New Books In Biography

Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made (Oxford University Press and Penguin RandomHouse South Asia, 2025) by Dr. David Engerman recounts the work of six individuals, all former classmates at Cambridge University, who helped make international development--the effort to reduce poverty and inequality around the world--into a juggernaut of the second half of the twentieth century. International development employed millions, affected billions, and spent trillions; it held the hopes of the former colonies to create an economic independence to match their newfound political one, and the plans of wealthy counties to build an enduring economic order.The six Apostles in this book include some of South Asia's best-known names, like Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and long-serving Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as well as leading academics (Jagdish Bhagwati) and key policy-makers in both national and international circles. Taken together, this group both reflected and shaped the growing enter

In the fifty years since his tragic death in a car crash, Steve Prefontaine has towered over American distance running. One of the most recognizable and charismatic figures to ever run competitively in the United States, Prefontaine has endured as a source of inspiration and fascination—a talent who presaged the American running boom of the late 1970s and helped put Nike on the map as the brand’s first celebrity-athlete face. Now on the anniversary of his untimely death, author Brendan O’Meara, host of the Creative Nonfiction podcast, offers a fresh, definitive retelling of Prefontaine’s life, revisiting one of the most enigmatic figures in American sports with a twenty-first-century lens. Through over a hundred and fifty original interviews with family, friends, teammates, and competitors, this long-overdue reappraisal of Prefontaine—the first such exhaustive treatment in almost thirty years—provides never-before-told stories about the unique talent, innovative mental strength, and personal struggles that s

From the moment Mary, Queen of Scots set foot on English soil in 1568 until her execution at Fotheringhay Castle on 8 February 1587, she was the prisoner of her cousin, Elizabeth I. Unlike Mary’s time on the Scottish throne, the dramatic events of these years – almost half her life – took place while she was a captive. But while trouble was perpetually simmering beyond her prison walls, within them Mary was constantly plotting. Only towards the end did she lose faith in returning to her homeland as rightful ruler. Exile: The Captive Years of Mary, Queen of Scots (Birlinn, 2025) by Rosemary Goring is the story of Mary’s tumultuous later years, told through the many atmospheric locations where she was confined. Drawing on the latest research, including a treasure trove of recently decoded letters, Exile sheds fascinating new light on her captivity and the charged political climate of the period. Reading like a 16th-century thriller, this account of treachery, deceit, hope and despair is a penetrating and enthr

Bruce Springsteen was keenly aware and excited by the sounds of the CBGBs scene during the Seventies. With his own bands, the Boss performed in the same venues associated with punk rock and ultimately wrote songs for Patti Smith and the Ramones. Yet Springsteen’s sound has remained distinct from punk rock as it emanated from New York. In the seventh episode of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell talks with Bruce Springsteen biographer Jim Cullen and Melissa Ziobro the head curator of the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth University about Springsteen’s complicated relationship with punk rock in 1970s New York. As an NJ native, the Boss was a so-called “Bridge-and-Tunnel-Boy” but that socio-cultural infrastructure worked both ways. By the end of the Seventies, Springsteen did not need to travel to New York to engage with the punk sound. Punk culture was traveling to Asbury Park, NJ.  Jim Cullen is a historian of American popular culture and has taught at several colleges and un

Reading Prester John: Cultural Fantasy and its Manuscript Contexts by John Eldevik During the Middle Ages, many Europeans imagined that there existed a powerful and marvel-filled Christian realm beyond the lands of Islam ruled by a devout emperor they called “Priest John,” or “Prester John.” Spurred by a forged letter that mysteriously appeared around 1165 and quickly “went viral” in hundreds of manuscripts across Western Europe, the legend of Prester John and his exotic kingdom was not just a utopian fantasy, but a way to bring contemporary political and theological questions into sharper focus. In this new study, John Eldevik shows how the manuscripts that transmitted the story of Prester John reflect the ways contemporary audiences processed ideas about religious conflict and helped them imagine a new, global dimension of Christianity. It includes an appendix with a new translation of the B recension of The Letter of Prester John. John Eldevik is Professor of History at Hamilton College in Clinton (New Y

The first literary biography of Tim O'Brien, the preeminent American writer of the war in Vietnam and one of the best writers of his generation, drawing on never-before-seen materials and original interviews. "Vietnam made me a writer." —Tim O'Brien Featuring over one hundred interviews with family, friends, peers, and others—not to mention countless exchanges with Tim O'Brien himself—Peace is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O'Brien (St. Martin's Press, 2025) provides a nearly day-by-day, gripping account of O'Brien's thirteen months as an infantryman in Vietnam and gives equal diligence to reconstructing O'Brien's writing process. This meticulously researched biography explores the life and journey that turned O’Brien into a literary icon and a household name. It includes an unpublished short story about O'Brien from a college girlfriend, documentation of his comical involvement with the Washington Post's coverage of Watergate, and a 1989 attic exchange between American and Vietnamese writers on the

Hello, my name is Eric LeMay, a host on New Books in Literature, a channel on the New Books Network. Today I interview Jennifer Kabat. Kabat is writer I've followed and admired for decades. T.S. Eliot once said of Henry James, "He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it." Kabat has a mind so sweeping, so generous that no detail escapes it. She writes of history, ecology, art, science, time, place, and epochs with a painter's attention and a poet's heart. Her latest book is called Nightshining: A Memoir in Four Floods (Milkweed, 2025). She is also the author of The Eighth Moon: A Memoir of Belonging and Rebellion. Her writing has appeared in McSweeney’s, BOMB, The New York Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review, Granta and The White Review, among many others. Today, she takes us from the first trees to appear on our plant to the aspirations of scientists amid the Cold War to the floods that ravaged her hometown, where she also serves on her local fire department.

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with John Devore about his phenomenal memoir, Theatre Kids: A True Tale of Off-Off Broadway (Applause, 2024). Friendship. Grief. Jazz hands. In 2004, in a small, windowless theater in then-desolate Williamsburg, Brooklyn, an eccentric family of broke art-school survivors staged an experimental, four-hour adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying inside an enormous wooden coffin that could barely fit the cast, much less an audience.The production’s cast and crew—including its sweetly monomaniacal director—poured their hearts and paychecks into a messy spectacle doomed to fail by any conventional measure. It ran for only eight performances. The reviews were tepid. Fewer than one hundred people saw it. But to emotionally messy hack magazine editor John DeVore, cast at the last minute in a bit part, it was a safe space to hide out and attempt sobering up following a devastating loss.An unforgettable ode to the ephemeral, chaotic magic of the theatre an

A transparent first-hand account of a Black officer maneuvering through three terrifying yet rewarding decades of policing, all while seeking reform in law enforcementWhen 16-year-old Keith Merith finds himself pulled over, berated, and degraded by a white police officer, he’s outraged. He’s done nothing wrong. But the officer has the power, and he doesn’t. From that day on, he vows to join a police service and effect change from within.Twelve years and a multitude of infuriating applications later, Merith is finally hired by York Regional Police. Subjected to unfair treatment and constant microaggressions, he perseveres and gradually rises through the ranks, his goal of systemic change carrying him through. After a stellar career, Merith retires at the rank of superintendent, but his desire for sustained and equitable reform is stronger than ever.In A Darker Shade of Blue: A Police Officer's Memoir (ECW Press, 2024), Merith shares both his gut-wrenching and heart-warming experiences and advocates for immedia

This is a comprehensive history of the Gribbin (Gribben/Gribbon) family. The author traces his own family line back to the early nineteenth century, setting it within the context of the wider Gribbin family story. He then tracks back through time to pinpoint Gribbins wherever they appear in the record. He has trawled the available sources, compiling the data in order to establish where all the Gribbins of the world were living during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (mostly in Ulster is the short answer), what they were doing and their socio-economic status. He is particularly keen to record any distinctive detail which might bring these Gribbin ancestors to life for the reader. In the process, we learn the history of Ulster and of those who emigrated from it; the politics, the wars, the tribulations and the daily lives of Gribbins down through the centuries. We trace their movements, their involvement in politics and how social/political change affected them. This is a rich tapestry whi

Sir Robert Menzies is a towering figure in Australian history. The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience 1894-1942 (Melbourne UP, 2022) explores the formative period of Menzies' life, when his personal outlook and system of beliefs that would help shape modern Australia were themselves still being formed. This is the first of a four-volume history of Menzies and his world, based on conferences convened by the Robert Menzies Institute at the University of Melbourne. Contributors include Troy Bramston, Judith Brett, David Kemp, and Frank Bongiorno. Dr. Zachary Gorman is the academic coordinator at the Robert Menzies Institute. A professional historian, Gorman has worked as a researcher and academic since 2013, including several years at the University of Wollongong, where he received his PhD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Between May 21 and June 16, 1791, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison went on a trip together through Upstate New York and parts of New England on horseback. This "northern journey" came at a moment of tension for the new nation, one in whose founding these Virginians and political allies had played key roles. The Constitution was ratified and President Washington was in his first term of office. Whether the country could overcome regional and political differences and remain unified, however, was still very much in question. Hence why some observers at the time wondered whether this excursion into Federalist New England by the two most prominent southern Democratic-Republicans, both future presidents, had an ulterior motive. Madison, maintained that the journey was for "health, recreation, and curiosity." He and Jefferson needed a break from their public responsibilities, so off they set. Along the way, they took notes on the ravages of the Hessian Fly, an insect that had been devastating wheat crops. While

Edward Said was one of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century. A literary scholar with an aesthete’s temperament, he did not experience his political awakening until the 1967 Arab–Israeli war, which transformed his thinking and led him to forge ties with political groups and like-minded scholars. Said’s subsequent writings, which cast light on the interplay between cultural representation and the exercise of Western political power, caused a seismic shift in scholarly circles and beyond. In this intimate intellectual biography, by a close friend and confidant, Nubar Hovsepian offers fascinating insight into the evolution of Said’s political thought. Through analysis of Said’s seminal works and the debates surrounding them, Edward Said: The Politics of an Oppositional Intellectual (American University in Cairo Press, 2025) traces the influence of Foucault on Said, and how Said eventually diverged from this influence to arrive at a more pronounced understanding of agency, resistance, and l

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Kay Sohini about her graphic memoir, This Beautiful, Ridiculous City: A Graphic Memoir (published by Ten Speed Graphic, 2025). A vibrant graphic memoir of a woman—an immigrant, a survivor, a writer, a foodie, and, ultimately, an optimist—who rebuilds her life in New York City while recovering from the trauma of an abusive relationship. “An intimate portrait of the city not only as a place of dreams, but as a vital source for healing and self-discovery.”—Nick Sousanis, Eisner Award–winning author of Unflattening On her first night in New York City, Kay Sohini sits on the tarmac of JFK Airport making an inventory of everything she’s left behind in India: her family, friends, home, and gaslighting ex-boyfriend. In the wake of that untethering she realizes two things: she’s finally made it to the city of her literary heroes—Kerouac, Plath, Bechdel—and the trauma she’s endured has created gaping holes in her memory. As Kay begins the work of piecing herself back

In The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay (Grand Central Publishing, 2025) Christopher Clarey illuminates the skill and determination it took to accomplish Rafael Nadal’s most mind-blowing achievement: 14 French Open titles. Nadal has won big on tennis's many surfaces en route to becoming one of the greatest players of all time: securing two Wimbledon titles on grass and four U.S. Open titles on cushioned acrylic hardcourts. But clay, the slowest and grittiest of the game’s playgrounds, is where it all comes together best for his tactical skills, whipping topspin forehand and gladiatorial mindset. Clay is to Rafael Nadal what water is to Michael Phelps, which helps explain one of the most impressive individual sports achievements of the 21st century. Clarey draws on interviews over many years with Nadal and his team and with rivals like Roger Federer. Not just a book about tennis, The Warrior draws much wider lessons from Nadal’s approach to competition. Check out his site Tennis and Beyond here

Today I’m thrilled to launch a brand new series for the Princeton UP Ideas Podcast. 20 years ago, Princeton University Press published a short volume with an excellent title: On Bullshit (Princeton UP, 2025). Written by philosopher Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit was adapted from an essay that explored the meaning, uses, and consequences of bullshit. At just 80 pages, On Bullshit became a favorite of readers, selling over 1 million copies and spending 27 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. It’s not often that a work of philosophy breaks through to the mainstream, but readers of On Bullshit quickly discover why. Harry’s meditation on the meaning of bullshit can be read in one sitting, but the ideas have staying power. After you read Harry’s book, you start to see bullshit everywhere and recognize it’s uniquely pernicious effects on whatever’s left of the public square. Harry wrote his book long before modern social media and AI-generated slop. He was unbelievably prescient, making On Bullshit required r

An exploration of the mind of one of America's most beloved Founding Fathers and most brilliant minds, through the books he read and his social circles in the United States and Europe. Arguably the most intellectual, creative, cosmopolitan, and curious of the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin is the only top-tier Founder not to have served as president. Despite not becoming the Chief Executive, Franklin played an active role in American politics and served the aspiring and young United States in the key European capitals. His prodigious reading and appetite for learning are epic. As he did in works about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, Kevin J. Hayes interprets the life and mind of Franklin through what he read.  Undaunted Mind: The Intellectual Life of Benjamin Franklin (Oxford University Press, 2025) tells the story of the development of Franklin's intellect, starting with the earliest books he read as a child before examining his formal schooling and his independent study after his father pulled

Wendy Doniger’s An American Girl in India: Letters and Recollections, 1963–64 (SUNY Press, 2023) is a memoir-style collection of letters and reflections from her first trip to India as a young scholar. It offers a rare glimpse into the formative experiences that shaped her future career in Indology. The personal letters of her younger self are in conversation with reflections of her older self. Using this work as a launchpad, this interview broaches Doniger's personal and professional life learning through the course of her prominent career, spanning over five decades. This conversation commemorates Raj Balkaran's 400th New Books Network interview.  Wendy Doniger is Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions in the Divinity School, University of Chicago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

In this concise and introductory book, David Celani examines the work of Ronald Fairbairn, one of the pioneers of Object Relations Theory. Ronald Fairbairn: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 2025) adopts a unique approach to Fairbairn’s work and legacy. Organizing the book thematically, Celani makes connections between Fairbairn’s disparate and often convoluted papers, offering the reader a more accessible insight into the work of this eminent analyst. He looks in turn at Fairbairn’s field-defining work on Object Relations, split consciousness, repression and the impact of parental neglect on a child’s developing personality. Celani also explores Fairbairn’s assessment of infants’ dependency on their maternal figure and brings his ideas into the 21st century. Considering the work of Philip Bromberg in tandem with that of Fairbairn, Celani considers the practical, clinical and theoretical implications of Fairbairn’s model. This volume is essential reading for analysts in practice and training interested

Andreas Beyer joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, Benvenuto Cellini and the Embodiment of the Modern Artist (Reaktion, 2025). Benvenuto Cellini was a murderer, thief, lover of all genders, rival of popes and princes, as well as an ingenious artist. In his legendary autobiography, the Vita, Cellini describes his activities vividly and in lurid detail. Many of the most disturbing passages have been dismissed as fiction, but in this clear-eyed portrayal, Andreas Beyer argues that these sensational accounts of the body, sex, and extreme experiences are not only entertaining but historically authentic. The stories reveal the depth of Cellini’s character: an artist who embraced life and shattered boundaries. Ultimately, this book discovers the roots of modern art’s fascination with the autonomous artist deep within Cellini’s audacious life and work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biograp