Best Biographies 2017

Chief Engineer: Washington Roebling, the The Gatekeepers: How the White House Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency Henry David Thoreau - Laura Dassow Walls Erica Wagner Chris Whipple A superbly researched and written literary His father conceived of the Brooklyn Bridge, An in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the portrait that broadens our understanding of the but after John Roebling’s sudden death, seventeen White House Chiefs of Staff, whose pre-eminent naturalist. “The Thoreau I sought Washington Roebling built what has become actions, and inactions, have defined the course was not in any book, so I wrote this one,” says one of America’s most iconic structures. Yet, of our country. 973.92 WHI Walls. The result is a Thoreau unlike any seen as recognizable as the bridge is, its builder is since he walked the streets of Concord, a too often forgotten, and his life is of interest far Thoreau for our time and all time. beyond his chosen field. It is the story of B THOREAU immigrants, of the frontier, of the greatest The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the crisis in American history, and of the making Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of of the modern world. B ROEBLING the Stars - Dava Sobel Lenin - Victor Sebestyen The little-known true story of a group of women whose contributions to the burgeoning The first major work in English for nearly two Churchill and Orwell - Thomas E. Ricks field of astronomy forever changed our decades on one of the most significant figures understanding of the stars and our place in the of the twentieth century. In Russia to this day, From #1 New York Times bestselling author universe. 522 SOB Lenin inspires adulation. Everywhere, he Thomas E. Ricks, a dual biography of Winston continues to fascinate as a man who made Churchill and George Orwell, whose history, and who created a new kind of state farsighted vision and inspired action that would later be imitated by nearly half the preserved democracy from the threats of Grant - Ron Chernow countries of the world. B LENIN authoritarianism, from the left and right alike. 941.084 RIC Move over Hamilton! Might there be room for a Broadway musical about Ulysses S. Grant? There’s certainly a vast treasure-trove of Leonardo da Vinci - Walter Isaacson material in Grant, a stupendous new biography Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow, The author of the acclaimed bestsellers Steve Food Writer Patience Gray whose book Alexander Hamilton inspired the Jobs, Einstein, and Ben Franklin brings Adam Federman hit musical. B GRANT Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography. “A powerful story of an exhilarating The remarkable story of Patience Gray: from mind and life...the book is a study in creativity: her privileged and intellectual upbringing in how to define it, how to achieve it.” - - England, to her trials as a single mother The New Yorker B LEONARDO during World War II, to her career working as a designer, editor, translator, and author. B GRAY Letterman - Jason Zinoman Rising Star - David J. Garrow BIOGRAPHY Jason Zinoman, the first comedy critic in the The definitive account of Barack Obama's history of the New York Times, mixes formative years that made him the man who groundbreaking reporting with unprecedented became the forty-fourth president of the United access and probing critical analysis to explain States, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author the unique entertainer’s legacy. Moving from of Bearing the Cross. B OBAMA his early days in Indiana to his retirement, Zinoman goes behind the scenes of Letterman’s television career to illuminate the origins of his revolutionary comedy, its The Vanity Fair Diaries - Tina Brown overlooked influences, and how his work intersects with and reveals his famously Tina Brown kept delicious daily diaries eccentric personality. B LETTERMAN throughout her eight spectacular years as editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair. Today, they provide an incendiary portrait of the flash and dash and power brokering of the Excessive The Meaning of Michelle Eighties in New York and Hollywood. Veronica Chambers B BROWN While many books have looked at Michelle Obama from a fashion perspective, no book has fully explored what she means to our culture. This book does just that, while offering a parting gift to a landmark moment in American history. B OBAMA The Ridgefield Library Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder - Caroline Fraser Exhaustively researched and passionately written, this book refreshes and revitalizes our understanding of Western American history, March 2018 giving space to the stories of Native Americans displaced by white settlers like the Ingalls family. B WILDER .

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