April 2026

Haere mai, welcome to our Biography & Memoir newsletter. Explore true stories about people and their interesting lives.

Staff List

New For You - Biographies - April 2026

New biographies and memoirs of the famous, the interesting and everyday people.

New For You Biographies

National Book Critics Circle Awards

Autobiography / Memoir winner
Mother Mary Comes to Me Arundhati Roy

See shortlisted titles and previous winners

Biography winner
A Perfect Turmoil: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America's Disabled Alex Green

See shortlisted titles and previous winners

Coming soon

Night, Ma by Elizabeth Knox (published 9 April)

With characteristic generosity and transcendence, beloved New Zealand writer Elizabeth Knox guides us through time, illness, loss, and the loneliness of unutterable experiences.

ReadingRoom has excellent coverage of this book including Emily Perkins on Elizabeth Knox.

Stakes: A memoir by Noelle McCarthy (published 2 June)

More than a century after readers were first mesmerised by Dracula, Stakes transposes its electric themes of transgression, intoxication and sexual danger onto Noelle’s own life, asking: what’s the difference between an inheritance and a curse? This is a follow up to Noelle's popular memoir Grand: Becoming my mother's daughter.

New in Biography & Memoir

New

"The Art of Kaylene Whiskey" by Whiskey, Kaylene, 1976-

"Being Thomas Jefferson" by Burstein, Andrew, 1952-

"Bernie for Burlington" by Chiasson, Dan, 1971-

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Aotearoa New Zealand

"Every Second Counts" by Glennie, Charlotte, 1972-

"Finding Cynthia Winters" by Watson, Sue

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