THOUGHTFUL BIOGRAPHY of the complex and troubled chess prodigy Bobby Fischer combines sympathy with insight.

INTRIGUING BIOGRAPHY of Rome’s most (in)famous empress looks beyond the cartoon villainess of fiction and myth.

CHARLIE CHAN LIVES in this utterly absorbing look at the real Hawai’i cop who inspired the fictional detective.

FASCINATING BIOGRAPHY of Thurston the Magician, Houdini’s greatest rival and a pioneer of modern stage magic.

AMERICA’S OBSESSION with money explored through quirky biographies of 18th and 19th- century counterfeiters.

FACT-RICH, CHARMINGLY readable bio of Voltaire sheds new light on the life and work of the Enlightenment figure.

AUTHORITATIVE BIOGRAPHY of Thomas de Quincey, famed writer, opium addict, and Wordsworth/Coleridge groupie.

CIVIL RIGHTS PIONEER Charles Hamilton Houston, mentor to Thurgood Marshall, profiled in engaging book. B PLUS

ROOT AND BRANCH: CHARLES HAMILTON HOUSTON, THURGOOD MARSHALL, AND THE STRUGGLE TO END SEGREGATION
Bloomsbury USA
2010

ENGROSSING BIOGRAPHY of 20th-century gay writer, scholar, tattoo artist, sexual revolutionary Samuel Steward. B PLUS

SECRET HISTORIAN: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAMUEL STEWARD, PROFESSOR, TATTOO ARTIST, AND SEXUAL RENEGADE
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2010

ENGAGING, CLEARLY WRITTEN bio is a love letter to activist Jane Jacobs’s fight vs. overdevelopment in NYC. SOLID B

WRESTLING WITH MOSES: HOW JANE JACOBS TOOK ON NEW YORK’S MASTER BUILDER AND TRANSFORMED THE AMERICAN CITY by Anthony Flint
New York: Random House
July 2009