Hello and happy Wednesday, nonfiction lovers! I cannot believe we’re in the last week of June… that means we’re nearly halfway through 2019 already! Bananas.
This week’s new books are a good mix — a little TV criticism, and little sociology, and a little fashion history. Let’s dive in!
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I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution by Emily Nussbaum – A collection of new and previously-published essays and criticism by a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic. Emily Nussbaum’s passion for television began with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and continues to include shows that are not traditionally part of the hierarchy that raises “violent, dramatic, gritty” shows over those that bring joy and lightness.
Further Reading: Nussbaum won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. Her winning columns are about Joan Rivers, Robert Durst, and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
The Power of Human: How Our Shared Humanity Can Help Us Create a Better World by Adam Waytz – A look at how our “unprecedented access to other humans” via technology has, paradoxically, “freed us from engaging with them.” Social psychologist Adam Waytz looks at the cost of living human-free lives and offers some scientifically sound ideas about how to reclaim humanity and social connections.
Further Reading: Waytz recently published an article about how “humans’ competitive edge over robots” is leisure. The full article is behind a paywall, but there’s a summary and link here.
Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl’s Love Letter to the Power of Fashion by Tanisha C. Ford – A “fashionista and pop culture expert” dives deep into the history of fashion, connecting the stories of garments like dashikis and bamboo earrings to her story as “a black girl coming of age in a Midwestern rust belt city.” It’s also “a story of desire, access, conformity, and black innovation.” This sounds so good.
Further Reading: Newsweek published an excerpt of the book where Ford shared the 10 most important items in her closet.
And finally, a few other titles that might appeal to you this week:
- Superpower: One Man’s Quest to Transform American Energy by Russell Gold
- Emperors of the Deep: Sharks—The Ocean’s Most Mysterious, Most Misunderstood, and Most Important Guardians by William McKeever
- The Weather Machine: A Journey Inside the Forecast by Andrew Blum
- Why Young Men: The Dangerous Allure of Violent Movements and What We Can Do About It by Jamil Jivani
- That Other World: Nabokov and the Puzzle of Exile by Azar Nafisi, Valerie Miles, and Lotfali Khonji
- The Drama of Celebrity by Sharon Marcus
Whew! That’s another good week of books. You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. I hope your weekend is full of great reads! – Kim