Amelina, Victoria. Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary. St. Martin’s. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9781250367686. 320p. $29. MEMOIR

Amelina, an award-winning Ukrainian author, poet, and activist, was killed by a Russian missile in 2023. This posthumous book, with a foreword by Margaret Atwood, is an account of her documentation of the war, including the photographs she took and the interviews she recorded of survivors, soldiers, and fellow activists. With a 75K-copy first printing.

Baker, Josephine. Fearless and Free: A Memoir. tr. from French by Anam Zafar & Sophie R. Lewis. Tiny Reparations. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9780593853696. 320p. $32. MEMOIR

Published in the U.S. for the first time (after being published in France in 1949), this autobiography by legendary dancer and singer Baker spans a remarkable period of time, from the Harlem Renaissance through Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, with 1920s Paris and WWII in between.

Benjamin, Rich. Talk to Me: Lessons from a Family Forged by History. Pantheon. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9780593317396. 320p. $29. MEMOIR

Benjamin (Searching for Whitopia), a cultural anthropologist, writes about his hidden family history—his grandfather was the president of Haiti, until a coup powered by the Eisenhower administration removed him from office. The memoir branches from there, also exploring Benjamin’s personal life and the impact of family and history.

Boylan, Jennifer Finney. Cleavage: Men, Women, and the Space Between Us. Celadon. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9781250261885. 256p. $29. MEMOIR

Boylan, whose memoir She’s Not There was the first bestselling work by a transgender American, writes about the differences and common ground between genders and how gender affects a sense of self, body image, friendship, even time.

Brooks, Geraldine. Memorial Days: A Memoir. Viking. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9780593653982. 224p. $28. MEMOIR

Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Brooks (March) writes about the sudden death of her partner, the bestselling author Tony Horwitz. Faced with the overwhelming demands that follow a death, she had no time to process her grief. Three years later, she finally was able to mourn and write this memoir of love and loss.

Gates, Bill. Source Code: My Beginnings. Knopf. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9780593801581. 320p. $30. MEMOIR

Gates, the technologist, philanthropist, and co-founder of Microsoft, writes about his early life through his college years, detailing his childhood, his family, the influence of his parents and grandparents, and his coming of age.

Harris, Keeonna. Mainline Mama: A Memoir. Amistad. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9780063205697. 224p. $26.99. MEMOIR

Harris, an activist, academic, and author, writes a memoir about raising a family with an incarcerated partner, a life-journey that began when she was a teen. Forced to raise their child mostly on her own, Harris discusses the trauma of the carceral system and her advocacy for others in a similar position.

Jiménez, Cristina. Dreaming of Home: A Young Latina’s Journey to Pride, Power, and Belonging. St. Martin’s Griffin. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9781250275660. 304p. $29. MEMOIR

Jiménez, a MacArthur Fellow, one of Time’s Most Influential People in 2018, and co-founder and former executive director of United We Dream, writes about moving from Ecuador to the U.S., the fear of deportation, and becoming a powerful activist in the immigrant youth movement, helping to win DACA.

Kagge, Erling. After the North Pole: A Story of Survival, Mythmaking, and Melting Ice. tr. from Norwegian by Kari Dickson. HarperOne. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9780063421783. 304p. $27.99. MEMOIR

Adventurer and philosopher Kagge (Silence: In the Age of Noise) recounts his record-breaking 58-day journey to the North Pole (accomplished on skis), ponders the nature and history of exploration, and meditates on the natural world.

McGilligan, Patrick. Woody Allen: Life and Legacy; A Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham. Harper. Nov. 2024. ISBN 9780062941336. 848p. $50. BIOGRAPHY

McGilligan, the film biographer who has written about Orson Welles (Young Orson) and Mel Brooks (Funny Man), turns to Allen, tracing his filmmaking, cultural impact, personal life, and controversies.

Morrison, Susan. Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night. Random. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9780812988871. 592p. $36. BIOGRAPHY

Michaels, the famous creator of Saturday Night Live, cooperated with this biography and allowed Morrison, an editor at the New Yorker, to shadow him for a week on the show. The biography is being published to coincide with SNL’s 50th anniversary.

O’Meara, Mallory. Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman. Hanover Square. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9781335007933. 320p. $32. BIOGRAPHY

Award-winning O’Meara (The Lady from the Black Lagoon), cohost of the podcast Reading Glasses, tells the untold story of the United States’ first professional stuntwoman, Helen Gibson. Calling herself “the Most Daring Actress in Pictures,” Gibson worked in hundreds of silent films and starred in The Hazards of Helen.

Vaccaro, Sonny. Legends and Soles. HarperOne. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9780063423435. 256p. $29.99. MEMOIR

Vaccaro, a basketball insider who signed Michael Jordan to Nike and was portrayed in the film Air, writes about sports marketing, Jordan, the fierce competition between manufacturers, his relationships with players, and the legal case that altered the landscape of college sports. With a 100K-copy first printing and written in collaboration with bestselling Armen Keteyian.