Days of Our Lives: Upcoming Biographical Talks in NYC

By Troy Segal

Learn the life stories of folk (some famed, some just fascinating) from all walks of life at these upcoming events, lectures and programs.

Showbiz celebs: Master-of-camp director John Waters (Hairspray, Pink Flamingos) tells tales from his new memoir, Carsick, which chronicles his adventures hitchhiking across the U.S., at the New York Public Library on June 4. (Photo: Cory Donovan.) One Christmas, comedienne Joan Rivers received a diary as a present, and the rest is … autobiography. She’ll be reading from Diary of a Mad Diva at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square on June 30. Actress Lee Grant (Shampoo, Valley of the Dolls) discusses her life and career with fellow thespian Alan Alda at the 92nd Street Y on July 10.

Political Affairs: He’s been a bit lost in the shadow of his famous father John, but John Quincy Adams — the sixth President of the U.S. — was an influential visionary in his own right. Learn more about him in this discussion at the New-York Historical Society on June 10. A documentary detailing the short life of Aaron Swartz — computer programming wunderkind-turned-Internet access advocate—is being screened at the Paley Center for Media, June 17, and also at the 92nd Street Y on June 16.

J.D. Salinger. Hulton Archive/Getty.

Recluses: Biographer Thomas Beller builds a picture of the compulsively private novelist J.D. Salinger at the 92nd Street Y on June 5. Heiress Huguette Clark owned a 42-room apartment on New York’s Fifth Avenue, a 23-acre estate in Santa Barbara, and a 22-room mansion in the woods of Connecticut — so why did she live in hospitals for the last decades for her 104-year-old life? Author Meryl Gordon unravels the mystery, also at the Y, on June 24.

Role Reversals: Huffington Post writer Jerry Mahoney describes what it’s like to be the self-styled gay superdad of twins at Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side on June 16. Explore the life of America’s first female astronaut, Sally Ride, with Lynn Sherr, author of a new biography about the woman who broke the glass ceiling in space, at the 92nd St. Y on June 9.