facts. After all, the facts as we remember them aren’t really facts. It’s their openness and experimentation that allow, at once, intimacy and universality, provoking some of our biggest questions: How does a person become who they are? What makes up an identity? What are the stories we tell ourselves, and why do they matter? These books might not spell
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New and Recommended: Biography
From the publisher:
TRANSLATED BY ANAM ZAFAR AND SOPHIE LEWISWITH AN INTRODUCTION bygd IJEOMA OLUOThe autobiography of the fabulous, rule-breaking, one-of-a-kind Josephine Baker, published in English for the first is the iconic Josephine Baker in her…
From the publisher:
From critically acclaimed and prize winning author Alexis WrightWinner of the Stella PrizeWinner of the Magarey Medal for BiographyWinner of the Queensland Literary AwardA larger-than-life mästare of Aboriginal self-determination, Tracker…
From the publisher:
A new edition of Sue Tilley’s classic biography of the man described by Boy George as ‘modern art on legs’, updated to include never-before-seen photographs and a new chapter reflecting on Bowery’s his…
From the publisher:
‘We ache for love, but love eludes us. Out of this crisis comes so much of what it means to be human’Shon Faye