Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith

Though ably capturing his subject’s life, this biographer seems dismissive of her work.

Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir

A transracial adoptee reveals her struggle to build a Black identity in a world of white privilege.

Widowish: A Memoir

By Melissa Gould

Widowish: A Memoir

A young woman struggles with the loss of her husband and the category it suddenly puts her in.

Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel

This lengthy account of a trailblazing suffragist buries its subject until details about the era in which she lived.

150 Glimpses of the Beatles

An unusual, uneven look at the Fab Four.

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

A superb reappraisal of a literary and feminist legend whose death has too much eclipsed her work.

Aftershocks: A Memoir

Mapping and mining the topography of grief.