With spring in the air, I keep finding myself reaching for pop science books, personal essays, and memoirs. As I’m sure y’all know by now, I’m a sucker for personal narratives. I love prose with a strong voice and perspective that makes me think deeply about a topic. So today, we’re looking at two different nonfiction titles that are each written by writers with lots of personality to go around. But first, bookish goods!
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Bookish Goods
Buy Me Books Valentine’s Candy Heart by YGGThreads
I love cute, quirky bookmarks. This magnetic candy heart is right in my wheelhouse. $5
New Releases
I Cannot Control Everything Forever: A Memoir of Motherhood, Science, and Art by Emily C. Bloom
Emily C. Bloom shares her experience going through the process of decision making that seemed to start as soon as she and her partner found out she was pregnant. After Bloom’s daughter was born, they found out that she had disabilities, and that their caregiving would be vital to her success.
Briefly Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End by Alua Arthur
Alua Arthur is a death doula, a person who helps a terminally ill person and their families prepare for life’s inevitable end. In Briefly Perfectly Human, Arthur shares her personal experience helping others prepare for death’s embrace and better understand their place in the world.
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Riot Recommendations
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
If you love books about cults and how the mind works, Cultish is right in your wheelhouse. This book delves into the details around the language of cults and how everyday exposure to this language influences how people view the world. Through her narrative storytelling and incredible research skills, Montell takes us deep into the influence of cults and the words that help build them.
Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business by Roxane Gay
I first read Roxane Gay after her essay collection Bad Feminist hit shelves. Since then, Gay has written essays, celebrity profiles, and advice columns. Opinions includes the best of Gay’s writing, giving readers little snapshots of Gay’s life over the course of the last decade. There’s a profile of Janelle Monae describing how Afrofuturism influenced their album Dirty Computer. Gay writes about #MeToo from her perspective as a survivor of sexual assault, and pushes it further, discussing what it’s like to be well-known for being a survivor of sexual violence. In other, less serious pieces, Gay includes her delightful sense of humor and a practical take on what’s going on in the world.
You can find me over on my substack Winchester Ave, over on Instagram @kdwinchester, on TikTok @kendrawinchester, or on my podcast Read Appalachia. As always, feel free to drop me a line at kendra.d.winchester@gmail.com. For even MORE bookish content, you can find my articles over on Book Riot.
Happy reading, Friends!
~ Kendra