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Happiest of Fridays, nonfiction friends! I hope you are rolling into this weekend with a pile of books to read and a pile of cozy blankets to curl up in while you read them.
Something about this fall weather has reignited my interest in political nonfiction. I haven’t had the stomach for it in a while, but now a bunch of books about free speech, democracy, and politics have caught my eye. I just started Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation by Andrew Marantz, a look at how the alt-right and other extremists have taken over political conversations online. It’s horrifying, but I am hooked.
This week’s nonfiction news has some legal maneuverings, a couple of book lists, and some upcoming adaptations I think a bunch of people will be excited about but aren’t particularly in my wheelhouse. Let’s go!
A former editor at the National Enquirer has hired two high-profile law firms to try and stop the publication and sale of journalist Ronan Farrow’s anticipated expose of reporting on Harvey Weinstein. Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators came out on Tuesday under the threat of a libel suit and warnings to booksellers to avoid stocking the book. The book shares the story of Farrow’s reporting on Harvey Weinstein, as well as the resistance, corruption, abuse, and intimidation he faced tracking down the story. According to The Daily Beast, the intimidation tactic has worked in Howard’s native Australia. I don’t expect this to get much traction in the United States, but it is fascinating to see how powerful people will lash out when they’re against a wall.
I just finished reading Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb, so I was all primed to click on this Goodreads list of Gottlieb’s favorite advice from self-help books. It’s a particularly great list because she offers some great lessons and commentary on each book. I placed a couple on hold after reading!
If you’re subscribed to this newsletter you probably know a lot about nonfiction, but I still appreciated this nonfiction genre primer from the New York Public Library. It also has some great examples in each category, if you’re looking to add some backlist titles to your TBR.
Tiger Woods is publishing a memoir which promises to be “a ‘definitive’ story of his career, fall and comeback. The memoir – Back – will be published by HarperCollins, but there’s no release date set. In an interview, Woods said, “This book is my definitive story. It’s in my words and expresses my thoughts. It describes how I feel and what’s happened in my life.” I am not super interested in this, but perhaps some of you are.
Calling all World War II aficionados – an adaptation of Donald Miller’s Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany will be coming to Apple TV. Producers include Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Gary Goetzman, who worked together on HBO’s Band of Brothers and The Pacific. According to Deadline, “the miniseries will be more than eight hours in length” and “costs well north of $200 million to produce.” Whew!
In adaptation news that will surprise absolutely no one, Jeff Daniels is set to play former FBI Director James Comey in a four-hour CBS miniseries based on Comey’s memoir, A Higher Loyalty. This story made me laugh because I don’t think I could have picked a more perfect combination of actor, story, and network to put together something that will be totally pompous and self-serious. #burn
That’s all for this week! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. Happy reading! – Kim