No matter what your interests, there’s a biography or memoir for you.  This month we’ve got actors, artists, French models, children of cult members, wild women, foodies and much more in our latest crop of new biographies and memoirs in our collection.  Try some of these…

Kiki Man Ray : art, love, and rivalry in 1920s Paris / Braude, Mark
“In freewheeling 1920s Paris, Kiki de Montparnasse captivated as a nightclub performer, sold out gallery showings of her paintings, starred in Surrealist films, and shared drinks and ideas with the likes of Jean Cocteau and Marcel Duchamp. Her best-selling memoir-featuring an introduction by Ernest Hemingway-made front-page news in France and was immediately banned in America. As provocative and magnetically irresistible as Kiki herself, Kiki Man Ray is the story of an exceptional life that will challenge ideas about artists and muses-and the lines separating the two.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Listening well : bringing stories of hope to life / Morris, Heather
“From New York Times bestselling author Heather Morris comes the memoir of a life of listening to others. In Listening Well, Heather will explore her extraordinary talents as a listener – a skill she employed when she first met Lale Sokolov, the tattooist at Auschwitz-Birkenau and the inspiration for her bestselling novel. It was this ability that led Lale to entrust Heather with his story, which she told in her novel The Tattooist of Auschwitz and the bestselling follow up, Cilka’s Journey.” (Adapted from catalogue)

Smart, stupid & sixty / Marsh, Nigel
“Twenty years ago, Nigel Marsh was an overweight mortgage slave struggling to balance a career, marriage and four children under eight. Until he lost his job. In Fat, Forty and Fired, Nigel wrote about falling off the corporate hamster wheel and surviving. In his memoir for his sixth decade on earth, Nigel ponders ageing well, sex, parenting adult children, his parents’ passing, and the secret to his living a happy life. By turns humorous, thought-provoking, poignant and life-affirming, Smart, Stupid and Sixty is a celebration of the third trimester as a privilege to be enjoyed rather than a sentence to be endured.” (Adapted from catalogue)

Mina Loy : apology of genius / Caws, Mary Ann
“Flamboyant and unapologetically avant-garde, Mina Loy was a painter, poet, novelist, essayist, manifesto-writer, actress, and dress and lampshade designer. Her life involved an impossible abundance of artistic friends, performance and spectacular adventures in the worlds of Futurism, Christian Science, Feminism, Fashion, and everything modern and modernist. This new account by Mary Ann Caws explores Mina Loy’s exceptional life, and features many rare images of Loy and her husband, the swiss writer, poet, artist, boxer and provocateur Arthur Cravan, who disappeared without trace in 1918.” (Adapted from catalogue)

My sand life, my pebble life : a memoir of a childhood and the sea / McMillan, Ian
“Warm and darkly funny, this sublimely crafted book transports you to the world of childhoods by the sea. In this nostalgic collection of reminiscences (with the odd poem thrown in) journey with Ian as he walks barefoot to the sea to see the sun rise. He is attacked by seagulls, and midges, and wasps. He eats a lot of fish and chips and it’s always the best yet. He nearly avoids a frisbee. He searches for jazz in Scarborough. He walks. He even tries to run. But mostly he savours the sea and our seaside moments and our seaside dreams.” (Adapted from catalogue)

Naked at the helm : independence and intimacy in the second half of life / Spector, Suzanne
“At age thirty-nine, Suzanne Spector was a wife, mother of three, and successful school director. But she was also neglected in a sexless marriage, and feeling and as if the passion and juice of life had passed her by. She began with two questions: Who am I, really? and Is it too late ? After divorcing her husband, Suzanne set out to discover who she was as an independent woman with curiosity, questions, and lust for life. Tracing more than four decades of self-discovery and intellectual, spiritual, and creative exploration, Naked at The Helm is Spector’s story of becoming the captain of her own ship in midlife.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Quilt on fire : the messy magic of mid-life / Watson, Christie
“A frank, funny and tender new book from Christie Watson about the search for meaning in mid-life. Quilt on Fire reframes mid-life with openness and honesty, and celebrates the messy magic of being a single woman in your forties. At the age of 44, following what she thought was a spectacular breakdown (and that turned out to be the peri-menopause), she asks the question: what does love mean now? Christie takes us on a very funny, sometimes shocking and touchingly poignant journey: through peri-menopause and single parenting, via a world pandemic, to a place of change and acceptance that her younger self would never have believed.” (Adapted from catalogue)

Raised by wolves / Ho, Jess
“Growing up Cantonese in the racist outer suburbs was hard enough for Jess Ho, but add in a dysfunctional family who only ever made peace over food (and then only until the bill arrived), and it was clear that a normal life was never on the menu. She emerged from her childhood with two important traits: a major psychological complex, and a kick-arse palate. Both would help her fit right into the messy world of Melbourne’s food scene. Fierce, funny and razor-sharp, Raised by Wolves is a potent coming of age story from a savage new voice.” (Adapted from catalogue)

Scenes from my life : a memoir / Williams, Michael Kenneth
“When Michael K. Williams died on September 6, 2021, he left behind a career as one of the most electrifying actors of his generation. From his star turn as Omar Little in The Wire to Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire to Emmy-nominated roles in HBO’s The Night Of and Lovecraft Country, Williams inhabited a slew of indelible roles that he portrayed with a rawness and vulnerability that leapt off the screen. Imbued with poignance and raw honesty, Scenes from My Life is the story of a performer who gave his all to everything he did-in his own voice, in his own words, as only he could.” (Adapted from catalogue)

Sins of my father : a daughter, a cult, a wild unravelling / Dunn, Lily
“When Lily Dunn was just six years old, her father left the family home to follow his guru to India, trading domestic life for clothes dyed in oranges and reds and the promise of enlightenment with the cult of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Since then he has been a mystery to her, A detective story that charts two colliding narratives, Sins of My Father is a daughter’s attempt to unravel the mysteries of a father who believed himself to be beyond reproach.” (Adapted from catalogue)

For more new items in our collection, go to:

What’s new & Popular (wcl.govt.nz)