Recommending Great Memoirs and Biographies (Summer Reading Challenge Check-in)

It's time to check in on the All Of It Summer Reading Challenge! We are dedicating this week to one of the Challenge categories-- "read a memoir or biography." All Of It and Get Lit producer Jordan Lauf kicks things off with a list of recommendations for great memoirs and biographies to read this summer to help you complete the challenge. Plus, listeners share their recommendations.

Alison: This just in: We've gotten word that some of you have already finished your Summer Reading Challenge. If you are one of those people who are a speed reader, you can now tell us what you've read by filling out the form at wnyc.org/summerreading. That's wnyc.org/summerreading. You can tell us what you read and where to send your prize. If you're not done, don't panic. There's still plenty of time. The deadline is the end of Labor Day weekend, so you've still got an entire month left.

To help give you a little inspiration as we look forward to the final month of the Summer Reading Challenge, we are going to focus this week on one of the five categories, and that category is a biography or memoir. That's good for a month worth of reading. Our readers asked for a nonfiction category for the challenge this year, and we answered. All week long, we're going to hear conversations with memoirists and biographers, but first, joining me now to give us some of her recommendations in this category is All Of It and Get Lit producer Jordan Lauf. Hi, Jordan.

Jordan: Hi.

Alison: Listeners, we want to hear from you. What's a biography or a memoir you recommend? What biography or memoir are you reading for the Summer Reading Challenge? We are taking your biography and memoir recommendations. Give us a call at 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. I know you finished your own selection in this category. What did you pick?

Jordan: I did. I just finished The Color of Water by James McBride. I love him so much as a novelist. He's been on our show a couple of times. He's been a Get Lit selection twice. What an honor? I think he's just a master of character, but I hadn't read his memoir, which is really, I think, what launched him on the literary map, this memoir, The Color of Water. It's about his life growing up as 1 of 12 kids with a white mother, partially in the Red Hook housing projects and partially in Queens.

He learned along the way that his mother was Jewish and had left the family when she decided to marry a Black man. The memoir is really about him trying to connect with his mother's history and legacy and learn more about her. Part of that journey was learning about her own parents, who owned a grocery store in Virginia, actually. In the novel, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, if listeners remember, there's a character in that book that is very much based on his own grandmother, and I had forgotten that. As I was reading the memoir, I thought to myself, "Oh my gosh, this sounds so much like that protagonist in The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.

I actually wanted to play a little clip because when he came on the show, Get Lit, actually, to talk about that novel, he mentioned that he changed one key detail about her life because in the memoir, his grandfather, who he never met, his mother's father, was really a not nice man. He did not care for his wife at all and did not care for the family, and he decided to change that in the novel about her. I wanted to play this little clip of James McBride.

James McBride: Inspired by my grandmother because my grandmother ran a store in Suffolk, Virginia, in the '30s. She had polio. Her left hand was disabled. Her husband didn't love her. My uncle, who was her only son, ran away and was killed in World War II. My mother ran away and married my father. She wasn't loved by her husband. I put her on the page, and I made her loved. Once she got on the page, she became Chona. I call her Chona. The Jewish people say Hannah, whatever you want to call her. She became her own person, and then she began to lift and move in ways that were particular to her, but yes, it was inspired by my grandmother.

Alison: You heard the whole audience go, "Aw." [laughs]

Jordan: I remember that line from the event. I remember being there when he said, "I put her on the page and made her loved," and that really stood out to me, reading the memoir, because she had a really rough life. It was beautiful to remember those connections between his fiction and his actual family story.

Alison: That's The Color of Water by James McBride. All right. We're going to go for memoirs now. You were calling this next memoir the best that you've ever read.

Jordan: Yes. This is In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. I think what's so interesting about this memoir is it really plays with form. Throughout the memoir, the story is Carmen's story of surviving a relationship that is abusive, both emotionally and physically. It's with another woman. It's also a subject you don't hear much about, about domestic violence in a gay relationship, but it does very much happen. She decided to tell the story through these interesting poetic and fairytale fragments.

Every little chapter has its own different style and format, and it helps you immerse yourself in her mindset of what was going through her mind at the time of trying to figure out, is this a loving relationship? Is this person who I think loves me actually abusing me? What's going on? Where do I turn to to understand what's happening? She really combines an interesting and tragic story of her life with something that's so formatically interesting that she takes these different tropes and themes and formats and puts them all together in one memoir. It's just an excellent read.

Alison: Let's talk to Joan in Manhattan. Hi, Joan. Thanks for making the time to call All Of It.

Joan: Can I recommend two? Because I can't choose between them. One is the autobiography of Charlie Chaplin. It's brilliant, it's funny. It gives you a great insight into his talent and how he developed it at a very early age. His mother training him to notice body language, which became so important in the silent films that he made. He talked about his movie, The Great Dictator, which was quite controversial. He said if he had known who Hitler really-- He thought he was a joke. He thought Hitler was a joke. He said, "If I had known who he really was and what he was going to do, I never could have made that film." It's a wonderful autobiography.

Also, I want to recommend Mark Twain's autobiography, which I think was published some years after his death. I'm not sure why people leave that requirement. Is it because they want to make sure that everyone they mention in the book is dead? Like Oscar Wilde did the same thing, that his memoir should only be published 50 years after he died. Did they do that so that they make sure that anyone they talked about is dead, or why do they do that? That was a good one, too. Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, I think it was called. That's three, I guess.

Alison: [laughs] I'm wondering if their papers aren't made available in some cases.

Jordan: That could definitely be part of it. I do think it's easier to imagine revealing very vulnerable and honest things about yourself and your life once you feel that everyone who might have known you has gone.

[laughter]

Jordan: I can't imagine it's easier to be vulnerable in that scenario.

Alison: This says, "Please include Boy with the Bullhorn by Ron Goldberg. It's a biography and a history of ACT UP, the AIDS organization, and one, a coming-of-age story and a history of the AIDS activist movement." This other text says, "Teri Garr's memoir, Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood, written very much in Garr's natural voice. It's a gorgeous story about her journey from being a dancer in Viva Las Vegas, through her brilliant golden years, through her MS diagnosis. By the end, you'll feel like you've made a new friend."

Jordan: Oh, that's the best type of memoir, if it feels like you get to the end and feel like you really know the person.

Alison: You're recommending two memoirs, Jordan. They have the same title. The title is Consent. What do they have in common?

Jordan: These two memoirs, they make a really interesting pairing. They're both by adult women, reconsidering a relationship they had with a much older man in their teenage years. The first one is by Vanessa Springora. I believe this one was published first. It's translated from French. It's about a "relationship" she had-- I want to use relationship in air quotes because it was obviously very inappropriate, when she was a teenager with a much, much older, famous French writer.

This was something that, actually, as she recounts, was known by the public at the time that he was involved with a teenage girl, and people didn't really think so much of it. Only in later years did public people start coming out and saying, "Wait a minute, why are we celebrating this man who has had this abusive and manipulative relationship with a young girl?" This is her telling her story and exploring, "Why was no one looking out for me? Why did no one at the time see me with this very famous man and say, we're going to help you? This is not right." That's Consent by Vanessa Springora.

The other memoir is Consent by Jill Ciment. It has a similar beginning in that she was a teenager and started a relationship with a married man who was much, much older. The difference here is that she married that man. They were married for many years, and in fact, were married until he died. What her memoir is exploring is, in the wake of MeToo, how she looked back on that marriage and that relationship and thought, "Huh, was this really inappropriate? If we hadn't stayed married, if we hadn't had this, what I consider to be a love story afterwards, would I look back on that relationship and consider it to be grooming or really inappropriate?"

It's also a meta memoir because she is criticizing her own previous memoir about their relationship. She had written a book, I believe in the '90s, about their marriage and defending it. In this latest one, she says, "You know what, there were a couple things that I wasn't very truthful about in that first memoir." It's also a really interesting exercise in a memoir as an art, and how much do people actually tell the truth. That's Consent by Jill Ciment and Consent by Vanessa Springora. They're both very slim and tackling similar subjects.

Alison: My guest is All Of It and Get Lit producer Jordan Lauf. We're talking about some great memoirs and biographies to read this summer, especially if you're participating in our Summer Reading Challenge. We want to hear your recommendations. What's a biography or a memoir you think is really great? Give us a call at 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Let's talk to Lauren from Chappaqua and hear what she has to recommend. Hi, Lauren.

Lauren: Hello? How are you? I'm so excited to be on the show.

Alison: Great.

Lauren: I wanted to recommend a couple of memoirs that all depict old New York in some way. I grew up in New York City. One of them is Barbra Streisand's epically long memoir, which I listened to an audiobook, and every time I got in the car felt like I was driving around with my narcissistic friends who-

Alison: [laughs]

Lauren: -had fascinating stories. Really, I got into it and then ended up watching all of her films. It's really fascinating to read about all the barriers she broke and a lot of the antisemitism that she faced. Really a remarkable woman. Also, Isaac Mizrahi's memoir, I.M., really goes back and forth between growing up in this Persian Jewish family in New York City and then going to LaGuardia High School and being exposed to that world, so fascinating. Of course, Patti Smith's memoir, Just Friends, is such a classic and just a fascinating way to understand the art world in the '60s and their beautiful relationship that she had with Robert Mapplethorpe.

Lastly, Carole King's memoir, Natural Woman, is beyond fascinating because she was a successful businesswoman while being married in her early 20s, and somehow juggled family and the songwriting career, and then her own career as a performer, going from the '50s to the '60s, and the world changed around her. Just a really fascinating story. Those are my four memoirs that all depict New York City, and also through the lives of incredibly fascinating people.

Alison: I want to make sure it was Just Kids by Patti Smith, right?

Lauren: I'm sorry, what did you say?

Alison: It's Just Kids by Patti Smith, right?

Lauren: Just Kids, yes. Sorry, Just Kids. That's right.

Alison: Thanks for the recommendations. We really appreciate it.

Lauren: Thank you so much.

Alison: All right. We're going to go to Jeason, who's calling in from Park Slope. Hey, Jeason, how old are you?

Jeason: Hi. I'm 12.

Alison: All right. Let's hear what 12-year-olds want to read.

Jeason: One of my favorite books of all time, probably my favorite book of all time, is The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba. I really like it because he paints his entire journey from when he's struggling with normal family life, and the tragic famine that hits his small village in Africa, and how he finally builds a windmill that exposes him to the world. My favorite part is-- Hello?

Alison: Yes, go for it.

Jeason: Oh, my favorite part is when he just describes every little part and how he builds a windmill with parts of his father's bicycle, and he goes searching in the junkyard. I really like how there are parts of heartbreak, but also extreme happiness. It just balances out really well, and it makes me like the book a lot.

Jordan: Jeason, you are my hero. I'm going to be out of a job soon.

Alison: [laughs]

Jordan: I better watch out for you, Jeason. That was such a great description of that book. I think there's a film adaptation of that as well, if I remember correctly. Maybe you enjoyed the movie also. Thank you for that. I love to hear what the kids are reading.

Alison: We want to hear your recommendations. What biography or memoir do you think is just really great? Give us a call at 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. We'll have more. This is All Of It.

[music]

Alison: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is All Of It and Get Lit producer Jordan Lauf. We're talking about some of the great memoirs and biographies to read this summer, especially if you are participating in our Summer Reading Challenge. This text says, "Lab Girl by Hope Jahren. It is so much about what average, hardworking scientists go through."

This one says, "Great memoir, Breakfast Wine with Alex Poppe, P-O-P-P-E, I'm not sure, was just published this year. It's her story as an American woman teaching in Iraq and as a humanitarian aid volunteer in Kurdistan. Fascinating perspective and enlightened given the recent events in our world." That's Susie calling in from Red Bank, New Jersey. Let's get back to your list. The next memoir you're recommending is from the governor of Maryland, Wes Moore. Before he was a politician, he wrote a bestselling memoir. It's a really interesting story. I met him long time ago. I said, "This guy is going somewhere."

Jordan: Yes, and you know what? This memoir was actually-- I went to Tufts University, and this was the book that they required everyone in the freshman class to read before we came to school. Then he came and spoke to us, and I remember being really blown away by him. [chuckles] We knew he was going places. We discovered Wes Moore. Just kidding.

Alison: [laughs]

Jordan: The other Wes Moore is his memoir. It is excellent. It is about his life and the life of another young Black man, also from Baltimore, around his age, who was also named Wes Moore. Wes, the Wes Moore who is now the governor of Maryland, grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, and the other Wes Moore, that he discovered, he found him through a paper that was advertising that he was wanted for, I believe, a murder.

Wes Moore, the governor, ends up striking up this pen pal relationship with this other man who has the exact same name, came from very similar background. The memoir traces, where did our lives diverge? How did we end up on these very different paths? What were the circumstances that brought us to these two different conclusions or two different outcomes of our lives so far? Are we really all that different? Could I have made one turn that brought me down this path? It's a really moving and excellent book, and he's a great writer as well as now a successful politician.

Alison: We're going to end on a lighter note before we go to biographies. Just a fun book to take to the beach.

Jordan: I really like Bossypants by Tina Fey. I know that came out a while ago, but it's not surprising that it's genuinely funny, because it's Tina Fey, but it is so great. If you're a fan of SNL or you want to read more about the comedy scene here in the early 2000s in New York, it's a great read. A lot of people are rewatching 30 Rock right now. It's having a renaissance online. A good excuse to pick up her memoir and learn more about that.

I just want to say also, a lot of people have been shouting out New York memoirs. If you've already hit your memoir and biography category, and you're like, "Oh, darn, I already read a book for that category," you could pick it up in a book about a set in New York, which is another category. Alison, I know you had another memoir you wanted to shout out.

Alison: I would like to see your Bossypants and raise you Amy Poehler's Yes Please. [laughs]

Jordan: Ah, a great team, those two.

Alison: It's all about her Boston upbringing, her getting to be part of the Upright Citizens Brigade, her ability to stand up for herself. There's something in that memoir that I still use: "Good for you, not for me."

Jordan: Oh, I love that.

Alison: You can say it nicely to somebody. Somebody wants you to do something, good for you, not for me.

Jordan: Yes, there you go.

Alison: Her podcast is good too. Let's talk to Jacob in Jersey City, who has a really interesting memoir to recommend. Hi, Jacob.

Jacob: Hi. How are you?

Alison: I'm doing great.

Jacob: I want to recommend a book called The Loft Generation. It's by Edith Schloss, who was a German Jewish refugee. She came to America and got involved in the New York art scene, the Abstract Expressionists and all that. It's really interesting from a woman's point of view, and of course, the thing that you find interesting is that she was my mother.

Alison: Oh.

Jacob: Even though she was my mother, I think it's a good book.

Alison: That's what I have to say about that, [laughs] Jacob. Thank you so much for calling in. Let's talk to Anthony, who is calling in from Peekskill. Hi, Anthony. What do you recommend?

Anthony: Oh, hello. On a lighter note of memoirs, I recommend If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Star by Bruce Campbell. It's really funny. It charges life from high school days in Michigan in the '70s, up to him getting big in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies, and just it's really, really funny. He just talks about all things Hollywood with the most sarcastic wit a B-movie star could muster.

Alison: Thanks for the tip. Finally, let's talk to Nora in White Plains. Hi, Nora. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Nora: Hi, Alison. The ones that come to mind, and they're all largely set in New York. I hadn't thought of that till the guest said that, are Fred Hersch's biography, a jazz pianist, called Good Things Happen Slowly: A Life In and Out of Jazz. He was closeted when he began his professional career and came out during the course of it, and how it changed his art, and also had to deal with HIV AID. It was a doctor who said to him when nothing much had changed, that's a good thing. If it was something bad going on, it would be going on, but good things happen slowly. Ahmir Thompson's Questlove's biography or memoir, Mo' Meta Blues, which was really fascinating.

Also, Judith Jamison, who died this last year, the dancer who was, for many years after her dancing career ended, the director or head of Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, her book Dancing Spirit. The last call made me think of a hilarious memoir. I can't remember the man's name. The book was called When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead. He was a promoter and producer with all these hilarious, funny stories to tell about Hollywood and music, including rock music, and a really interesting life with what seems like a fairly honorable polyamorous love life. That just came to mind when the guy told the last funny book. That was a very funny book, When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead.

Jordan: A great title goes so far for me, especially with memoirs, and that's a great one.

Alison: Let's go into biographies. I'm happy to recommend some bios. I know you're going to point the finger at me, but what do you like about bios?

Jordan: I really like that they give readers a sense of history through one personal lens. It really helps you learn about the history of a period, but it feels so personal, and you get invested in the person's life and their story. Even if they weren't the best person, you can still find something to relate to and hold on to. You incidentally learn all of this stuff. I'll talk about the Eleanor Roosevelt biography in a bit. I learned so much about World War II and America at that time just through reading about her life. I like that it gives you a glimpse of history through this personal lens. I am going to turn it back on Alison, because Alison is the captain of our Full Bio series ship-

Alison: [laughs]

Jordan: -which is, if you don't know, a monthly series where we spend a great deal of time, or Alison spends a great deal of time with a biographer about their subject. I know you just finished our upcoming-

Alison: Oh, yes.

Jordan: -Full Bio.

Alison: This is going to be interesting.

Jordan: What is that one about? What can you tell us?

Alison: It's called Wild Things. It's about the artist Paul Gauguin. I just finished it last night. It's a very interesting take on a controversial painter. There are some who say he fetishized women and girls he painted, but you learn so much more about his life, how he was a stockbroker at one point. He was indigent at one point. He was best friends when Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear. You learn all about his whole life. The author has new research to give a broader texture to him.

It's really interesting because we've done these Full Bios, and you really have to sit through the whole thing. People right away are like, "Get to the part about Tahiti and colonization." It's like, "Wait a minute. First, we're going to talk about this part of his life, that part of his life, and then we'll talk about that and we'll talk about it with this new context." I have to think about it for a few days, but I'm looking forward to talking to the author.

Jordan: Do you find it's harder to prep one when it's someone who might have done some things that we don't agree with?

Alison: Oh, for sure. For sure. You have to check yourself. You also have to check the author because many people fall in love, not in love, but they are enamored with the subject. They spent so much time, so many pages, so much research that they have an understanding of the person. Sometimes you have to step out a little bit and say, "Wait a second, what about this person's behavior?" I had to do it with J Edgar Hoover quite a bit.

Jordan: Yes, totally. I was thinking about that in terms of the Eleanor biography by David Michaelis, which you could tell he was really enamored of Eleanor, but he was also very explicit about her failings, about her antisemitism at one point, about her racism, about how far she still had to go in terms of civil rights. I really appreciated that the biography went there and he wasn't afraid to say, "Sure, Eleanor Roosevelt had lots of racist views in her time and she worked really hard to work on them." I think both things can be true about someone, and you could admire a lot about someone and also be frank about their failings. I think a good biography does both.

Alison: Let's talk to Mary in Manhattan. Hey, Mary, thanks for calling All Of It. Mary, are you there?.

Mary: [inaudible 00:24:20] the book by Janet Wallach, and it's called Flirting with Danger. It's about the first woman who was ever hired as a spy by the United States at the end of World War I. She managed to get all kinds of information. She spoke several languages because she'd grown up wealthy, and her family would send her to one country for a year and then another country for a year until she became fluent. They also had connections with everybody because they were wealthy. She was extremely successful until she got thrown in Lubyanka. To my astonishment, she was thrown in Lubyanka twice and managed to stay alive. Very interesting book.

Alison: Thank you so much. Who else should we talk to in the control room? Oh, I got to see. This is a text that says, "NYC biographies, The Power Broker: Robert Moses, of course, and Tis by Frank McCourt, a great contrasting pair." What else did you want to talk about in terms of biographies?

Jordan: For people interested in ancient history, particularly ancient Rome, I really enjoyed Caesar, Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy. It is very readable, incredibly readable. I did read it on the beach like a lunatic. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that. It's really big. It's not what you would call a beach read, but it was so readable that I thought I could bring it on the beach. It's so thorough. Again, like we were saying, I learned so much about ancient Rome and life at that time just through his life. There are so many details about his story I didn't know. Did you know that he was kidnapped by pirates as a teenager?

Alison: I did not know that.

Jordan: It's a crazy story. That seems like something out of a fairy tale. Caesar was legitimately captured by pirates as a teenager and spent some time with this roving band of pirates. You get into all the fascinating details of his life that have inspired creatives and Shakespeare and whoever through the centuries. It's a really, really readable, digestible take on his life.

Alison: The one I really liked in terms of music was R.E.M.'s biography, Peter Ames Carlin. It was really interesting because it was of the moment. These are four people who are alive. They decided to make something great and then decided to end it. You really don't hear that about musicians. They each had distinct personalities. People focus on Michael Stipe, but the book was equally about Bill Berry, Mike Mills, and Peter Buck. It also discusses the origin of alt-rock and the era of college radio, which is really about taste, not trends. It was written by someone who loves the music, which is really important.

Jordan: That seems important. I wanted to ask you about another biography that you wanted to give a shout-out to, because I'm a huge baseball fan. It's baseball season. You, a few years ago, did this biography about Jackie Robinson. I was curious, how did the biography teach you about Jackie Robinson, the man, and Jackie Robinson, the baseball player? Because I assume you have to talk about both.

Alison: It's a short biography. This is good. By Kostya Kennedy. Usually like 500 and 700 pages. This is a short biography. It really showed how much grace he had as a Black man in America. He broke the color barrier, obviously, in baseball, but he had to carry the weight of it his entire life. It wasn't until he got older that he spoke out about MLB, not having front managers who were Black. It's a really interesting story. By the way, I should point out the Jackie Robinson Museum, it's near us.

Jordan: Yes, right around the corner and newly-ish opened, right?

Alison: Newly-ish opened. You can go and check it out. His wife, Rachel Robinson, just celebrated her 103rd birthday-

Jordan: Oh my goodness.

Alison: -believe it or not. I met her a few years ago when I helped give out scholarships. The Jackie Robinson Foundation gives out scholarships to kids and mentorship to kids. Anybody who's interested in baseball could also check that out as well. It's a good bio.

Jordan: That sounds great. I wanted to give a shout out, too, to a listener who texted us a couple weeks ago, and I don't remember the listener's name. I couldn't find it. I apologize to this listener, but someone wrote in to tell us that they started reading the Marie Antoinette biography on my recommendation from a couple weeks ago. That one's by Antonia Fraser, and that they were loving it. Also reminded me that the Sofia Coppola movie, Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst, is actually based on the Antonia Fraser biography that I had read and recommended.

She said that it was amazing re-watching the Coppola movie, how actually faithful she was to the story that Antonia Fraser laid out in the biography, because obviously, I think they're wearing Converse in it and there's pop music. It's not fully historically accurate, but she said it really did stick to the main events that Antonia Fraser lays out in the biography. I wanted to give a shout-out to that listener. Thank you for reading on my recommendation. I'm so glad you're liking it. If anyone is looking for a Sofia Coppola movie night, you could do a little pairing.

Alison: This says, "Hi, my name is Tania, also from White Plains. If it's not too late and hasn't been mentioned yet, I highly recommend Trevor Noah's Born a Crime. I love this book and I'm now reading the Young Readers edition with my 10-year-old son." That's great.

Jordan: Awesome.

Alison: There's a new biography about James Baldwin, A Love Story, by Nicholas Boggs, being released on August 17th. Have we heard about that? I have a pre-release copy that I bought at a special event. It was 30 years in research and the cooperation of Baldwin's heirs. It's brilliant. With much new information and new photographs, the audiobook is beautifully read, and it will be--

Jordan: Stay tuned.

Alison: Stay tuned.

Jordan: It'll maybe be on our airwaves. [laughs]

Alison: It could be on our airwaves in September. [laughs]

Jordan: Maybe about a month or so if you want to hear a more in-depth conversation about that.

Alison: I also wanted to mention, just for fun, because it's summer, the biography of Anna Wintour. You know what? I wasn't sold on it, to be honest, initially when we first got it. I didn't really have an opinion of Anna Wintour, but I wanted to know more about her. I wanted to know how she amassed so much power and gained as much power as she did. As I read it, I realized this is an authorized biography. That's how much power she [laughs] has -

Jordan: Oh, wow.

Alison: -to have an authorized biography. I understood her more. I'm not sure Anna Wintour would happen now.

Jordan: Probably not.

Alison: During the time she came up, her presence, her self-presence of who she is, this is who I am, and take it or leave it, was the way that she made the waves, and it's the way she earned all of the power that she has.

Jordan: Absolutely. It's relevant right now, in fact, because around the city, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is currently filming. I've seen so many photos of Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep. That character obviously is inspired by Anna Wintour, filming all around the city. If you're seeing those photos and getting excited about the movie, it sounds like this biography is a great one to pick up.

Alison: The woman who wrote it also wrote the Gwyneth Paltrow-

Jordan: Oh.

Alison: -biography that's coming out.

Jordan: Oh my gosh. Does it cover the ski, the infamous ski trial?

Alison: We'll have to see.

Jordan: [chuckles] We'll have to see. It better.

Alison: All right. Were there any frequently asked questions that people had for you about the Summer Reading Challenge? We get a lot of them. I know you answer as many as you can, but any you wanted to cover?

Jordan: Yes. The biggest one is how can I tell you what I'm reading? There are two different ways. If you haven't yet finished, but you're keeping track, you want to keep track of what you're reading, maybe you've read three or four, there's a PDF form online. All of this you can find at wnyc.org/summerreading. If you want to fill out that PDF form, that's how you can keep track for yourself of what you've been reading. If you want to take a photo and share it with us on Instagram-

Alison: Oh, we'd love that.

Jordan: -we would love that, and you can tag us @allofitwnyc. If you've finished the challenge and you're eager to tell us what you read and also you really want to get your prize, I hear you. The form to fill out is now up on wnyc.org/summerreading. You can fill out the Google form, tell us what you read. I'm going to ask you to name every title and tell me a little bit about your favorite, why it was your favorite, and then you can maybe get your prize. I just genuinely didn't think people were going to finish this early, but that's on me. The form-

Alison: [laughs]

Jordan: -is now up. It's available. You speed readers, you speed demons, go fill it out. I believe in you.

Alison: For those of you who are listening to this conversation and you didn't catch somebody's name, a reminder: there are transcripts of this conversation. They will be on our website sometime in the very near future. Jordan Lauf, thanks for your recommendations.

Jordan: Thanks so much, and thanks to our listeners.