Share in the childhood tales of A Girl Named Zippy. Hear Kenneth Branagh read Samuel Pepys' exuberant 17th-century diary. Be transformed by the extraordinary women of Half the Sky. You'll find these and other remarkable life stories under biography and memoir.
A captivating memoir of a biracial boy growing up in Washington, DC, abandoned by his birth parents, and lovingly raised by a woman with deep emotional scars from her upbringing in the segregated South. Learn More
by Rodney Stotts with Kate Pipkin; read by James Fouhey
To escape the tough streets of Southeast Washington DC in the late 1980s, young Rodney Stotts would ride the metro to the Smithsonian National Zoo. There, the bald eagles and other birds of prey captured his imagination for the first time. In Bird Brother, Rodney shares his unlikely journey to becoming a conservationist and one of America's few Black master falconers. Learn More
The remarkable, ridiculous, rain-soaked story of Shakespeare's Jubilee: the event that established William Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time. Learn More
Based on years of interviews with a generation of leading writers, artists, and editors, Karl Stock reveals the true story of the wild times, passion, and determination that helped, hindered, and saw the reinvention of comics. Learn More
Overshadowed by his fellow Founders, David O. Stewart restores James Madison to his proper place as the most significant framer of the new nation, through his successive partnerships with mentor George Washington, co-author Alexander Hamilton, political ally Thomas Jefferson, successor James Monroe, and his wife, Dolley. Learn More
The result of twenty years of research, Gene Smith's Sink is an unprecedented look into the photographer's beguiling legacy and the subjects around him. Learn More
A lively, behind-the-scenes look at the historic cohort of diverse, young, and groundbreaking women newly elected to the House of Representatives in 2018 as they arrive in Washington, DC, and start working for change, by a New York Times reporter with sharp insight and deep knowledge of the Hill. Learn More
Since her death in 2003, Nina Simone has been the subject of an astonishing number of rereleased, remastered, and remixed albums and compilations as well as biographies, films, viral memes, samples, and soundtracks. In Fantasies of Nina Simone, Jordan Alexander Stein examines the space between our collective and individual fantasies about Simone the performer, civil rights activist, and icon, and her own fantasies about herself. Learn More
