Bialosky, Jill. The End Is the Beginning: A Personal History of My Mother. Atria. May 2025. ISBN 9781451677928. 272p. $28.99. BIOGRAPHY

Poet, novelist, and memoirist Bialosky (History of a Suicide) returns with a memoir about her mother, Iris Yvonne Bialosky, told from her death to her birth. In what amounts to an elegy, she explores her mother’s experience in a care home, her family and married life, and her teen and early years.

Chernow, Ron. Mark Twain. Penguin Pr. May 2025. ISBN 9780525561729. 1,200p. $45. BIOGRAPHY

Chernow, winner of the National Book Award for The House of Morgan and the Pulitzer Prize for Washington: A Life, and author of Alexander Hamilton, the biography that inspired the Broadway musical, turns to a literary subject, offering 1,200 pages on Mark Twain.

Choi, Jennifer Hope. The Wanderer’s Curse: A Memoir. Norton. May 2025. ISBN 9781324035510. 288p. $29.99. MEMOIR

Choi, an award-nominated editor at Bon Appétit, debuts with a book about wandering, finding, and leaving things behind. With her life upended and intrigued by the Korean concept of yeokmasal (a predilection to roam far from home), Choi begins a peripatetic journey. Along the way, this memoir explores a range of other questions and topics as well.

Dorfman, Tommy. Maybe This Will Save Me: A Memoir of Art, Addiction and Transformation. Hanover Square. May 2025. ISBN 9781335498564. 320p. $29.99. MEMOIR

Dorfman, a writer, director, and actor (Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why), debuts with a 100K-copy first printing for this memoir structured around the cards of a tarot pull. Dorfman writes about her early life in theater, her journey to sobriety, her relationships, and her path to self-acceptance.

Fugett, Karie. Alive Day: A Memoir. Dial. May 2025. ISBN 9780593231081. 336p. $29. MEMOIR

At 20, Fugett is out of work and living in her car. She marries her boyfriend, only to see him deployed to Iraq where he suffers severe injuries. Suddenly her world is upended. She is a caregiver, must navigate the veterans’ affairs system, and bears witness to her husband’s growing dependency on painkillers. Her debut memoir mines this tightrope and more.

Grammer, Kelsey. Karen: A Brother Remembers. May 2025. ISBN 9781400252817. 384p. $31.99. MEMOIR

Grammer, a five-time Emmy-winning actor (Cheers; Frasier), writes a memoir about his life in the wake of the violent death of his sister, who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered when she was 18. He discusses how that event affected him and his family and how he began a long path towards healing from such nightmare events.

Gurung, Prabal. Walk Like a Girl: A Memoir. Viking. May 2025. ISBN 9780593493274. 320p. $32. MEMOIR

Fashion designer Gurung offers a memoir of his life growing up in Nepal and India, his move to NYC, and his career in high fashion. Along the way, he details the inner workings of the fashion industry and his journey to become his true self.

Leamer, Laurence. Warhol’s Muses: The Artists, Misfits, and Superstars Destroyed by the Factory Fame Machine. Putnam. May 2025. ISBN 9780593716663. 336p. $35. BIOGRAPHY

Bestselling biographer Leamer (Hitchcock’s Blondes; The Kennedy Women) turns to 10 women who Andy Warhol manipulated and used for his own purposes as he centered them in his underground films.

Newsom, Gavin. Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery. Penguin Pr. May 2025. ISBN 9781984881939. 304p. $30. MEMOIR

The governor of California writes a memoir about his life in politics. He covers everything from his tenure as mayor of San Francisco to his work as a businessman to the current political climate. It is also an ode to California and the importance of family life and family history.

Prideaux, Sue. Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin. Norton. May 2025. ISBN 9781324020424. 432p. $39.99. BIOGRAPHY

Prideaux (I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Nietzsche) offers a new biography of Gauguin, aimed at reexamining the painter’s scandalous reputation. Based in part on access to previously unexamined papers, she upends the current conception of the artist and discusses the importance of his work (featured in full-color reproductions in the book) and how it influenced Van Gogh, Matisse, and Picasso.

Tourmaline. Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson. Tiny Reparations. May 2025. ISBN 9780593185667. 320p. $30. BIOGRAPHY

Tourmaline, an award-winning artist and one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, writes a biography of activist Marsha P. Johnson, a central figure in LGBTQIA+ history and the 1969 Stonewall Uprising. Tourmaline, the leading archivist of Johnson’s papers, bases this work on two decades of research.

Young, Michelle. The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland. HarperOne. May 2025. ISBN 9780063295896. 416p. $29.99. BIOGRAPHY

Young, a professor of architecture at Columbia, writes a biography of Rose Valland, a member of the French Resistance who, while working at Paris’s Jeu de Paume museum, fought to save looted artworks and pass key information along to Allies. With a 100K-copy first printing.