There is something magical about delving into the life of a person who is so different to yourself, and finding out that despite their extraordinary lives, we all have much in common.  This month’s new crop of biographies in the collection showcases many amazing lives while also highlighting the shared humanity of us all.  Try these titles to get you started.

What have we here? : portraits of a life / Williams, Billy Dee
“Billy Dee Williams was born in Harlem in 1937 and grew up in a household of love and sophistication. He studied painting, before setting out to pursue acting with Herbert Berghoff, Stella Adler, and Sidney Poitier. He became a true pop culture icon when, as the first Black character in the Star Wars universe, he played Lando Calrissian in George Lucas’s The Empire Strikes Back.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

 

Beyond hope : from an Auckland prison to changing lives in Afghanistan / Shah, Bariz
“At age 18, Bariz Shah ended up in an Auckland prison. As an Afghan migrant who was deeply affected by 9/11, Bariz spiralled from schoolyard fights into crime and drugs – until prison made him rethink the story of his life. Years later, in Christchurch, Bariz had turned everything around when a terrorist walked into the local mosque and took the lives of 51 people in his community. Driven by a new purpose, Bariz and his wife Saba raised money to return to Afghanistan and establish 51 small businesses in honour of those they lost. In this memoir about finding self-belief, belonging and positive change, Bariz’s story reminds us that we always have the power to change ourselves for the better.” (Catalogue)

Molly / Butler, Blake
“Blake Butler and Molly Brodak instantly connected, fell in love, married and built a life together. Nearly three years into their marriage, grappling with mental illness and a lifetime of trauma, Molly took her own life. In the days and weeks after Molly’s death, Blake discovered shocking secrets she had held back from the world, fundamentally altering his view of their relationship and who she was.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Arrangements in Blue : notes on loving and living alone / Key, Amy
“When British poet Amy Key was growing up, she envisioned a life shaped by love–and Joni Mitchell’s album Blue was her inspiration. As the years ticked by, she held on to this very specific idea of romance like a bottle of wine saved for a special occasion. But what happens when the romance we are all told will give life meaning never presents itself? Now single in her forties, Key explores the sweeping scales of romantic feeling as she has encountered them, using the album Blue as an expressive anchor: from the low notes of loss and unfulfilled desire–punctuated by sharp, discordant feelings of jealousy and regret–to the deep harmony of friendship, and the crescendos of sexual attraction and self-realization.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Everything is everything : a memoir of love, hate & hope / Myrie, Clive
“In this deeply personal memoir, he tells how his family history has influenced his view of the world, introducing us to his Windrush generation parents, a great grandfather who helped build the Panama Canal, and a great uncle who fought in the First World War, later to become a prominent police detective in Jamaica. He reflects on how being black has affected his perspective on issues he’s encountered in thirty years reporting some of the biggest stories of our time (most recently from Ukraine), showing us how those experiences gave him a better idea of what it means to be an outsider.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

A good bad boy : Luke Perry and how a generation grew up / Wappler, Margaret
“Best known for playing loner rebel Dylan McKay in Beverly Hills 90210, Luke Perry was fifty-two years old when he died of a stroke in 2019. Here, Margaret Wappler attempts to understand who Perry was and why he was unique among his Hollywood peers. She speaks with dozens who knew Perry personally and professionally. They share insightful anecdotes: how he kept connected to his Ohio upbringing; nearly blew his 90210 audition; tried to shed his heartthrob image by joining the HBO prison drama Oz; and in the last year of his life, sought to set up two of his newly divorced friends. (After his death, the pair bonded in their grief and eventually married.) (Adapted from Catalogue)

Waiting for the monsoon / Nordland, Rod
“In 2019, a Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent who reported in over 150 countries, many in violent upheaval, was diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor, which gave him the strength to face more personal conflicts, in this unforgettable final dispatch that reveals how facing the unknown can change our relationship to the world around us.” (Catalogue)

 

A very private school : a memoir / Spencer, Charles Spencer
“A Very Private School offers a clear-eyed, first-hand account of a culture of cruelty at the school Charles Spencer attended in his youth and provides important insights into an antiquated boarding system. Drawing on the memories of many of his schoolboy contemporaries, as well as his own letters and diaries from the time, he reflects on the hopelessness and abandonment he felt at aged eight, viscerally describing the intense pain of homesickness and the appalling inescapability of it all. Exploring the long-lasting impact of his experiences, Spencer presents a candid reckoning with his past and a reclamation of his childhood.” (Catalogue)

Here after / Lin, Amy
“Amy Lin never expected to find a love like the one she shares with her husband, Kurtis, a gifted young architect who pulls her toward joy, adventure, and greater self-acceptance. But on a sweltering August morning, only a few months shy of the newlyweds’ move to Vancouver, thirty-two-year-old Kurtis heads out to run a half-marathon with Amy’s family. It is the last time she sees her husband alive.  What follows is a rich and unflinchingly honest accounting of her life with Kurtis, the vortex created by his death, and the ongoing struggle Amy faces as she attempts to understand her own experience in the context of commonly held “truths” about what the grieving process looks like.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Lenin’s childhood / Deutscher, Isaac
“Based on a lifetime of background research, including access to the closed section of Trotsky’s archives, Lenin’s Childhood gave, at the time of its posthumous publication, a novel interpretation of the earliest influences in Lenin’s personality and thinking. Most of all, it offers a glimpse into a work unfinished, a work which would have striven save Lenin from fanatical anti-revolutionary condemnation, and, perhaps more importantly, from uncritical communist beatification.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

For more new books in the collection, go to: What’s new / April 2024 (wcl.govt.nz)