May 30th, 2025
In
Wallace Stegner: Dean of Western Writers, published by Signature Books in February 2025, this longtime
Boston Globe columnist and author takes readers on a brisk and riveting journey through Stegner’s life and complicated legacy. As one of the most distinguished chroniclers of the American West, Stegner wrote fourteen novels and seventeen works of nonfiction during a career that spanned half a century. Alex Beam has written two novels and seven works of nonfiction,…
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Tags: Alex Beam, biographers, Biographers International Organization, biography, jack farrell, podcast, Wallace Stegner, westerns
May 16th, 2025
In this special episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, National Humanities Medal recipient, and New York University history professor emeritus
David Levering Lewis discusses his latest book—a sweeping exploration of his own family history.
The Stained Glass Window: A Family History as the American Story: 1790-1958 was published by Penguin Random House in February 2025. Lewis received Pulitzers for his W. E. B. Du Bois biographies, and his extraordinary body of work, including 11 books, has been…
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Tags: biographers, Biographers International Organization, biography, David Levering Lewis, jack farrell, podcast, Pulitzer Prize, The Stained Glass Window
December 20th, 2024
This historian, best-selling author and foreign-policy analyst talks about his latest book,
Reagan: His Life and Legend. Published by Liveright in September 2024, this biography was recognized as one of the Ten Best Books of this year by
The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post and the
Economist. Boot’s previous biography,
The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam, also was a
New York Times…
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Tags: american prometheus, j robert oppenheimer, jack farrell, John A. Farrell, Kai Bird, oppenheimer
December 16th, 2024
This journalist’s co-authored and Pulitzer Prize winning biography,
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, served as the inspiration for the Oscar winning film,
Oppenheimer. Bird has written several critically acclaimed biographies, including
The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy, Brothers in Arms;
The Chairman: John J. McCloy and the Making of the American Establishment;
The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames;…
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Tags: american prometheus, j robert oppenheimer, jack farrell, John A. Farrell, Kai Bird, oppenheimer
November 29th, 2024
This veteran author and Rutgers University journalism professor speaks with BIO member Kevin McGruder about his latest book,
John Lewis: A Life. It was published by Simon and Schuster in October 2024 and supported by grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library, and the Leon Levy Center for Biography. Greenberg’s previous books include
Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image and
Republic …
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Tags: David Greenberg, John Lewis, john Lewis: a life, Kevin McGruder
November 22nd, 2024
Veteran biographer and emeritus Baruch College journalism professor Carl Rollyson talks about his latest book,
Sylvia Plath Day by Day, Volume 2, published by the University Press of Mississippi in August 2024. Rollyson’s impressive literary output—of more than 40 books—includes examinations of William Faulkner, Amy Lowell, Walter Brennan, Lillian Hellman, Norman Mailer and Marilyn Monroe
. He also coauthored
Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon, Revised and Updated. Rollyson’s reviews of biographies have appeared…
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Tags: Carl Rollyson, John A. Farrell, Sylvia Plath Day by Day, Volume 2
November 15th, 2024
Award-winning historian, curator and biographer, Heath Hardage Lee, talks about her latest book,
The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington’s Most Private First Lady. It was published by St. Martin’s Press in August 2024. Lee’s work has been featured on the
Today Show, C-Span, and on the Smithsonian Channel’s
America’s Hidden Stories. She also writes about history and politics for publications such as
Time,
The Hill,
The Atlantic and
White …
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Tags: heath hardage lee, John A. Farrell, mrs nixon
November 8th, 2024
Celebrated documentary filmmaker and Television Hall of Fame inductee Ken Burns, talks about his latest film,
Leonardo da Vinci. It will air nationwide on PBS network stations
on
November 18 and 19, 2024. Burns has directed and produced such acclaimed historical documentaries as,
The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The War; The National Parks: America’s Best Idea; Prohibition, The Vietnam War;
Country Music; The U.S. and the Holocaust and
The American Buffalo. Burns’
biographical documentaries…
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Published under:
Tags: David McMahon, Ken burns, Leonardo da vinci, pbs, Sarah burns
