Drama high

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Judith Malina

As cofounder of the internationally-known, highly-controversial radical political troupe, The Living Theater, author Judith Malina is one of the leading female countercultural figures of the 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. In Full moon stages: personal notes from 50 years of The Living Theatre, she creates an intimate memoir in a unique format with a collection of personal notes written on every full moon for 50 years from 1964 to 2014. These never-before-published entries reveal Malina's most private thoughts and inform the reader on what The Living Theatre was performing as they wound their way from New York City to Italy, France, Belgium, Germany and Brazil in a nomadic series of notable performances of such underground classics as The Brig, The Connection, and Paradise Now. Malina is relentless in her commitment to the full moon schedule, writing regardless of her current life circumstance. Notes issue forth from hotels, trains--even prison, offering a light on the consequences of holding true to her code of the theatrical expression of her pacifist-anarchist principles.

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Thomas Maier

Dr. Benjamin Spock is a uniquely American figure, a Connecticut Yankee whose name is a symbol of family life and whose Book of Baby and Child Care is revered for its common-sense, down-to-earth voice. At the same time, in many ways, Spock is a revolutionary and a magnet for controversy. The first pediatrician to apply Freud's theories of psychology to children, he wrote his book as a Freudian tract in disguise, intentionally camouflaging Freud for Americans (mixing in a little of John Dewey's progressive educational psychology as well as a great chunk of old-fashioned American optimism). When he applied his ideals to politics, Spock shocked his multitude of fans by protesting against the Vietnam War with Martin Luther King in 1967 and by running for president on the People's Party ticket in 1972. He was attacked by Norman Vincent Peale and Spiro Agnew for fostering a "permissive" society and by feminists for his traditional attitudes about women's role in the family. Perhaps even more startling, however, is Spock's troubled personal life. Thomas Maier's extensive interviews with Spock, his family, and those who knew him draw the first complete picture of this complicated man.

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Melissa Fay Greene

Relates the story of how an incredibly lucky group of miners managed to live through the worst mining accident of the twentieth century, the 1958 explosion at Nova Scotia's Springhill Mine.

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Alix Kates Shulman

At twenty, Alix Kates Shulman wrenched herself from her middle-class family and staked a claim to a fierce independence. In this unflinching but tender memoir, she explores what it means to do what is expected of a daughter - discovering in the process the unexpected, complicated joys of going home. A Good Enough Daughter is the story of Schulman's difficult journey from dependency to alienation to reconciliation, as she returns home to care for her aging parents in the last years of their lives. The intersection of her own memory with family documents discovered in her parents' house provides the structure for this riveting exploration of her life as a daughter.