New Books in Biography Podcast
1) Everything Is Fine, I'll Just Work Harder: Confessions of a Former Badass
In Everything Is Fine, I’ll Just Work Harder: Confessions of A Former Badass (Street Noise Books, 2025), Professor Cara Gormally draws us into the familiar academic world of chronic busyness. In pan...Show More
2) Luiz Guilherme Burlamaqui, "The Making of Global FIFA: Cold War Politics and the Rise of João Havelange to the FIFA Presidency, 1950-1974" (De Gruyter, 2023)
Today we are joined by Luiz Guilherme Burlamaqui, author of The Making of Global FIFA: Cold War Politics and the Rise of João Havelange to the FIFA Presidency, 1950-1974 (De Gruyter, 2023). This book ...Show More
3) Vanessa Díaz and Petra R. Rivera-Rideau, "P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance" (Duke UP, 2026)
P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance (Duke UP, 2026) explores the work of Puerto Rican musical superstar Bad Bunny (Benito A. Martinez Ocasio), focusing on his cul...Show More
4) Matthew Kennedy, "On Elizabeth Taylor: An Opinionated Guide" (Oxford UP, 2024)
In the oceans of ink devoted to the monumental movie star/businesswoman/political activist Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (1932-2011), her beauty and not-so-private life frequently overshadowed her movies....Show More
5) Chris Boucher, "Harry "Bucky" Lew: A Biography of the First Black Professional Basketball Player" (McFarland, 2026)
Harry "Bucky" Lew leapt over pro basketball's color wall in 1902 and continued to integrate every single role in the game over the next 25 years. He was the first Black player, coach, manager, referee...Show More
6) Stuart Klawans, "Crooked, But Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges" (Columbia UP, 2023)
In a burst of creativity unmatched in Hollywood history, Preston Sturges directed a string of all-time classic comedies from 1939 through 1948--The Great McGinty, The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, The...Show More
7) David Morris, "Stealing The Future: Sam Bankman-Fried, Elite Fraud, and the Cult of Techno-Utopia" (Watkins Media, 2025)
Stealing the Future is the first book to tell the true and full story of Sam Bankman-Fried and his historic crimes. It chronicles the $11 billion FTX fraud with the detail and nuance of a financial fr...Show More
8) Bo Tao, "Cooperative Evangelist: Kagawa Toyohiko and His World, 1888-1960" (U Hawaii Press, 2025)
Cooperative Evangelist: Kagawa Toyohiko and His World, 1888-1960 (University of Hawai’i Press, 2025) by Bo Tao uncovers the extraordinary world of a Japanese man who was once described as the “Saint F...Show More
9) Kelsey Klotz, "Dave Brubeck and the Performance of Whiteness" (Oxford UP, 2023)
How can we—jazz fans, musicians, writers, and historians—understand the legacy and impact of a musician like Dave Brubeck? It is undeniable that Brubeck leveraged his fame as a jazz musician and statu...Show More
10) D. J. Taylor, "Orwell: The New Life" (Pegasus Books, 2023)
A fascinating exploration of George Orwell--and his body of work--by an award-winning Orwellian biographer and scholar, presenting the author anew to twenty-first-century readers. We find ourselves in...Show More