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January 2016 | Volume 10 | Number 11 Fighting for the Digital Future Save the Date— and Join BIO in by T.J. Stiles England!

The world’s wealthiest corporations may take your work in its entirety for their In collaboration with the Oxford own profit. They do not have to ask you for permission, let alone pay you. That’s Centre for Life-Writing (OCLW) essentially the ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the at the University of Oxford, Authors Guild’s long-running legal battle against over its massive book- England, housed at Wolfson digitization program. Remarkably, the court exacerbates the disparity of wealth and College and directed by power in America by undermining property rights—even as it violates the purpose Professor Dame Hermione Lee, of copyright law. winner of BIO's 2015 Plutarch The editors of The Biographer’s Craft (TBC) have been kind enough to let me Award, BIO will host a respond to an opinion piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Pamela colloquium on American and Samuelson, cited in the last issue of TBC. As a member of the board of the European biography on Authors Guild, one of BIO’s sister organizations, I want to explain why the open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Authors Guild, one of BIO’s sister organizations, I want to explain why the November 5, 2016. Authors Guild is appealing the decision—and why it’s terrible for authors. Preliminary plans include an elegant reception in London on Samuelson, and the the evening of November 4; Second Circuit, turn the travel by train to Oxford on the issues completely upside morning of the 5th, and a day down. They focus on the end result: that Google has devoted to panel discussions of chosen, for now, to make significant differences (and search results available only in some similarities) between snippet form. (Google defines American and European for itself what “snippet” biography. A lunchtime means, by the way.) They argue that this does not undermine the book market, as discussion will feature a top readers can’t read an entire book this way. American and European That might be a good argument if the Authors Guild had sued end users of biographer exploring the Google’s service. But we didn’t. The lawsuit is not over how Google dispenses question of how we can push stolen goods, but the stealing itself. The corporation made complete copies of our the boundaries of the purposes books for its own profit. The courts have always held that such copying is a and meaning of biography and blatant violation of creators’ rights, whatever happens afterward. how American and European Google itself tells us that search and data-mining rights for books have value. It perspectives might differ in spent millions on its book-digitization project, and it is legally obligated to use its doing so. The colloquium will resources to make money for shareholders. And if Google can do it, so can conclude with a reception at anyone; Google’s profits from our books will invite competition. But what if Wolfson College. Google had lost? What if the courts had held that business corporations must Full details of the cost of negotiate with authors? Then Google and any rivals would have to bid, driving up housing and conference fees the value of our rights. will be announced soon. After all, that is the point of copyright: to promote the creation of art and Wolfson is an elegant, modern open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Wolfson is an elegant, modern knowledge by reserving to creators the financial rewards of their work. And those college with excellent rewards are growing thinner. The book market is one of the last pieces of the economy in which the individual is a key player, yet authors find themselves conference facilities, including powerless before the new digital gatekeepers—corporations that tower over even eighty en-suite bedrooms. publishers, our traditional business partners. These gatekeepers profit from For those who are distribution, not creation, and they are deliberately driving down the value of our interested, a BIO group will be creations in digital form. spending Thursday night, Of course, academic authors do not depend on income from their books. November 3, at a Victorian bed That’s a good thing; academic writing is essential to society. But our culture needs and breakfast in Tunbridge more than monographs. As a recent Authors Guild member survey shows, Wells, Kent, run by a key writers’ incomes are declining, not growing. We need every possible income former staff member in the stream to stay in business. Royal household who also In the end, this case is about the future of the book itself. Therein lies the irony offers specially guided tours of of Google and Samuelson’s position: They are the luddites, arguing that the book the area. market will always be the same, that authors must be limited to their existing rights If you are interested in being and traditional notions of the book itself. part of this exciting The decision in favor of Google holds that the computer search is a collaboration between OCLW “transformative” use of a book, which denies the original creator any rights. If it’s and BIO (either as a participant transformative merely to have a computer look through a book, that’s setting a on a panel or as a member of very low bar for allowing others to use entire works without permission. One the group), please email either could argue that adaptations for film, television, or audiobooks were far more Deirdre David or Will Swift for transformative; if the Second Circuit’s doctrine had prevailed a century ago, more information. countless authors would have been denied critical income and creative control. The Authors Guild is not opposed to the program; rather, we want authors to be included and rewarded, to be incentivized to make the most of the From the Editor technological future. Already digital media are changing the way people “consume” books; authors want to help shape new models of reading their work. But the Happy New Year! As promised, in open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API this issue we’re listing more of thepdfcrowd.com court is narrowing authors’ rewards—and opportunities—in the digital realm. this issue we’re listing more of the Personally, I fear that this decision will make it still harder for authors to best biographies of 2015, as chosen by various US and UK digitally transform their own works. We have barely tapped the possibilities— media outlets. The listing is far overlaying traditional narrative text with images, sound, embedded digressive from exhaustive, and members who essays, intertextual links, and interactive features, and who knows what else. had a book on a list that we don’t That’s what I wanted for the digital edition of my most recent book, but the feature should drop me a line so downward pressure on e-book prices by digital gatekeepers made it impossible, we can mention it in next month’s since it would have cost more than the print edition. The Second Circuit’s News and Notes. Which leads me to remind you that while our decision, I fear, will exacerbate the trend. Even if we could afford to transform large, deeply dedicated, and crack our books, we’d be forced to compete with wealthy corporations over digital staff scours the Internet for what iterations of our own work. That’s a competition we can’t win. our members are doing, we sometimes miss interesting tidbits, T. J. Stiles received the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for The First Tycoon: The Epic so please send in your news! And don’t forget to pass along story Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. His newest book is Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New ideas or to volunteer for an On America. He is on the BIO Advisory Board and the Authors Guild Council. the Road feature. While 2015 saw many highs in the biography world, a low for Bill Authors Share Insights on the Cosby biographer Mark Whitaker came when new reports confirmed “Dubious” Art of the Blurb the stories that had been circulating for years about Cosby’s sexual abuse of many women, Both would-be authors and seasoned writers alike might have looked at a book stories Whitaker chose to ignore. jacket and wondered if the blurbs on the back really make a difference in propelling As the blizzard of negative sales. And if they have never given or sought out a blurb, they may have wondered coverage increased, several celebrities asked for their blurbs how the process works. To some writers, it’s not a pretty sight. to be removed from Whitaker’s Writing for The Millions in 2011, novelist Bill Morris offered these descriptions book, which got me thinking: What of blurbing: “suspect,” “vaguely sleazy,” and “a sweaty little orgy of incest.” In the open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com of blurbing: “suspect,” “vaguely sleazy,” and “a sweaty little orgy of incest.” In the is the etiquette of blurbing? Are years since, other writers have expressed their displeasure with giving and asking blurbs important? Do people even for blurbs. Some authors have even suggested the process is corrupt, with agents read blurbs? One of our feature writing blurbs and asking famous authors to put their names to the canned praise. stories this month tries to answer these questions and more, with Other writers are increasingly questioning the efficacy of blurbs in the age of insights from authors both in and social media, when readers are more apt to follow the recommendations of friends out of BIO. or the masses at sites like Goodreads. Still, blurbing does not seem to be going Last issue, we ran a short away, so BIO turned to several members and found some recent articles on blurbs piece on the recent US Court of to help authors navigate the blurbing maze. Appeals decision in favor of Google (A side note: By most accounts, the word blurb was coined by humorist Gelett in its efforts to digitize copy- righted books. We summarized an Burgess in his 1907 book Are You a Bromide? Burgess created a character he article by Pamela Samuelson, who called Miss Belinda Blurb, who sang the praises of the book on the cover. But the suggested that the ruling could be practice of garnering quotes from other authors to adorn one’s book jacket a good thing for authors. In the predates Miss Blurb’s debut.) interest of presenting the other side of the story, T.J. Stiles offers a rebuttal to Samuelson’s view and Getting Blurbs an explanation of the Authors How important are blurbs? Guild’s decision to appeal the case BIO board member Will Swift to the US Supreme Court. said, “Blurbs are important in Yours, that they encourage newspapers, bloggers, and Michael Burgan magazines to review the book. These reviews help drive sales. They may not be as important Author's Query to book buyers, but they don’t The BIO website received this hurt.” BIO member Irv Gellman had a slightly different take, saying, “If the book query, which we’re tossing out hits well, [blurbs] can probably help you. If the book doesn’t hit, it probably to members: open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com to members: doesn’t matter.” Another BIO board member, Kate Buford, noted that since some people find the blurbing process “dubious,” blurbs might not be too helpful for a I would like to know if there is hardcover book. But with a paperback edition, “blurbs from actual reviews can be anyone working on a biography used and are more effective.” of archaeologist/anthropologist Part of the blurbing process is knowing who to approach. Publishers, editors, Frederick Webb Hodge. and agents will sometimes draw up a list of possible blurbers, especially if those If you know, please email Molly authors also have ties to them. Writers often reach out to friends first, especially if Hollenbach. they have expertise in the book’s topic. Often, with this arrangement there is an expectation, if not explicit statement, of reciprocity. Moving outside that circle, Gellman recommends finding someone who is nationally or internationally known Please Keep or an expert in the field, though if the expert is unknown, his or her blurb might not be as valuable. And don’t be afraid to aim for the stars with your requests. For Your Info his The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952–1961, Gellman Current asked for and got a blurb from former Secretary of State George Shultz, even Making a move or just changed though Gellman figured he had “a snowball’s chance in hell” of landing him. your email? We ask BIO For his Pat and Dick: The Nixons, an Intimate Portrait of a Marriage, Swift members to keep their contact contacted a highly regarded Nixon expert. Impressed with Swift’s research, the information up to date, so we expert encouraged three important historians and biographers to read and blurb and other members know where Swift’s book. Making contacts with experts is key, Buford said, for starting the to find you. Update your blurbing process. “You should have created a network of experts in your field as information in the Member Area you researched the book. If the book’s subject is likely to directly appeal to an of the BIO website. expert you don’t know, it can work to ask a colleague to initiate the outreach to that expert.” Swift said it can also be valuable to contact another biographer who has Sold to Publishers recently published on the subject. “Their quote, name, and new book title on the Diane Jacobs back of your book will serve as publicity for their own work. When I wrote my Love and War: Edith Wharton in Paris Roosevelt book, I contacted Jon Meacham’s assistant and sent her the galley. As sold to Little, Brown by Rob McQuilkin at open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com he had just published Franklin and Winston, he was willing to read and blurb by Rob McQuilkin at Lippincott Massie McQuilkin mine.” For biographers writing about a subject from a different racial or ethnic Erin Osmon background or of the opposite gender, BIO board member James McGrath Morris Jason Molina: Riding With the Ghost sold to Rowman & Littlefield sees a special value in the right blurbs. He said comments from readers who share by Alice Speilburg of the subject’s background “can act like the Seal of Good Housekeeping.” Speilburg Literary Agency

Alexandra Popoff On the Other Side of the Blurb Courage of Genius What are the expectations of the author asked to write a blurb? It’s commonly (Vasily Grossman) accepted that not all blurbers read all of the books they praise. Like reviewers or sold to Press by Don Fehr at Trident Media Group interviewers, some only read the introduction, epilogue, and selections from the text. Both Buford and Gellman said they would not blurb a book they had not read Celia Stahr all the way through. Gellman said, “If someone says they want a blurb from me, I Frida in America sold to St. Martin’s Press take it very seriously.” Gellman’s criteria for deciding which books to blurb by Laurie Fox at Linda Chester include how well he knows the topic and how meticulous the author is in his or Literary Agency her research. And Swift said that while some authors blurb as a favor, he would never blurb a book if he didn’t think it was any good. Mark Shaw The Reporter Who Knew Too Much Some blurbers, however, are less scrupulous about the blurbing process. In a (Dorothy Kilgallen) 2015 piece for the Guardian, novelist Nathan Filer wrote that he knew of at least sold to Post Hill Press one instance in which a blurb was taken verbatim from the letter the publisher sent by Frank Weimann at Folio Literary Management out to prospective blurbers, which of course praised the book. And some authors are notorious blurbers who seemingly never turn down a request. A recent NPR Christoph Irmscher story said Gary Shteyngart has done more than 150, and “there’s even a Tumblr Max Eastman’s Century sold to Yale University Press devoted to some of his more notable snippets.” by Andrew Stuart at The Stuart Agency Whether the request comes from a friend or arrives unsolicited from an unknown writer, potential blurbers might be asked for a comment and not feel Tom Chaffin Revolutionary Brothers: comfortable giving one. What’s the polite way to decline to blurb? Swift said, Jefferson and Lafayette, an Intimate open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Jefferson and Lafayette, an Intimate “You tell the author that you are swamped with finishing your book and don’t have History of a Friendship That Helped the time to read thoroughly another work, which you would have to do before Birth Two Nations sold to St. Martin’s Press blurbing it.” Buford’s advice is similar: “Just plead a busy schedule, deadline, by Alex Hoyt at whatever, and say you so wish you could. Wish the author luck.” Alexander Hoyt Associates

Examples from the Trenches Elizabeth Samet Untitled book on Ulysses S. Grant and One of the panels at the 2014 BIO conference looked at some of the issues around his memoirs blurbs. Buford, who moderated that panel, passed on advice from agent Susan sold to Liveright Rabiner on what makes a good blurb: “A good blurb communicates a good read, by David Kuhn and Becky Sweren at Kuhn Projects counterintuitive insights, and comes from major players in the field.” Rabiner then offered several examples of actual blurbs that she thought demonstrated those John Harte traits. Here are two: How Churchill Saved Civilization sold to Skyhorse The Guynd: A Scottish Journal. “Belinda Rathbone’s account of her romance with by Steve Harris at MDM Management/CSG Literary a four-hundred-year-old Scottish country estate is as sharp-eyed as a field guide, as nuanced as an anthropological study, as gripping as a book of wilderness Jack Weatherford exploration, and as bittersweet as a classic love story.”—George Howe Colt, Genghis Khan and the Quest for God sold to Viking author of The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer House. by Robin Straus at the “With searing, vivid candor and unflinching courage, journalist Keith Richburg Wallace Literary Agency

dares to discard preconceived notions about Africa to learn and convey a larger Toby Ayer truth about humanity. His personal observations demolish the confining categories Great Days: A Year At Harvard With of race and class that imprison us all. Out of America is a brilliant, electrifying Harry Parker sold to Globe Pequot Press story of one man’s hard-won liberation.”—John Hockenberry, NBC News, author by Bob Diforio at of Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations of D4EO Literary Agency Independence. Luke Epplin Untitled book on the 1948 World Series A good blurb, Morris pointed out, doesn’t have to go just on a book jacket. He champions the Cleveland Indians sold to open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com recounted how he and his publisher used blurbs for The Rose Man of Sing Sing. sold to Random House by Peter Steinberg at When the book was nearing publication, Morris said, “My publisher sent single- Foundry Literary + Media stemmed roses to certain reviewers with a single blurb, much like a note, attached to the flower. It made a large difference in the press coverage of the book.” Blurbs can also make a difference with book buyers, or at least with one of Membership Up them. Jake Cumsky-Whitlock is the head book buyer at Kramerbooks, a Washington, DC, bookstore. He told NPR, “If I haven’t heard of the author for Renewal? writing the book, but it comes with the imprimatur of a reputable writer or Please respond promptly to someone I respect, that will make a big difference.” your membership renewal For serial blurber Gary Shteyngart, he likes to think that one of his comments notice. As a nonprofit may help sell a book. “My job is to help out a little bit,” he said. But like others organization, BIO depends on involved in the process, he can’t say what effect blurbs really have. His suggestion members’ dues to fund our for improving the process? “If we could all enter a memorandum of not blurbing annual conference, the anyone else, I think it would be easier for us.” publication of this newsletter, “Malcolm Gladwell Hands Out Book Blurbs Like Santa Does Presents” and the other work we do to support biographers around the “To Blurb or Not to Blurb?” world. When renewing, please “Forget The Book, Have You Read This Irresistible Story On Blurbs?” make sure the contact information we have for you is “Why You Should Ignore the Superlatives on Book Jackets” up to date.

Critics Pick Best Bios of 2015, Are You a Part II Student? Or do you know one who is Looking through the “meta-list” of best interested in biography? BIO open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com books of 2015 compiled by Publishers now has a special student Martketplace, the message for biographers membership rate. Visit the BIO seeking to land in the top ten might be to website to find out more. forget about a subject’s life—write about your own. Publishers Martketplace looked at sixty lists available as of December 21, 2015, drawn from “a broad selection of selective top picks from critics, booksellers and librarians, award committees, newspapers, magazines, online and trade publications,” and no biographies made the overall top ten books or the top ten nonfiction titles. Memoirs, though, made both lists, and they dominated Amazon’s McCullough's book made choices for the twenty best bios and several best-of lists. memoirs. Just three biographies made that list: The Wright Brothers by David McCullough, Street Poison: The Biography A Letter from the of Iceberg Slim by Justin Gifford, and Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of Vice President an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt. Memoirs also vastly outnumbered biographies on the Globe and Mail’s best books of the year; out of 100 titles, the Antidote to the Big, Baggy only biography was John Ibbitson’s bio of Stephen Harper, Canada’s former prime Monsters of Biography minister. A sampling of some of the other best-of lists for 2015 saw a few biographies I love to read; I might almost say, make the grade. The Los Angeles Times list of the top ten books included The I live to read. But faced with an Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy by Masha Gessen. For the best books 800-page-plus biography (or, of the year, Library Journal had Paul Fischer’s A Kim Jong-Il Production: The heaven help us, a multi-volume Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a biography), I want to scream. I open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Young Dictator’s Rise to Power. Its list of best nonfiction included Linda don’t think there is anyone, living Hirshman’s Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg or dead, about whom I want to Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World. And two graphic biographies know in that much detail. made Brain Pickings list of best books: The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Yet the big, baggy monsters Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer by Sydney Padua and keep coming. I realize that they Enormous Smallness: A Story of E. E. Cummings by Matthew Burgess. have a noble lineage. And, yes, Here are highlights of some of the other best-of lists. BIO members and BIO there are some exceptional long Advisory Council members are noted with an asterisk. biographies. But it does seem downright peculiar that the Times Book Review Notable Nonfiction elephant-sized ones are still Augustine: Conversions to Confessions by Robin Lane Fox lumbering into print, in an era that Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey From East to West and Back by imposes increasing time pressures Janice P. Nimura on most of us and produces ever- : The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush more-streamlined models of by Jon Meacham* electronic gadgetry. The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea While BIO’s Plutarch Award Wulf committee ponders which titles Jonas Salk: A Life by Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs* are worthy of making the short Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi by Hayden Herrera list of this year’s best biographies, Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana I hesitate to name any specific Alliluyeva by Rosemary Sullivan super-sized books. In any case, I think we all know which ones New York Times Best Books (chosen by the three daily book critics) they are. What I want to do, Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll by Peter Guralnick instead, is to beat the drum for the James Merrill: Life and Art by Langdon Hammer slender newcomers on the scene: One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by the shorter “life” and the slice-of- Åsne Seierstad, translated by Sarah Death a-life. open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com The Wright Brothers by David McCullough A major virtue of these svelte volumes is that they allow the Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction author’s voice to come through The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea clearly; in fact, the best of these Wulf (also in the top ten overall) books are driven by the author’s Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial unique perception of his or her Statesman by Greg Grandin subject. Ruthless pruning of It Starts with Trouble: William Goyen and the Life of Writing by Clark nonessential facts can result in a Davis well-paced narrative that allows Sinatra: The Chairman by James Kaplan key events and the author’s Man in Profile: Joseph Mitchell of the New Yorker by Thomas Kunkel thoughtful evaluation of One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by personality, motivations, and the Åsne Seierstad influence of forebears and milieu to blossom. NPR Best Biography and Memoir An auxiliary benefit of the shorter biography is that Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee publishers who (increasingly) Vance want to dump endnotes and other The Wright Brothers by David McCullough back matter on a website may be The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin by Steven Lee Myers more inclined to allow them to Widow Basquiat: A Love Story by Jennifer Clement take up residence between two Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life by Jonathan Bate covers. Joan of Arc: A History by Helen Castor After giving a talk to a group Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That of biographers this year, I realized Changed America by Wil Haygood that a pervasive mindset standing Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went in the way of the shorter life is the to the Supreme Court and Changed the World by Linda Hirshman sense of what the writer “owes” open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com sense of what the writer “owes” Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga by Pamela Newkirk his or her subject. Anything less Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush than thorough coverage is thought by Jon Meacham to be a form of disloyalty. Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell But I believe that the only Christian Science Monitor Best Nonfiction things we owe our subjects are veracity and good writing. Step Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor one in the effort to slim down is by James M. Scott to free ourselves from slavery to All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the the minutia of archives. While American West by David Gessner these details can often help us The Wright Brothers by David McCullough vividly recreate a scene or The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin by Steven Lee Myers understand our subject’s The Guardian Best Biography/Memoir motivations, most of them are too dull or repetitive to be dutifully The Story of Alice by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst recorded in a book. John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr Surely, it is sufficient to honor Threads by Julia Blackburn the memory of our subjects in The Fortunes of Francis Barber by Michael Bundock whatever way is most likely to 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear by James Shapiro engage and inspire the serious Goodreads Best History and Biography reader. In the twenty-first century, that way is the shortest The Quartet by Joseph J. Ellis distance between two points—the Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Sister by Kate Clifford Larson* salient facts and your The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal interpretation of them. by David E. Hoffman Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Cathy Cathy Curtis Her Daughter Mary by Charlotte Gordon BIO Vice President open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com BIO Vice President

Member Interview BIO's Board of Six Directors Brian Jay Jones, President Questions Cathy Curtis, Vice President with Marc Leepson, Treasurer Barbara Burkhardt, Secretary Marilyn Chip Bishop Greenwald Kate Buford Deirdre David What is your current Greenwald is a professor in the E. W. Scripps Gayle Feldman project and what stage School of Journalism at Ohio University, where is it at? she teaches undergraduate reporting and writing Beverly Gray I can’t say too much about classes and a graduate biography writing class. Anne Heller the project because I just Kitty Kelley started it and I’m trying to Joshua Kendall determine if it’s feasible. It’s an examination of the relationship between two James McGrath Morris people during an interesting historical event and their role in driving that event. Right now, I’m investigating how much primary material on the subjects is Joanny Moulin available—letters, memos, journals, and other documents—and I’m determining Hans Renders how many people who knew the subjects are still living. I find that determining the William Souder feasibility of a project is key—if a subject won’t make an interesting biography Will Swift from the start, or if materials aren’t available, you can’t force it. The smaller project I’m working on is a chapter for a feminist-studies book Advisory Council open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com calling for an increase in biographies about women. The female subjects of many Advisory Council biographies are mothers, wives, daughters, companions of famous men. We need more biographies of women who were successful in their own right and of little- , Chair known women who have broken barriers for others. A case in point is my recent Carol Berkin biography of Pauline Frederick. Few people know who she is, but she was the Douglas Brinkley first woman network news reporter, the first female recipient of several national broadcast awards, and a network correspondent for more than thirty years. Catherine Clinton Amanda Foreman What person would you most like to write about? Joan Hedrick Author and environmentalist Rachel Carson, who was certainly ahead of her time and who didn’t let anything stop her from her work and from communicating Michael Holroyd what she believed in. I’m fascinated by activists and true believers who persevere Eric Lax despite great resistance—people like Carson, Eugene V. Debs, Margaret Sanger, and some others. Who is your favorite biographer or what is your favorite biography? William S. McFeely Tough question. I guess my favorite current biographer is Steve Weinberg, both Jon Meacham for his work and his help to other biographers. His Taking on the Trust: How Ida Marion Meade Tarbell Brought Down John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil is a great model of how to write about the intersection of two lives. I also admire Stacy Schiff for her Nancy Milford elegant writing style. Andrew Morton Martin J. Sherwin What have been your most satisfying moments as a biographer? I’m most happy when I find that others enjoy reading my work or that it has T. J. Stiles helped contribute to general knowledge. For instance, after my biography of New York Times women’s editor Charlotte Curtis was published, a reader called me on Terry Teachout the telephone simply to tell me how much she liked the book and how she looked forward to reading it each evening. Another time, in a story about society-page open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com writers, Town and Country magazine talked about Curtis and referred to me as the “Curtis biographer.” And when the New Yorker did a long story on children’s serial The Biographer's Craft fiction, the writer quoted at length my biography of Leslie McFarlane, author of the first group of Hardy Boys books. Editor Your most frustrating? Michael Burgan That’s easy—publicizing my work and getting the word out that it exists. This always has been difficult, but is even harder with the “competition” on the Internet Consulting Editor and social media. James McGrath Morris

One research/marketing/attitudinal tip to share? Copy Editor Don’t be afraid to “use” research librarians and archivists. I find most are Margaret Moore Booker extremely knowledgeable and happy to help authors. I make sure I get to know them when I work at an archive, in part because if I need something after I’ve Correspondents returned home, I find they will do a bit of research for me and send me something United Kingdom Andrew Lownie I request.

Marilyn Greenwald’s biography of broadcaster Pauline Frederick, Pauline Frederick Reporting: A Netherlands Pioneering Broadcaster Covers the Cold War, was published in January 2015 by Potomac Hans Renders Books. She is also the author of three other biographies: The Secret of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane India and the Stratemeyer Syndicate, Cleveland Amory: Media Curmudgeon and Animal Rights Ashok R. Chandran Crusader, and A Woman of the Times: Journalism, Feminism and the Career of Charlotte Curtis, which was named a Notable Book by . Australia/New Zealand Todd Nicholls

Prizes United States Sandra Kimberley Hall PEN Awards Longlists (Hawaii) BIO’s own James McGrath Morris is among the authors who made the longlist for Pat McNees open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Pat McNees the 2016 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography. Here’s the complete (Washington, D.C.) list: Dona Munker In Search of Sir Thomas Browne: The Life and Afterlife of the Seventeenth (New York) Century’s Most Inquiring Mind by Hugh Aldersey-William Joan of Arc: A History by Helen Castor To contact any of our correspondents, Sinatra: The Chairman by James Kaplan click here. The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects by Deborah Lutz

Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press by James McGrath Morris Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art by Nancy Princenthal Eqbal Ahmad: Critical Outsider in a Turbulent Age by Stuart Schaar John le Carré: The Biography by Adam Sisman Michelle Obama: A Life by Peter Slevin Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva by Rosemary Sullivan

Several biographies also made the longlist for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing:

Not a Game: The Incredible Rise and Unthinkable Fall of Allen Iverson by Kent Babb The Three-Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui’s Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory by Julie Checkoway Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty by Charles Leerhsen

Both awards come with a $5,000 prize. Finalists for all PEN awards will be announced on February 2 and winners will be announced on March 1. open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Costa Book Award The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science by Andrea Wulf won the Biography category of the Costa Book Awards. Winners in each of five categories receive £5,000 ($7,355) and are now eligible for the £30,000 ($44,120) Costa Book of the Year prize, which will be announced January 26.

NAACP Image Awards Nominees Several biographies made the literary shortlists for the 2016 NAACP Image Awards. In the Outstanding Literary Work–Non-Fiction category, the nominees included 50 Billion Dollar Boss: African American Women Sharing Stories of Success in Entrepreneurship and Leadership by Kathey Porter and Andrea Hoffman; Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America by Wil Haygood; and Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga by Pamela Newkirk. In the Outstanding Literary Work– Biography/Autobiography category, the one biography is One Righteous Man: Samuel Battle and the Shattering of the Color Line in New York by Arthur Browne.

Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Three biographies shared honors in Australia’s Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for 2015. In the Australian History category, Charles Bean by Ross Coulthart was a co-winner. The Nonfiction award went jointly to John Olsen: An Artist’s Life by Darleen Bungey and Wild Bleak Bohemia: Marcus Clarke, Adam Lindsay Gordon and Henry Kendall by Michael Wilding. The co-winners in each category split an $80,000 AUD ($58,425) prize. open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com The Writer's Life

NEH Gives Out-of-Print Books a New Life The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), along with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, has earmarked almost $800,000 in grants to fund the Humanities Open Book program, which will take noteworthy, out-of-print, scholarly titles in the humanities and make them available for free as e-books. The program will secure all rights and offer the books under a Creative Commons license. Some of the university presses that will take part include Wesleyan, Cornell, and Northwestern.

We should write because it is human nature to write. Writing claims our world. It makes it directly and specifically our own. —Julia Cameron

Obituaries

Ian Bell Ian Bell, one of Scotland’s top journalists and a sometime biographer, died December 10, 2015. He was 59. In a journalism career that spanned more than thirty years, Bell focused on politics and wrote columns for several Scottish papers. In 1997 he won the Orwell Prize for journalism, which honors the best political writing in the UK. In 1993 Bell published his first biography on Robert Louis Stevenson. The book won the Saltire Society’s Best First Book Award. He also wrote a two-volume biography of Bob Dylan; the second book, Time Out of Mind, was published in 2013. open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Lewis Dabney Lewis Dabney, a scholar who focused on the life and literary output of Edmund Wilson, died December 22, 2015, in Easton, Maryland. He was 83. Dabney began his in-depth study of Wilson with his doctoral dissertation at Columbia University, concentrating on the writer’s early years. Throughout an academic career at several universities, Dabney continued to immerse himself in Wilson and his work, editing The Portable Edmund Wilson in 1963 and later the last of six volumes of Wilson’s journals. In 2005 Dabney published Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature.

News and Notes Amanda Foreman, a member of BIO’s Advisory Council, will chair the panel of five judges for this year’s Man Booker Prize. She previously served as a judge on the panel in 2012. Stacy Schiff had a piece in the New York Times on America’s deep- rooted fear and anger toward the “others” in our midst. In more best book news for 2015, Stacy’s The Witches: Salem, 1692 made USA Today’s list of top ten books and Foreman's books include the the top ten nonfiction list compiled by biography Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Publishers Marketplace. The Witches was also included in the “More Great Reading” category in the Chicago Tribune’s best of 2015 listing, as was Eye on the open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press by James McGrath Morris. GQ’s best books of the year included ’s The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames. Abigail Santamaria’s Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C. S. Lewis received an Award of Merit from Christianity Today in the category of History/Biography. David Maraniss and T.J. Stiles made recent appearances on Book TV. John Grady will be speaking about his subject, Matthew Fontaine Maury, and the defense of Virginia at the Lee-Jackson-Maury Day observance on January 16, at the Old House Chamber of the State Capitol in Richmond. John will speak on Maury again on January 21 at the Virginia Historical Society. and several other members of the Boston women’s biographer group were featured in an article in the Boston Globe. Collectively, the group’s members have published thirty-three books. You can read the article here. The paperback edition of Jill Norgren’s Rebels at the Bar: The Fascinating, Forgotten Stories of America’s First Women Lawyers will be out next month. The book recounts the life stories of a small group of nineteenth-century women who were among the first female attorneys in the United States. On the BIO Facebook page, Will Swift described his time teaching his granddaughter’s third-grade class about biography as “the best speaking gig I ever had. They were so enthusiastic.” Will signed copies of his Pat and Dick: The Nixons, an Intimate Portrait of a Marriage and perhaps inspired a future biographer. Carl Rollyson’s A Real American Character: The Life of Walter Brennan was second on Examiner.com’s list of film books in 2015 favored by fans of celebrities and genre cinema. Carl’s Female Icons: Marilyn Monroe to Susan Sontag is now available as an audio book through Audible.com. Heath Lee appeared last month at the Washington, DC, screening of Jeremiah, an Alabama PBS original film about Jeremiah Denton, a POW who later became a US Senator from Alabama. Heath is open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com writing a history of the POW wives and the POW/MIA movement. The French translation of Carol Sklenicka’s Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life was one of the titles vying for the Best Book of the Year honor from Les Inrocks, a French cultural website. BIO’s Sold to Publishers column this month features Diane Jacobs and her Love and War: Edith Wharton in Paris. The book focuses on Wharton’s thirteen years in Paris and how her experiences there informed her writing of The Age of Innocence. Kate Buford passed along several bits of news: In November, she was featured in Before the League, a historic six-part sports documentary chronicling the early history of professional football, broadcast on Time Warner Cable SportsChannel across the country over two consecutive nights. You can watch the trailer for it here. And Kate’s Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe will be the assigned text in Carol DeBoer-Langworthy’s new advanced writing course on biography this semester at Brown University’s Nonfiction Writing Program. The book was chosen as “a textbook on how to do a biography.” Kate will also be teaching a session of the course. Judith Bula Wise, 2015 recipient of the Mayborn Fellowship in Biography, spoke in late November on her forthcoming biography about Edna Aikin Baldwin, early twentieth-century playwright and social activist, at the Acequia Madre House (Women’s International Study Center) in Santa Fe. Ellen Brown recently had a biographical essay of poet Ellen Bass published at The Rumpus, which you can read here.

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The Lives of Frederick Douglass Wilde’s Women: How Oscar Wilde Was by Robert S. Levine Shaped by the Women of His Life (Harvard University Press) by Eleanor Fitzsimons (The Overlook Press) Anything That Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, Radical Poet American Governor: Chris Christie’s by Terese Svoboda Bridge to Redemption (Schaffner Press) by Matt Katz (Threshold Editions) Celtic’s Smiler: The Neilly Mochan Story open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com by Paul John Dykes Maurice Gee: Life and Work (False 9 Media) by Rachel Barrowman (Victoria University Press) John Birch: A Life by Terry Lautz Khrushchev (Oxford University Press) by Geoffrey Swain (Palgrave Macmillan) Salvation with a Smile: Joel Osteen, Lakewood Church, and American Christianity Fighting for General Lee: Confederate by Phillip Luke Sinitiere General Rufus Barringer and the North (New York University Press) Carolina Cavalry Brigade by Sheridan Barringer George Washington’s Journey: The President (Savas Beatie) Forges a New Nation by T. H. Breen The Nixon Effect: How Richard Nixon’s (Simon & Schuster) Presidency Fundamentally Changed American Politics Dana Crawford: 50 Years by Douglas E. Schoen Saving the Soul of a City (Encounter Books) by Mike McPhee (Upper Gulch Publishing) First Entrepreneur: How George Washington Built His—and the Nation’s The Mayor: Joe Riley and the Rise of —Prosperity Charleston by Edward Lengel by Brian Hicks (Da Capo Press) (Evening Post Books) Tesla Vs Edison: The Life-Long Feud Raymond Roseliep: Man of Art that Electrified the World Who Loves the Rose by Nigel Cawthorne by Donna Bauerly (Chartwell Books) (The Haiku Foundation) open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Wellington after Waterloo The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor: Elizabeth by Neville Thompson I, Thomas Seymour, and the Making of a (Routledge) Virgin Queen by Elizabeth Norton Pericles and the Conquest of History: A (Pegasus Books) Political Biography by Loren J. Samons II (Cambridge University Press) by Jacob Weisberg (Times Books) White Devil: The True Story of the First White Asian Crime Boss Being Salman by Bob Halloran by Jasim Khan (BenBella Books) (Penguin India) Saint Vincent Ferrer, His World and Sharon Tate: A Life Life: Religion and Society in Late by Ed Sanders Medieval Europe (Da Capo Press) by Philip Daileader (Palgrave Macmillan) The Last Years of Robert E. Lee: From Gettysburg to Lexington Against the Grain: Colonel Henry M. by Douglas Savage Lazelle and the US Army (Taylor Trade Publishing) by James Carson (University of North Texas Press) Margaret Thatcher: Everything She Wants by Charles Moore Henrietta Maria (Knopf) by Dominic Pearce (Amberley) The Lost Tudor Princess: The Life of Lady Margaret Douglas Edward IV: A Kingship Forged in War by Alison Weir by Jeffrey James open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com (Ballantine Books) (Amberley)

A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of King of All Balloons: The Adventurous Frederick Russell Burnham Life of James Sadler, The First English by Steve Kemper Aeronaut (W. W. Norton) by Mark Davies (Amberley) I Heard My Country Calling: Elaine Madden, the Unsung Heroine of SOE Peter the Great by Sue Elliott by Paul Bushkovitch (The History Press) (Rowman & Littlefield)

Shepard’s War: The Man Who Drew Winnie- Rufus Wainwright the-Pooh by Katherine Williams by E. H. Shepard, Minette Shepard, and James (Equinox Publishing) Campbell (Michael O’Mara) Becoming Jane Jacobs by Peter L. Laurence Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence (University of Pennsylvania Press) by Lee Siegel (Yale University Press) Just Another Southern Town: Mary Church Terrell and the Struggle for Benazir Bhutto: Favored Daughter Racial Justice in the Nation’s Capital by Brooke Allen by Joan Quigley (New Harvest) (Oxford University Press)

Amelia Earhart: Beyond the Grave Hrant Dink: An Armenian Voice of the by W. C. Jameson Voiceless in Turkey (Taylor Trade Publishing) by Tuba Candar, translated by Maureen Freely Primo Levi’s Resistance: Rebels and (Transaction Publishers) open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Collaborators in Occupied Italy by Sergio Luzzatto, translated by Frederika A. P. J. Abdul Kalam: A Life Randall by Arun Tiwari (Metropolitan/Henry Holt) (HarperCollins India)

War at the End of the World: Douglas The Matchless Gene Rayburn MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight for New by Adam Nedeff Guinea, 1942–1945 (BearManor Media) by James P. Duffy (NAL) Violet Oakley: An Artist’s Life by Bailey Van Hook Let the People Rule: Theodore Roosevelt and (University of Delaware Press) the Birth of the Presidential Primary by Geoffrey Cowan Great Escaper: The True Story of John (W. W. Norton) “Willy” Williams by Louise Williams Judas: The Most Hated Name in History (Amberley) by Peter Stanford (Counterpoint) Gloucestershire Hero: Brigadier Patsy Pagan’s Great War Experiences The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free by Peter Rostron Culture on the Internet (Pen and Sword) by Justin Peters (Scribner) A Christian in the Land of the Gods: Journey of Faith in Japan Their Promised Land: My Grandparents in by Joanna R. Shelton Love and War (Cascade Books) by Ian Buruma (Penguin Press) The First Transplant Surgeon: The Flawed Genius of Nobel Prize Winner, The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and Alexis Carrel open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com the Last Great Nazi War Crimes Trial by David Hamilton by Lawrence Douglas (World Scientific Publishing) (Princeton University Press) Napoleon’s Shield and Guardian: The The Lovers: Afghanistan’s Romeo and Juliet, Unconquerable General Daumesnil the True Story of How They Defied Their by Edward Ryan Families and Escaped an Honor Killing (Frontline Books) by Rod Nordland (HarperCollins) Handel by Romain Rolland Ostend: Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, and the (Routledge) Summer Before the Dark by Volker Weidermann, translated by Carol Zorba the Buddha: Sex, Spirituality, and Brown Janeway Capitalism in the Global Osho (Pantheon) Movement by Hugh B. Urban 1924: The Year that Made Hitler (University of California Press) by Peter Ross Range (Little, Brown and Company)

The Cinematic Legacy of Frank Sinatra by David Wills (St. Martin’s Press)

Edward IV & Elizabeth Woodville: A True Romance by Amy Licence (Amberley)

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Baseball Maverick: How Sandy Remarkable Women of New England: Alderson Revolutionized Baseball and Daughters, Wives, Sisters, and Mothers: The Revived the Mets War Years 1754 to 1787 by Steve Kettmann by Carole Owens (Grove Press) (Globe Pequot Press)

Iowa’s Record Setting Governor: The Man on the Rock: Mayor Solomon Levy and the Terry Branstad Story Jews of Gibraltar open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com by Mike Chapman by Michael Freedland (Business Publications Corporation) (Vallentine Mitchell)

Why Bernie Sanders Matters Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander by Harry Jaffe McQueen and John Galliano (Regan Arts) by Dana Thomas (Penguin Books) The Man Who Changed Everything: The Life of James Clerk Maxwell Michelle Obama: A Life by Basil Mahon by Peter Slevin (Wiley) (Vintage)

Crow Killer, New Edition: The Saga of Henry M. Jackson: A Life in Politics Liver-Eating Johnson by Robert Kaufman by Raymond W. Thorp Jr. and Robert (University of Washington Press) Bunker (Indiana University Press) Ryan Giggs Fifty Defining Fixtures by Tony Matthews Empire of Deception: The Incredible (Amberley) Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Slow Ball Cartoonist: The Extraordinary Life of Nation Indiana Native and Pulitzer Prize Winner John by Dean Jobb T. McCutcheon of the Chicago Tribune (Algonquin Books) by Tony Garel-Frantzen (Purdue University Press) Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century The Wesleys: Two Men Who by Peter Graham Changed the World (Skyhorse Publishing) by Julian Wilson (Authentic) Life and Death of Leon Trotsky open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com by Victor Serge and Natalia Ivanovna An Uncensored Life: Zerbanoo Gifford Sedova by Farida Master (Haymarket Books) (HarperCollins India)

Raphael: A Passionate Life Suchitra Sen: the Legend and the Enigma by Antonio Forcellino, translated by by Shoma Chatterji Lucinda Byatt (HarperCollins India) (Polity) Vanessa Bell: Portrait of a Bloomsbury Artist Ava Gardner: The Barefoot Contessa by Frances Spalding by Gilles Dagneau (Tauris Parke Paperbacks) (Gremese) From POW to Blue Angel: The Story of The Bellicose Dove: Claude Brousson Commander Dusty Rhodes and Protestant Resistance to Louis by Jim Armstrong XIV, 1647–1698 by Brian Strayer (University of Oklahoma Press) (Sussex Academic Press) The Gaybo Revolution: How Gay Byrne Simone de Beauvoir: Creating a Challenged Irish Society Feminist Existence in the World by Finola Doyle-O’Neill by Sandrine Sanos (Orpen Press) (Oxford University Press) The Queen: The Epic Ambition of Hillary and Movie Star & The Mobster the Coming of a Second “Clinton Era” by John William Law by Hugh Hewitt (Aplomb Publishing) (Center Street)

The Matador: The Life and Career of America 1933: The Great Depression, Lorena Tony Currie Hickok, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Shaping of by Elliot Huntley the New Deal (Pitch Publishing) by Michael Golay open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com (Simon & Schuster) The Magnificent Life of Miss May Holman: Australia’s First Female The Man Called Brown Condor: The Forgotten Labor Parliamentarian History of an African American Fighter Pilot by Lekkie Hopkins by Thomas E. Simmons (Fremantle Press) (Skyhorse Publishing)

Jean Renoir: Projections of Paradise Alex Swan and the Swan Companies by Ronald Bergan by Lawrence M. Woods (Arcade Publishing) (University of Oklahoma Press)

Crazy Charlie: Carlos Lehder, John George Haigh, the Acid-Bath Murderer: A Revolutionary or Neo Nazi Portrait of a Serial Killer and His Victims by Ron Chepesiuk by Jonathan Oates (Strategic Media Books) (Pen and Sword)

Karl Barth The Education of Gerald Ford by David L. Mueller by Hendrik Booraem V (Hendrickson Publishers) (Eerdmans Publishing)

Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science Stalin’s Man in Canada: Fred Rose and Soviet by John Gribbin and Michael White Espionage (Pegasus) by David Levy (Enigma Books) Anzac Sons: The Story of Five Brothers in the War to End all Wars William F. Cody’s Wyoming Empire: The by Allison Paterson Buffalo Bill Nobody Knows (Big Sky Publishing) by Robert E. Bonner (University of Oklahoma Press) Living Anarchism: José Peirats and the Spanish Anarcho-syndicalist Wilfred Owen open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Movement by Guy Cuthbertson by Chris Ealham (Yale University Press) (AK Press) Hammarskjöld: A Life Tempest-Tossed: The Spirit of Isabella by Roger Lipsey Beecher Hooker (University of Michigan Press) by Susan Campbell (Wesleyan University Press) Brigadier General Tyree H. Bell, C.S.A.: Forrest’s Fighting Lieutenant The Madoff Chronicles (Inside the by Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes Jr., Secret World of Bernie and Ruth) Jim Browne, and Connie Walton Moretti by Brian Ross ( Press) (Kingswell) Rising Out: Sean Connolly of Longford Sergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict by Ernie O’Malley by Ronald Bergan (University College Dublin Press) (Arcade Publishing) Comrade Corbyn: A Very Unlikely Coup Death of a King: by Rosa Prince The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther (Biteback Publishing) King Jr.’s Final Year by Tavis Smiley and David Ritz Sir Walter Winterbottom: The Father of Modern (Back Bay Books) English Football by Graham Morse Malik Ambar: Power and Slavery (John Blake Publishing) Across the Indian Ocean by Omar H. Ali (Oxford University Press)

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The Democratic Soldier: The Life of General Gustave P. Cluseret by William J. Phalen (Vij Books India)

Strange As It Seems: The Impossible Life of Gordon Zahler by Chip Jacobs (Rare Bird Books)

Amanuensis

Amanuensis: A person whose employment is to write what another dictates, or to copy what another has written: Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913).

Multi-volume biographies are by no means encouraged in the trade. When Nick Hern, who initially commissioned the book [on Orson Welles], and I went to see the much-admired American publisher Aaron Asher, I told him I wanted to write it in three volumes. The first, I said, would end with Citizen Kane (1941), the second with Chimes at open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Midnight (1965), and the third, dealing with his unfulfilled last two decades, would be a novel. The great man looked at me pityingly. “If you are very lucky,” he said, “you will be allowed to write the book in two volumes—neither of which will be a novel.” Then he pointed to Michael Holroyd’s Bernard Shaw: first volume bestseller; second volume very successful; third volume poor sales; fourth volume remaindered almost the moment it appeared…. When I started writing about him, I set out to separate the myth and the man. But by the time he was 30, the man had become the myth…. His successes and his failures were equally titanic; he created some of the most memorable films and striking theatre of the 20th century….He was fearless in his experiments, and he never did any of it for the money, just for the sheer joy of making films. Because of this, he has inspired more directors than any other film-maker, but he leaves no legacy: he really was a one-off. If I had written twice as much about him, I would still find him fascinating. Roll on volume four. [more]

Simon Callow, “Why Orson Welles Lived a Life Like No Other”

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