A new biography of Martin Luther King by award-winning author and journalist Jonathan Eig, including newly-revealed materials.
KING
by Jonathan Eig
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022
(chez David Black Literary Agency)
Credit: Lizz Kannenberg
Martin Luther King Jr. was the courageous and brilliant leader of the American civil rights movement, but today many know nothing about him beyond four syllables: “I have a dream.” When we turn heroes into superheroes, when we simplify the lives of great men and women in order to make their lessons easier to digest, we lose sight of their true greatness. We fail to honor them as real people with real accomplishments. Martin Luther King is fast approaching this predicament. The timing for a fresh look at his life could not be better, and the need for one is urgent: thousands of previously unseen documents have come to light, and many of King’s friends, followers, and confidants are eager to talk. Those who can give firsthand accounts are nearing the point in their lives where, if they aren’t heard soon, their stories will be lost for good. In the thirty-six years since the last full biography of King was published, a plethora of new primary documents have become available, and our understanding of King the man has fundamentally changed. The new materials include the 102 interviews with King contemporaries conducted from 2010-2016 for the National Museum of African American History and Culture; more than 100 interview transcripts from the 1987 documentary Eyes on the Prize; handwritten notes from James Baldwin; a 1964 interview with King himself taken by the poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren; as well as tens of thousands of newly released FBI documents. Some of King’s contemporaries, including Harry Belafonte and Andrew Young, have already given interviews for Jonathan Eig’s book, which will also incorporate recent research suggesting that King battled depression, drawing from thousands of newly archived personal correspondence, including letters from King to his first biographer, Lawrence Dunbar Reddick, in 1958.
Jonathan Eig is the author of five critically acclaimed books, two of them New York Times bestsellers. He was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Monsey, New York. Eig is a former staff writer for the Wall Street Journal, and he remains a contributing writer there. He has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, Esquire, the Washington Post, and other publications. His most recent book, Ali: A Life, was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. It has also been long-listed for the Plutarch Prize for biography and the 2018 PEN/ESPN Award for literary sports writing. It was selected as one of the best books of 2017 by The Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, and Sports Illustrated. Eig is currently working as producer on multi-part Muhammad Ali documentary. Eig is also working with Morgan Freeman and CBS Studios to develop an eight-part television series based on the life of Ali. Eig’s birth-control pill book is under option by Nat Geo for a television series, and his Lou Gehrig book is in development as a major motion picture. He lives in Chicago, IL.
Actors Romy Schneider and Alain Delon were the dream couple of the 1960s. They fell in love when they first met in Paris in 1958 on the set of the Arthur Schnitzler adaptation Christine, and their extraordinary roller-coaster affair would last five years. Four years later, they are reunited in front of the camera, playing lovers in the cult film The Swimming Pool, and thus begins a friendship that would last until Romy Schneider’s untimely and tragic death in 1982. When she died, it was Alain Delon who took care of everything. She was the love of his life: « Our love didn’t end. It changed. » To tell their story, the author and biographer Thilo Wydra has conducted countless in-depth interviews with Romy Schneider and Alain Delon’s friends and colleagues in France and Germany, among them Jane Birkin, Senta Berger, Mario Adorf, Jean-Claude Carrière, Michael Verhoeven, Volker Schlöndorff, and many others – and in their personal recollections the German-French lovers come alive once again.
Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling. Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t fit, Rebekah reflects on everything from the complications of kindness and charity, living both independently and dependently, experiencing intimacy, and how the pervasiveness of ableism in our everyday media directly translates to everyday life. Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. SITTING PRETTY challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different story.
John Lennon achieved with the Beatles a level of superstardom that defied classification. « We were the best bloody band there was, » he said. « There was nobody to touch us. » In the summer of 1980, Lennon signs with a label and hires a top producer to recruit the best session musicians, ready to record new music for the first time in years. They are awestruck when Lennon dashes off « (Just Like) Starting Over. » Lennon is back in peak form, with his best songwriting since « Imagine. » THE LAST DAYS OF JOHN LENNON is the amazing story of John Lennon’s life and career, from his earliest days and first songs up to his last seconds. It tells the story of the most profound rock-and-roll genius of all time-and of Mark David Chapman, the consummate Nowhere Man who took him from us. Enriched by exclusive interviews with Lennon’s friends and associates, including Paul McCartney, the book is a true-crime drama about two men who changed history. One whose indelible songs still enrich our lives today-and the other who ended the beautiful music with five pulls of a trigger.