Tagged Biography & Autobiography
William D. Cohan | Four Friends: Promising Lives Cut Short
William D. Cohan is the bestselling author of The Last Tycoons , an inside history of Lazard Frères & Co., one of the country’s most venerable investment banks. A former longtime Wall Street mergers and acquisitions…
Deirdre Bair | Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, and Me
Deirdre Bair won the National Book Award for her “blockbuster biography” of Samuel Beckett, “the best introduction to an enigmatic giant of 20th-century literature” ( Christian Science Monitor ). Her other…
Jon Dorenbos | Life Is Magic: My Inspiring Journey from Tragedy to Self-Discovery
In conversation with Larry Platt, co-founder/co-executive director of The Philadelphia Citizen and former editor of the Philadelphia Daily News and Philadelphia Magazine and co-author of Life is Magic Philadelphia Eagles long-snapper…
Artist talk: Gail Gaines
The Art Department is home to a monumental boot-shaped sculpture entitled Every Little Detail , created by local fashion designer, couturiere and educator Gail Gaines for the 160th anniversary of Moore College of Art…
Saeed Jones | How We Fight for Our Lives with Clifford Thompson | What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man’s Blues
Saeed Jones is the author of the “hard and glaring and brilliant” ( NPR Book Review ) poetry collection Prelude to Bruise , winner of the 2015 Stonewall Book Award/Barbara Gittings Literature Award. He is also the co-host of…
Carmen Maria Machado | In the Dream House
In conversation with Emma Eisenberg, author of the forthcoming book The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia Carmen Maria Machado’s bestselling debut short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties…
Erica Armstrong Dunbar | She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman
In conversation with Lorene Cary , author of Black Ice , The Price of a Child , Ladysitting and the forthcoming Arden Theatre production of My General Tubman Erica Armstrong Dunbar is the author of the National Book Award finalist Never…
Paul Hendrickson | Plagued by Fire: The Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright
Paul Hendrickson’s books include Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934–1961 , a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; Sons of Mississippi , winner of the National Book Critics Circle…
Booker T. Jones | Time Is Tight: My Life Note by Note
In conversation with musician and writer, Wesley Stace The frontman for R&B band Booker T. & the M.G.’s, songwriter, producer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist Booker T. Jones was a driving figure in the creation of the…
Patti Smith | Year of the Monkey
Patti Smith—dubbed the “punk poet laureate”—won a 2010 National Book Award for Just Kids , a “moving portrait of the artist as a young woman” ( Los Angeles Times ). Her 1975 debut album, …
Adam Rippon | Beautiful on the Outside
In conversation with award-winning broadcaster, Tracey Matisak The first openly gay U.S. male athlete to win a winter Olympics medal, Adam Rippon earned bronze as part of the figure skating team event at the 2018 games. He was also the…
Female Justices of the Supreme Court
Female Justices of the Supreme Court, presented by Trish Chambers Productions: It took 191 years after the founding of the Supreme Court for the first woman to be allowed to become part of that august body. Four magnificent women…
Ardrossan : the last great estate on the Philadelphia Main Line
Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2019 6:00-8:00 PM Independent scholar David Nelson Wren will bring to life Ardrossan, the last great estate on the Main Line in this presentation on his sumptuous book on the estate and the Montgomery…
Susan Rice | Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For
In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013 and President Obama’s national security advisor from 2013 to 2017, Susan Rice has been at the…
Debbie Harry | CANCELED | ALL TICKETS AND FEES WILL BE REFUNDED
EVENT CANCELED Debbie Harry in conversation with Blondie co-founder and renowned photographer Chris Stein, and multidisciplinary artist and director, Rob Roth—accompanied by a visual presentation. Debbie Harry is an acclaimed…
At These Crossroads: The Legacies of Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois
Like others of their generations, and ours, Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois found themselves at the crossroads of belonging and not, of loving their nation and feeling rejected by it, of being both black and American. This…
Free Library Story Booth Recording Session
Do you have stories to share? The Free Library Story Booth is coming to our library and is open for drop-in sessions. Step inside the booth for a casual interview, and have your voice recorded to be part of the neighborhood libraries…
Famous Asian Americans
Biographies and collective biographies on Asian Americans.
LGBTQ - Biographies and Autobiographies
Biographies and Autobiographies of important and influential members of LGBTQ community.
Memoirs and Reminiscences by African American Authors
Autobiographical selections.
Research in Context *
Discover reliable and trusted information on a variety of topics to support middle school student research for government, U.S and world history, geography, literature, sciences, and social issues. Research In Context offers…
LitFinder *
Discover literature content from more than 150,000 full-text poems, 840,000 poem citations and excerpts, 7,100 full-text short stories and novels, 3,800 full-text essays published in the 16th-20th centuries, 2,400 full-text speeches, and…
Literature Criticism Online
This extensive compilation of literary commentary represents a range of modern and historical views on authors and their works across regions, eras, and genres. Covers Children’s, Classical, Contemporary, Drama, Poetry, Shakespearean,…
Kids InfoBits *
Elementary students in kindergarten through grade five will find age-appropriate content covering a broad range of educational topics such as animals, arts, geography, health, literature, people, social studies, technology, etc. Kids…
Gale Literary Sources (formerly Artemis)
Cross-search all of Gale’s literature databases from a single digital space to find biographies, primary sources, contextual reference, and criticism. Includes Dictionary of Literary Biography, Something About the Author, LitFinder,…
Books & Authors *
Discover fiction and non-fiction books that match your interests! Books and Authors (powered by Gale's popular What Do I Read Next? series) is for readers from every level of reading proficiency and enables users to explore the endless…
Biography in Context
Comprehensive online biographical reference database in the areas of literature,science,multicultural studies,business,entertainment,politics,sports,government,history,arts and newsmakers from around the world and throughout history.
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Jonathan Safran Foer | We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast
Renowned for placing “his reader’s hand on the heart of human experience” ( Philadelphia Inquirer ), Jonathan Safran Foer is the bestselling author of the frenetically irreverent, emotionally urgent novels Everything Is Illuminated ,…
Elaine Welteroth | More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say)
In conversation with Rakia Reynolds , founder and CEO of Skai Blue Media The firebrand former editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue and the first African American ever to hold the post of beauty and health director in Condé Nast’s 107-year…
Jason Baumann | The Stonewall Reader with Mark Segal, Karla Jay and Joel Hall
On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the riots that started the fight for American LGBTQ+ rights, The Stonewall Reader highlights some of the movement’s most iconic moments and figures in the years before and after those tumultuous…
Frank Langfitt | The Shanghai Free Taxi: Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China
In conversation with Bill Marimow As NPR's Correspondent in Shanghai, Frank Langfitt created a free-taxi service where he offered rides in exchange for passenger's stories and candid conversation. He met a motley crew of characters…
Mark Kram Jr. | Smokin’ Joe: The Life of Joe Frazier
In conversation with longtime radio host Steve Ross Mark Kram Jr. won the 2013 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing for Like Any Normal Day , the tragic story of two brothers bonded but separated by a devastating sports injury. He…
Rick Atkinson | The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777
Rick Atkinson won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for An Army at Dawn , the first volume in his Liberation trilogy, a “densely researched but supremely readable” ( New York Times Book Review ) history of the Allied victory in World War II. His…
John Waters | Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder
In conversation with Jason Freeman, producer and editor of author events John Waters’s transgressive movies include Pink Flamingos , Hairspray , Cry-Baby , Serial Mom , and Cecil B. Demented . He is also the author of Shock Value…
Eve Ensler | The Apology
One of Newsweek ’s “150 Women Who Shake the World” and the Guardian ’s “Top 100 Women,” Tony Award–winning playwright Eve Ensler is a performer, activist, and author. Her phenomenon The Vagina Monologues has been published in nearly…
Adam Gopnik | A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism
A staff writer at The New Yorker for more than three decades, Adam Gopnik is the author of Paris to the Moon , The Table Comes First , and At the Strangers’ Gate , an “elegant” memoir of his 1980s move to a peculiar New York that…
David Brooks | The Second Mountain
A “clever and insightful inspector of the American scene” ( Wall Street Journal ), David Brooks has written an op-ed column for The New York Times since 2003. A former editor and columnist at The Weekly Standard , The Washington Times ,…
George Packer | Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century
George Packer won the 2013 National Book Award for The Unwinding , a biographical examination of the seismic shifts in economics and politics over the past three decades that have brought the United States to the brink. A longtime New…
Lorene Cary | Ladysitting: My Year with Nana at the End of Her Century
“A powerful storyteller, frankly sensual [and] mortally funny" ( New York Times ), Lorene Cary is the author of the novels Pride , The Price of a Child , If Sons, Then Heirs , and the memoir Black Ice . A senior lecturer in creative…
Nicole Weisensee Egan | Chasing Cosby: The Downfall of America’s Dad
In conversation with Annette John-Hall, cohost and producer of The Why on WHYY A 14-year veteran crime reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News , Nicole Weisensee Egan was the first journalist to delve into Andrea Constand’s 2005 sexual…
Melinda Gates | The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World
In conversation with John Green
Ranked by Forbes as the third most powerful woman in the world, Melinda Gates has been on a 20-year mission to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. Through her work as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—the…
Mark Bowden | The Last Stone: A Masterpiece of Criminal Interrogation
In conversation with Catherine M. Recker. “One of the most intense, visceral” ( Philadelphia Inquirer ) writers of our time, Mark Bowden is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and Vanity Fair and is the author of numerous New York…
Janny Scott | The Beneficiary: Fortune, Misfortune, and the Story of My Father
In conversation with Bruce Weber, former obituary writer for the New York Times and author of the books As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires and Life is A Wheel: Memoirs of a Bike-Riding Obituarist . Janny Scott, a…
Mary Norris | Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen
“A rollicking adventure into the origins of the apostrophe, the proliferation of profanity in American culture, and everything in between” ( San Francisco Chronicle ), Mary Norris’s bestselling Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma…
Patricia Marx and Roz Chast | Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It?: A Mother's Suggestions
A 30-year contributor to The New Yorker , Patricia Marx is the author of several books including Starting From Happy and Him Her Him Again the End of Him , both of which were Thurber Prize finalists. A former writer for Saturday Night…
Kwame Onwuachi | Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir
In conversation with Chef Elijah Milligan A former Top Chef star, the executive chef at Washington D.C.’s popular Kith and Kin, and a Forbes and Zagat’s 30 Under 30 honoree, Kwame Onwuachi is one of America’s most acclaimed young…
Richard Blanco | How to Love a Country: Poems
Richard Blanco made history four times at Barack Obama’s second presidential inauguration: He was the first immigrant, the first Latino, the youngest person, and the first openly gay person to be the U.S. inaugural poet. Exploring…