Biography

Alice Cohen makes her living as a writer and performer of one-woman shows. Her gifts as a storyteller are evident in this memoir of a year in which her whole world jumped unexpectedly from the familiar to the very unfamiliar. She lets us in on some of her most private moments but does so with such humor and such intimacy that we are humbly grateful, proud somehow, to be a witness to her journey. This is a book you won’t be able to put down. —S.M.C.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is both Liberia’s first woman president and the first elected woman president in Africa. She is known as Africa’s “Iron Lady” and has proven her commitment to her country by battling corruption (facing jail time and exile) and by addressing the ongoing disputes between Liberia’s indigenous peoples and Americo-Liberians, the descendants of African-Americans who emigrated from the U.S. to Liberia in the 1800s. Johnson-Sirleaf recounts a remarkable life, from her childhood and her troubled marriage to her rise to a powerful and a respected position in politics. —Adrienne Mages

If you are a fan of baseball, biographies, or American history, don’t miss this captivating book. Larry Tye has written a fascinating, insightful, and long-overdue account of the life of the supremely talented pitcher Leroy (Satchel) Paige. “Having known Satchel when I was a young ballplayer, I’m reminded of the man who took over the game with both his superior pitching and his dynamic personality. This book is a must-read that captures the essence of one of the greatest legends in baseball history, Satchel Paige,” says former San Francisco Giants manager Dusty Baker. —S.B.

This portrait of David Foster Wallace, by turns funny and inspiring, is based on a five-day trip award-winning writer David Lipsky took with Wallace during the Infinite Jest book tour. Although of Course You End up Becoming Yourself shows David Foster Wallace as few experienced him. Told in Wallace’s own words, the book presents Wallace’s story and his humane, alert way of looking at the world. It includes stories of his time as a young writer—of being young generally—and his efforts to knit together his ideas of who he should be and who other people expected him to be. This book is a must-read for the many fans of the late, great David Foster Wallace.