Biography & Memoir

In December 2009, an al-Qaida mole believed to be a CIA informant detonated a suicide bomb inside a fortified military base in Pakistan, killing seven CIA employees. Reporter Joby Warrick writes about the man who pulled off the attack — and explains how he did it — in The Triple Agent.

Sally H. Jacobs' new biography, The Other Barack, follows the troubled life of Barack Obama Sr. — from Kenya to Hawaii and back. Jacobs believes that if Obama Sr. had played a larger role in his son's life, Obama probably wouldn't have become president.

It all started one morning in 1949, when White discovered a beautiful web in his barn, glistening with dew. In The Story of Charlotte's Web, Michael Sims explores how White wrote his magical meditation on time, mortality and friendship — for children.

The Singing Cowboy was one of the country's most popular and prolific film stars during his career; he also gained fame as a radio star, producer and TV personality. Biographer Holly George-Warren traces Autry's lengthy career in Public Cowboy No. 1.

Marine Jess Goodell spent eight months recovering and processing the remains of fallen troops in the Mortuary Affairs unit. "I don't think I ever stopped smelling death when I was in Iraq," she says.

Dr. David Ansell's experiences treating patients at Chicago's public hospital for 17 years turned him into a strong advocate for national health care reform. He details what it was like to work with Chicago's uninsured patient population in a new memoir and social history.

Ian Brown's son Walker as a rare disorder that left him with severe cognitive, developmental and physical disabilities. Brown's new memoir, The Boy in the Moon, is about his journey trying to answer medical and philosophical questions about his son's existence.

Combat photographer Joao Silva is at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he's recovering after losing his legs in an explosion in October. Greg Marinovich is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who was shot four times while covering conflicts. Silva and Marinovich talk about life as war photographers with Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

Jon Sarkin was working as a chiropractor when he suffered a massive stroke. Afterwards, he became an obsessive visual artist whose work was as fragmented and cluttered as his mind had become. Sarkin is the subject of a new book, Shadows Bright as Glass, by science writer Amy Nutt.

In Art and Madness, her memoir of the literary 1950s, writer Anne Roiphe describes going into labor by herself in a snowdrift, unable to waker her sleeping playwright husband. Over the years, she learns her own power, charting her course through feminism and a life in art.

Frank Calabrese Jr. has written a memoir about brining down his father's murderous Chicago crime family. In Operation Family Secrets, Frank details how he helped the FBI convict his father of several murders by wearing a hidden wire and taping his father's conversations.

Former CIA operatives Robert and Dayna Baer met on the job and fell in love. They talk about their relationship and some of their assignments in The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story.

Two years after opening his award-winning Chicago restaurant Alinea, chef Grant Achatz was diagnosed with tongue cancer. He describes losing and regaining his taste in Life, on the Line. "My palate developed just as a newborn," Achatz says. "i don't recommend it, but I think it made me a better chef."

Packaged teen idol Justin Bieber is the star of a new concert documentary, Never Say Never, which follows him as he prepares for a show at Madison Square Garden. Film critic David Edelstein says the film is an "expertly engineered promo" that can make little girls — and Bieber's marketing team — scream with delight.

Country music singer and songwriter Rodney Crowell brings his guitar to play some songs that relate to his new memoir, "Chinaberry Sidewalks." Crowell has been successful in the worlds of country music and alternative music. His songs have been hits for many singers, including Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings and Tim McGraw.

Enter Me

Hal Needham worked as a Hollywood stuntman for over 40 years. He details some of his most death-defying feats (and why he can't stand modern special effects) in his new memoir, Stuntman!

J.D Salinger died a year ago this Thursday, and in time for that anniversary, there's a newly published biography called, simply, J.D. Salinger: A Life. Book critic Maureen Corrigan says readers who revere Salinger will find a lot that's surprising in his early background.