“What are the best Biography and Memoir books released in 2019?” We looked at 191 of the top Biography and Memoir books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!
The top 29 books, all appearing on 2 or more “Best Biography and Memoir” book lists, are ranked below by how many times they appear. The remaining 150+ titles, as well as the sources we used, are in alphabetical order on the bottom of the page.
Our other Best Of 2019 Articles:
Our Other Years: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015
Happy Scrolling!
Lists It Appears On:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The intimate, inspiring, and authoritative biography of Sandra Day O’Connor, America’s first female Supreme Court justice, drawing on exclusive interviews and first-time access to Justice O’Connor’s archives—by the New York Time
Lists It Appears On:
On June 16, 1976, Hector Pieterson, an ordinary boy, lost his life after getting caught up in what was supposed to be a peaceful protest. Black South African students were marching against a new law requiring that they be taught half of their subjects in A
Lists It Appears On:
Here We Are is a heart-wrenching memoir about an immigrant family’s American Dream, the justice system that took it away, and the daughter who fought to get it back, from NPR correspondent Aarti Namdev Shahani. The Shahanis came to Queens—from India, by wa
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From the two-time Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter comes a haunting memoir in stories in the tradition of Patti Smith’s M Train. Horror Stories is a literary accomplishment that reads like the confessions of a friend.
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“Nelson plaits her narrative with Western lingo and homespun similes. . . . James’ painterly oils swirl with energy, visible daubs creating the dusty, monumental landscape and equally monumental horses and humans. . . . A champion indeed.” —Kirkus Reviews
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Do you have what it takes to stand between us and the enemy? “I’m here to prevent a major and imminent attack. One that will kill children. I’m alone and operational in the country where my colleague was taken and beheaded, and every hour I’m delayed is an
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“From a New York Timesbest-selling writer, psychotherapist, and advice columnist, a brilliant and surprising new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist’s world–where her patients are in crisis (and so is she)”–
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An inspirational memoir about how Jennifer Pastiloff’s years of waitressing taught her to seek out unexpected beauty, how hearing loss taught her to listen fiercely, how being vulnerable allowed her to find love, and how imperfections can lead to a life fu
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“A gripping and beautiful book about the power of love in the face of unimaginable loss.” –Cheryl Strayed For readers of The Bright Hour and When Breath Becomes Air, a moving, transcendent memoir of loss and a stunning exploration of marriage in the wake
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Bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson is known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. Now, inspired by her fans and enraged by how little in our culture has changed since her groundbreaking novel Speak was first published twenty years ago, she has written a poetry memoir that is as vulnerable as it is rallying, as timely as it is timeless. In free verse, Anderson shares reflections, rants, and calls to action woven between deeply personal stories from her life that she’s never written about before.
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The brilliant coming-of-age-and-into-superstardom story of one of the greatest artists of all time, in his own words—featuring never-before-seen photos, original scrapbooks and lyric sheets, and the exquisite memoir he began writing before his tragic death
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Miscast in the media for nearly 130 years, the victims of Jack the Ripper finally get their full stories told in this eye-opening and chilling reminder that life for middle-class women in Victorian London could be full of social pitfalls and peril.
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“The Undying is a startling, urgent intervention in our discourses about sickness and health, art and science, language and literature, and mortality and death. In dissecting what she terms ‘the ideological regime of cancer,’ Anne Boyer has produced a prof
Lists It Appears On:
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ‘Julie Yip-Williams conquered blindness and adversity only to be struck down. Her book is heartbreaking and necessary.’ Guardian ‘Eloquent, gutting and at times disarmingly funny … a magnificent writer.’ New York Times Born
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A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION A brilliant, haunting and unforgettable memoir from a stunning new talent about the inexorable pull of home and family, set in a shotgun house in New Orleans East. In 1961, S
Lists It Appears On:
“I was saying things in songs that female singers didn’t really say back then. I wasn’t submissive or begging him to come back, I was kicking his ass, kicking him out, kicking my own ass too. My Blondie character was an inflatable doll but with a dark, pro
Lists It Appears On:
In this follow-up to her critically acclaimed and bestselling memoir Home, the enchanting Julie Andrews picks up her story with her arrival in Hollywood, sharing the career highlights, personal experiences and reflections behind her astonishing career, inc
Lists It Appears On:
WINNER OF THE 2019 KIRKUS PRIZE IN NONFICTION One of the most anticipated books of Fall 2019—as selected by O, The Oprah Magazine; Marie Claire; Entertainment Weekly; Time; The Millions; Refinery29; Good Housekeeping; and many more. “A moving, bracingly ho
Lists It Appears On:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A gripping genetic detective story, and a meditation on the meaning of parenthood and family.” —Jennifer Egan, author of Manhattan Beach From the acclaimed, best-selling memoirist, novelist—“a writer of rare talent” (Cheryl Stray
Lists It Appears On:
Famed American actress Demi Moore at last tells her own story in a surprisingly intimate and emotionally charged memoir. For decades, Demi Moore has been synonymous with celebrity. From iconic film roles to high-profile relationships, Moore has never been
Lists It Appears On:
Evicted meets Nickel and Dimed in Stephanie Land’s memoir about working as a maid, a beautiful and gritty exploration of poverty in America. Includes a foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich. At 28, Stephanie Land’s plans of breaking free from the roots of her hom
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George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war
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On a hot July night on Cape Cod, at the age of 14, Brodeur became a confidante to her mother’s affair with her husband’s closest friend. Malabar came to rely on her daughter to help, but when the affair had calamitous consequences for everyone involved, Br
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From the National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids and M Train, a profound, beautifully realized memoir in which dreams and reality are vividly woven into a tapestry of one transformative year. Following a run of New Year’s concerts at San Francisco’
Lists It Appears On:
The never-before-told story of Virginia Hall, the American spy who changed the course of the World War II, from the author of Clementine In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: “She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and
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In the past twenty years, as the structures of Canadian culture have begun to change, so has the fate of As For Me and My House.
Lists It Appears On:
From one of America’s greatest non-fiction writers, an epic saga of the rise and fall of American power, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, told through the life of one man. Richard Holbrooke was one of the most legendary and complicated figures in recent Americ
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In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing experience with a charismatic but volatile woman, this is a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural
Lists It Appears On:
‘I can’t wait to read it’ Dolly Alderton ‘Extraordinary woman turning pain into power. Chanel Miller, it’s a privilege to know your name, and to celebrate it’ Thandie Newton ‘You are a brave soul. You are more than the identity given to you by the media an
| # | Books | Authors | Lists |
| 30 | A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life Of Music And Cheap Lessons | Ben Folds | NPR |
| 31 | A Good American Family: The Red Scare And My Father | David Maraniss | NPR |
| 32 | A Seat at the Table | Evening Standard | |
| 33 | A Song for You: My Life with Whitney Houston | Robyn Crawford | SheReads |
| 34 | A Wild And Precious Life: A Memoir | Edie Windsor and Joshua Lyon | NPR |
| 35 | Acid For The Children: A Memoir | Flea | NPR |
| 36 | Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn | Evening Standard | |
| 37 | AGENT JACK: THE TRUE STORY OF MI5’S SECRET NAZI HUNTER | Robert Hutton | Kirkus Reviews 2 |
| 38 | ALL THE POWERS OF EARTH: THE POLITICAL LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN VOL. III, 1856-1863 | Sidney Blumenthal | Kirkus Reviews 2 |
| 39 | All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir | Nicole Chung | Five Books 2 |
| 40 | Among the Maasai: A Memoir | Juliet Cutler | SheReads 2 |
| 41 | Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time | Booklist | |
| 42 | Beautiful on the Outside: A Memoir | Adam Rippon | SheReads |
| 43 | BECOMING DR. SEUSS: THEODOR GEISEL AND THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN IMAGINATION | Brian Jay Jones | Kirkus Reviews 2 |
| 44 | Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society | Goodreads | |
| 45 | Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home | Nora Krug | Five Books 2 |
| 46 | Black Is The Body: Stories From My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, And Mine | Emily Bernard | NPR |
| 47 | Blood: A Memoir | Allison Moorer | NPR |
| 48 | Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey | Booklist | |
| 49 | Brave Face | Booklist 2 | |
| 50 | BTTM FDRS | Washington Post | |
| 51 | Camgirl | Isa Mazzei | NPR |
| 52 | CHILD OF THE DREAM : A MEMOIR OF 1963 | Kirkus | |
| 53 | Clyde Fans | Washington Post | |
| 54 | Come Find Me | Booklists 3 | |
| 55 | Constellations | Guardian | |
| 56 | D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II | Booklist | |
| 57 | DANCING HANDS: HOW TERESA CARREÑO PLAYED THE PIANO FOR PRESIDENT LINCOLN | Kirkus Reviews | |
| 58 | Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice for Living Your Best Life | Ali Wong | SheReads |
| 59 | Denis Ever After | Booklists 3 | |
| 60 | DIDEROT AND THE ART OF THINKING FREELY | Andrew S. Curran | Kirkus Reviews 2 |
| 61 | EDISON | Edmund Morris | Kirkus Reviews 2 |
| 62 | Educated: A Memoir | Tara Westover | Five Books 2 |
| 63 | Fangirls | Evening Standard | |
| 64 | Figuring. | Booklist | |
| 65 | Five Days Gone: The Mystery Of My Mother’s Disappearance As A Child | Laura Cumming | NPR |
| 66 | Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous | Christopher Bonanos | Five Books 1 |
| 67 | Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom | Booklist | |
| 68 | FREE LUNCH | Kirkus | |
| 69 | From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home | Goodreads 2 | |
| 70 | Full Circle: From Hollywood to Real Life and Back Again | Andrea Barber | SheReads |
| 71 | Go Ahead in the Rain : Notes to A Tribe Called Quest | Hanif Abdurraqib | BookMarks |
| 72 | GODS OF THE UPPER AIR: HOW A CIRCLE OF RENEGADE ANTHROPOLOGISTS REINVENTED RACE, SEX, AND GENDER IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY | Charles King | Kirkus Reviews 2 |
| 73 | GOOD TALK: A MEMOIR IN CONVERSATIONS | Mira Jacob, illustrated | Kirkus Reviews 3 |
| 74 | Grand Theft Horse | Booklist 2 | |
| 75 | Guts | Washington Post | |
| 76 | Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law | Library Journal | |
| 77 | HARD TO LOVE: ESSAYS AND CONFESSIONS | Briallen Hopper | Kirkus Reviews 3 |
| 78 | Hey, Kiddo | Booklist 2 | |
| 79 | Hidden Pieces | Booklists 3 | |
| 80 | Hollywood’s Eve: Eve Babitz And The Secret History Of L.A. | Lili Anolik | NPR |
| 81 | Hot Comb | Ebony Flowers | NPR |
| 82 | How To Be An Antiracist | Ibram X. Kendi | NPR |
| 83 | I Miss You When I Blink: Essays | Mary Laura Philpott | NPR |
| 84 | I Never Said I Loved You | Guardian | |
| 85 | I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir | Malaka Gharib | NPR |
| 86 | I Will Never See the World Again: The Memoir of an Imprisoned Writer | Amazon | |
| 87 | I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer | Michelle McNamara | SheReads 2 |
| 88 | If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now: Why We Traded The Commuting Life For A Little House On The Prairie | Christopher Ingraham | NPR |
| 89 | In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin | Booklist | |
| 90 | In Pain: A Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle With Opioids | Travis Rieder | NPR |
| 91 | In Pieces | Sally Field | SheReads |
| 92 | In The Country Of Women: A Memoir | Susan Straight | NPR |
| 93 | In Waves | A.J. Dungo | NPR |
| 94 | INFINITE HOPE: A BLACK ARTIST’S JOURNEY FROM WORLD WAR II TO PEACE | Kirkus | |
| 95 | Inseparable: The Original Siamese Twins and Their Rendezvous with American History | Yunte Huang | Five Books 1 |
| 96 | IT BEGAN WITH A PAGE: HOW GYO FUJIKAWA DREW THE WAY | Kirkus Reviews | |
| 97 | Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts). | Booklists 3 | |
| 98 | Jerome Robbins, By Himself: Selections From His Letters, Journals, Drawings, Photographs, And An Unfinished Memoir | Jerome Robbins, edited | NPR |
| 99 | Just Like Beverly: A Biography Of Beverly Cleary | Vicki Conrad, illustrated | NPR |
| 100 | Kid Gloves | Washington Post | |
| 101 | L.E.L.: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated “Female Byron” | Lucasta. Miller | BookMarks |
| 102 | Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me | Washington Post | |
| 103 | Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir Of Recording And Discording With Wilco, Etc. | Jeff Tweedy | NPR |
| 104 | Little Weirds | Jenny Slate | SheReads |
| 105 | Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry | Booklist | |
| 106 | Lowborn | Guardian | |
| 107 | Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France’s Largest Spy Network Against Hitler | Lynne Olson | NPR |
| 108 | MAMASKATCH: A CREE COMING OF AGE | Darrel J. McLeod | Kirkus Reviews 3 |
| 109 | Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein | Booklist 2 | |
| 110 | Middlewest: Book 1 | Washington Post | |
| 111 | Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster | Goodreads | |
| 112 | Mister Miracle | Washington Post | |
| 113 | Mr. Penguin and the Lost Treasure | Booklists 3 | |
| 114 | Music to My Years: A Mixtape Memoir of Growing Up and Standing Up | Cristela Alonzo | SheReads |
| 115 | My Name Is Why | Guardian | |
| 116 | MY PARENTS: AN INTRODUCTION / THIS DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU | Aleksandar Hemon | Kirkus Reviews 3 |
| 117 | Naturally Tan: A Memoir | Tan France | SheReads 2 |
| 118 | New Kid | Washington Post | |
| 119 | Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret | Craig Brown | Five Books 1 |
| 120 | Notes From A Young Black Chef: A Memoir | Kwame Onwuachi and Joshua David Stein | NPR |
| 121 | Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over | Nell Painter | Five Books 2 |
| 122 | On Chapel Sands | Guardian | |
| 123 | One Two Another | Evening Standard | |
| 124 | Ordinary Girls: A Memoir | Library Journal | |
| 125 | Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love | Goodreads 2 | |
| 126 | Permanent Record | Edward Snowden | NPR |
| 127 | Pies from Nowhere: How Georgia Gilmore Sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott | Booklist 2 | |
| 128 | Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control | Amazon | |
| 129 | Rapthology: Lessons in Life and Lyrics | Evening Standard | |
| 130 | REACHING FOR THE MOON: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NASA MATHEMATICIAN KATHERINE JOHNSON | Kirkus | |
| 131 | Rise Up | Evening Standard | |
| 132 | Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero | Amazon | |
| 133 | Rusty Brown | Washington Post | |
| 134 | Ruth Bader Ginsburg. | Booklist | |
| 135 | Sadie | Booklists 3 | |
| 136 | Saturday’s Child: A Daughter’s Memoir | Deborah Burns | SheReads 2 |
| 137 | Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir | Amazon | |
| 138 | Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland | Goodreads | |
| 139 | SELF-PORTRAIT IN BLACK AND WHITE: UNLEARNING RACE | Thomas Chatterton Williams | Kirkus Reviews 3 |
| 140 | Small Fry: A Memoir | Lisa Brennan-Jobs | SheReads |
| 141 | SOLDIER FOR EQUALITY: JOSÉ DE LA LUZ SÁENZ AND THE GREAT WAR | Kirkus Reviews | |
| 142 | Solitary: Unbroken By Four Decades In Solitary Confinement | Albert Woodfox | NPR |
| 143 | Sontag: Her Life and Work | Benjamin Moser | BookMarks |
| 144 | Spin | Booklists 3 | |
| 145 | Survival Math: Notes On An All-American Family | Mitchell S. Jackson | NPR |
| 146 | TELL ME WHO YOU ARE: SHARING OUR STORIES OF RACE, CULTURE, & IDENTITY | Winona Guo, Priya Vulchi | Kirkus Reviews 2 |
| 147 | THE ART OF LEAVING: A MEMOIR | Ayelet Tsabari | Kirkus Reviews 3 |
| 148 | The Beneficiary: Fortune, Misfortune, And The Story Of My Father | Janny Scott | NPR |
| 149 | The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created | Jane Leavy | Five Books 1 |
| 150 | The Broken Road: George Wallace And A Daughter’s Journey To Reconciliation | Peggy Wallace Kennedy | NPR |
| 151 | THE CLUB: JOHNSON, BOSWELL, AND THE FRIENDS WHO SHAPED AN AGE | Leo Damrosch | Kirkus Reviews 2 |
| 152 | The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays | Esmé Weijun Wang | NPR |
| 153 | The Day That Went Missing: A Family’s Story | Richard Beard | Five Books 2 |
| 154 | The Education Of An Idealist: A Memoir | Samantha Power | NPR |
| 155 | The Elephant In The Room: One Fat Man’s Quest To Get Smaller In A Growing America | Tommy Tomlinson | NPR |
| 156 | The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler | Booklist 2 | |
| 157 | The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington | Goodreads | |
| 158 | The Frame-Up. | Booklists 3 | |
| 159 | The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present | Goodreads | |
| 160 | THE IMPORTANT THING ABOUT MARGARET WISE BROWN | Kirkus Reviews | |
| 161 | The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and the Climbing Life | Amazon | |
| 162 | The Last Last-Day-of-Summer. | Booklists 3 | |
| 163 | THE LIGHT YEARS: A MEMOIR | Chris Rush | Kirkus Reviews 3 |
| 164 | The Making of Poetry | Guardian | |
| 165 | The Man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century | Mark Lamster | Five Books 1 |
| 166 | The Mastermind: Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal. | Evan Ratliff | NPR |
| 167 | The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 | Goodreads | |
| 168 | The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West | Goodreads | |
| 169 | The Restless Hungarian: Modernism, Madness and The American Dream | Tom Weidlinger | SheReads 2 |
| 170 | The Ride Of A Lifetime: Lessons Learned From 15 Years As CEO Of The Walt Disney Company | Robert Iger | NPR |
| 171 | The Salt Path | Raynor Winn | NPR |
| 172 | The Valedictorian of Being Dead: The True Story of Dying Ten Times to Live | Heather B. Armstrong | SheReads 2 |
| 173 | THE WORLD ACCORDING TO FANNIE DAVIS: MY MOTHER’S LIFE IN THE DETROIT NUMBERS | Bridgett M. Davis | Kirkus Reviews 3 |
| 174 | The World’s Fastest Man: The Extraordinary Life of Cyclist Major Taylor, America’s First Black Sports Hero | Booklist | |
| 175 | Then It Fell Apart | Evening Standard | |
| 176 | Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl: A Memoir | Amazon | |
| 177 | This Story Is a Lie | Booklists 3 | |
| 178 | Three Women | Guardian | |
| 179 | Together: A Memoir of a Marriage and a Medical Mishap | Judy Goldman | SheReads 2 |
| 180 | Toil & Trouble | Goodreads 2 | |
| 181 | TROUBLEMAKER FOR JUSTICE: THE STORY OF BAYARD RUSTIN, THE MAN BEHIND THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON | Kirkus | |
| 182 | Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church | Amazon | |
| 183 | WAR FLOWER: MY LIFE AFTER IRAQ | Brooke King | Kirkus Reviews 3 |
| 184 | Wham! George and Me | Guardian 2 | |
| 185 | What Do You Do with a Voice like That? The Story of Extraordinary Congresswoman Barbara Jordan | Booklist 2 | |
| 186 | What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir In Essays | Damon Young | NPR |
| 187 | What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood | Rigoberto González | Five Books 2 |
| 188 | What My Mother And I Don’t Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break The Silence | Michele Filgate (editor) | NPR |
| 189 | What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir Of Witness And Resistance | Carolyn Forché | NPR |
| 190 | WHEN DEATH TAKES SOMETHING FROM YOU GIVE IT BACK: CARL’S BOOK | Naja Marie Aidt, translated | Kirkus Reviews 3 |
| 191 | When We Were Arabs: A Jewish Family’s Forgotten History | Massoud Hayoun | NPR |
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