Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey by Wayne Wiegand Thursday, March 14 at 10:30 am Finally, Melvil Dewey fully revealed, in entertaining prose, built rigorous and deep historical scholarship.  This is the definitive biography we've missed for so long. It tells a story of an American archetype, a man imbued with the inventive curiosity, sexism, anti-Semitism, racism, type-A control-freakishness, and reform zeal so characteristic of the power brokers of his time and his nation.  The results a masterpiece of history.
	The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World  by Jack Zipes Thursday, April 11 at 10:30 am Most of the fairy tales that we grew up with we know thanks to the Brothers Grimm.  Jack Zipes one of the more astute critics of fairy tales, explores the romantic myth of the brothers as wandering scholars, who gathered "authentic"tales from the peasantry.  By deftly interweaving the social, political, and personal elements of the lives of the Brothers Grim, Zipes rescues them from sentimental obscurity.  No longer figures in  fairy tale, the Brothers Grimm emerge as powerful creators, real men who established the fairy tale as one of our great literary institutions.  Part biography, part critical assessment, and part social history.
	Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House to Washington Power Broker  by Stacy A. Cordery Thursday, May 9 at 10:30 am This absorbing, magnificently complete biography, the first to be based on Alice's own papers, presents her as the first female celebrity of the twentieth century.  What that meant in terms of how she viewed herself and how she was viewed by her famous father and an adoring public is explored in Cordery's impressive astute psychological understanding of this quite complex personality.  Always the political animal, Alice remained a force in Washington D.C., politics as well as society throughout her long life, a life she plotted for herself unbound by tradition.
	Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, a Tale of Love & Fallout  by Lauren Redniss Thursday, June 13 at 10:30 am In 1891,24-year-old Marie Sklodowska moved from Warsaw to Paris, where she found work in the laboratory of Pierre Curie, a scientist engaged in research on heat and magnetism.  They fell in love.  They took their honeymoon on bicycles.  They expanded the periodic table, discovering two new elements with startling properties, radium and polonium.  They recognized radioactivity as an atomic property, heralding the dawn of a new scientific era.  They won the Nobel Prize.  Newspapers mythologized the couple's romance, beginning articles on the Curies with "Once upon a time..." Then, in 1906, Pierre was killed in a freak accident.  Marie continue their work alone.  She won a second Nobel Prize in 1911, and fell in love again, this time with the married physicist Paul Langevin.  Scandal ensued.  Duels were fought.
	John Steinbeck: a Biography  by Jay Parini Thursday, July 11 at 10:30 am An in-depth biography of John Steinbeck documents his early struggles, the period that produced his Pulitzer-prize winning The Grapes of Wrath, difficult first and second marriages, and stormy friendships with numerous celebrities.
	Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany by Marthe Cohn Thursday, August 8 at 10:30 am When, at the age of eighty, Marthe Cohn was awarded France's highest military honor, the Medaille Militaire, not even her children knew to what extent this modest woman had faced death daily while helping defeat the Nazi empire.  At its heart, this remarkable memoir is the tale of an ordinary human being who, under extraordinary circumstances, became the hero her country needed her to be.
	Will Rogers: A Biography by Ben Yagoda Thursday, September 12 at 10:30 am Yagoda, a University of Delaware assistant professor of English, has written the fullest biography of this American icon, a resonant portrait imbued with Rogers' irreverent spirit, yet attuned to both the strengths and limitations of his commonsense, crackerbarrel world view.  Sam Goldwyn, W.C. Fields, Charles Lindbergh, Calvin Coolidge, FDR and Mussolini stride through these pages.