Author: Alice Burton

The onslaught is upon us! Here are some of the new nonfiction books JUST RELEASED. Go get ’em.

Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann with Kristen Joiner. From Brooklyn to San Francisco to Washington D.C., Judith Heumann’s memoir tells the story of how she became one of the most influential disability rights activists in the U.S., and how her resistance to exclusion “invites readers to imagine and make real a world in which we all belong.”

Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country by Sierra Crane Murdoch. Named one of the most anticipated books by the Chicago Tribune, Book Riot, and many others, Yellow Bird tells “the gripping true story of a murder on an Indian reservation, and the unforgettable Arikara woman who becomes obsessed with solving it.” If you love literary journalism, here’s one for your list.

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong. A “ruthlessly honest, emotionally charged, and utterly original exploration of Asian American consciousness and the struggle to be human.” This book immediately made the top of my TBR list when I saw that Claudia Rankine said “to read this book is to become more human” (yes, that is the blurb at the top of the cover). But DANG, that’s a good blurb. I keep wanting to say “this book is on fire” (see: cover, again) but it is legit one 2020 release you need to add to your pile.

Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today by Rachel Vorona Cote. Do you love Victorian literature? Do you love FEMINISM? Do you love pre-Raphaelite-esque covers of unhappy red-headed women side-eyeing the title? Then oh man. Rachel Vorona Cote looks into the idea of women being seen as “too much,” in the vein of Anne Helen Petersen’s Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud. But with more Victorian elements! Petersen said “Cote combines the precision and wonder of the historian with the deft, accessible touch of the ex-academic.”

The Lives and Extraordinary Adventures of Fifteen Tramp Writers from the Golden Age of Vagabondage by Ian Cutler. Yeah, like I’m not including this one. It uses “the Golden Age of Vagabondage” in the MAIN TITLE. “The combined events of the end of the American Civil War in 1865, the first transcontinental railroad opening in 1869, and the financial crash of 1873, found large numbers―including thousands of former soldiers well used to an outdoor life and tramping―thrown into a transient life and forced to roam the continent.” Author Cutler takes their writings and stories and distills them into 15 tales of a mostly untold part of American culture.

Backlist Recs

Looking for some backlist-but-related reads to these new releases? Check out:

In My Own Moccasins by Helen Knott. Knott’s memoir of “addiction, intergenerational trauma, and the wounds brought on by sexual violence. It is also the story of sisterhood, the power of ceremony, the love of family, and the possibility of redemption.” Knott is a Dane Zaa and Nehiyah woman, and a large part of the book is her move towards embracing her culture’s spiritual practices as a method of healing.

Beyoncé in Formation: Remixing Black Feminism by Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley. Called a “mixtape memoir,” the title is based on Tinsley’s undergraduate course “Beyoncé Feminism, Rihanna Womanism,” and reflects on cultural lessons derived from Beyoncé’s album Lemonade, mixed in with her own past.

That’s it for new releases this week! You can find me on Twitter at itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. See you on Friday!

I was really tempted to put Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President on here (see how I still did?), but I want to give you all some pretty digestible reads in the wake of Presidents’ Day. Here’s the thing: A lot of our presidents (and presidential candidates) have not been great. Many have been average. Some have been seriously harmful. Some have been tremendous. Many have been mixes of all these things! Everything is complicated, so here are some book picks to help you sort the wheat from the chaff:

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin. This Pulitzer Prize-winning Lincoln biography traces his political success to his extraordinary empathy. If you’ve been to the Petersen House exhibits (this is the house where Lincoln died in D.C.) then you know about the Abraham Lincoln book tower (it’s 34 feet tall and 8 feet in circumference). Thousands and thousands of books have been written about Lincoln, but if you’re looking for one of the best-reviewed of all time, check this one out.

Unbought & Unbossed by Shirley Chisholm. This is Chisholm’s 1970 account of her life, from being a young girl growing up in Brooklyn to America’s first African American Congresswoman, all of which leads up to her 1972 presidential bid. She talks about speaking up against Vietnam, advocating for the pro-choice movement before Roe vs. Wade, and the consequences of a government that cannot hear the people. For a follow-up read, check out The Good Fight.

Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar. There’s a lot of glorifying of George Washington, which needs to be tempered by some real grounding in his reality as a fallible human being. Never Caught definitely accomplishes that, highlighting the story of Ona Judge, enslaved by Martha Washington’s family, who escaped and who the Washingtons could not let go.

So many books about presidents! And they will continue to be written! Lincoln has at least 15,000 books written about him, which is already so many, and then we have 44 other presidents, all with books about them (there’s someone staking their scholarly career on being the authority on Millard Fillmore, and y’know what, you do you). Happy Post-Presidents’ Day to all!

February is more than half done! How are we supposed to read the thousands of books we need to if time insists on MOVING. This task is about to get all the harder as our wave of new nonfiction starts growing bigger and bigger. I say too much to read is better than not enough, so let us embrace the onslaught and carry on!

Broken Faith: Inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, One of America’s Most Dangerous Cults by Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr. The AP reporter authors of this deeply researched investigation characterize Word of Faith Fellowship as including a charismatic leader, members who cut ties to their families, and extreme emotional and physical abuse. All these are signs of a cult, and one you’ll want to be aware of, as it’s still in operation.

The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform America by Charlotte Alter. Did you know there are 26 Millennials in Congress? Journalist Alter covers how the generation that was primarily teenagers when the September 11th attacks occurred has begun its takeover of the political landscape and what that can mean for the future.

Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America by Conor Dougherty. While owning a house used to be within one’s reach, it’s now a pipe dream for many. New York Times journalist Dougherty looks at the housing crisis from one of its starkest examples: the San Francisco Bay Area. If you’re interested in how we got here and what individuals are trying to do to make housing a reality for every person, check it out.

The Second Chance Club: Hardship and Hope After Prison by Jason Hardy. Hardy was a parole officer and here he tells the stories of seven parolees in Louisiana — citizens with no social support or employment, who frequently leave prison worse off than when they entered. He argues that the best solution is giving people who have been incarcerated the tools they need to re-enter society.

Backlist Bonus

Here are some paired backlist reads for our new releases this week!

High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing, ed. by Audrey Petty. From McSweeney’s Voice of Witness series: “Former residents of Chicago’s public housing projects describe life in the now-demolished high-rises. These stories of community, displacement, and poverty in the wake of gentrification give voice to those who have long been ignored, but whose hopes and struggles exist firmly at the heart of our national identity.”

Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women’s Prisons, ed. by Ayelet Waldman and Robin Levi. For those interested in another perspective beyond Piper Kerman’s Orange Is the New Black, this anthology highlights 13 voices who tell the story of their lives leading up to incarceration, and how they survived once they were there.

That’s it for new releases this week! Don’t forget to enter Book Riot’s Black History Month giveaway (20 books!! 5 winners! some AMAZING nonfiction). You can find me on Twitter at @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. See you on Friday for 3 on a Theme!

Too often for Black History Month, we fall into the same pitfalls we do for women’s history and retell the same stories time after time (“did you know Hedy Lamarr was an inventor?” “Mary Shelley created sci-fi!”). What about the people alive now, who are living through the effects of that history, and creating brilliant and beautiful things? With that in mind, this week we’re looking at some contemporary Black writers to pick up whose nonfiction is truly excellent.

Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom. Billed as a “black woman’s cultural bible,” this National Book Award finalist for nonfiction came out just last year. Tressie McMillan Cottom, author of Lower Ed, covers academia, misogyny, privilege, healthcare, and more in writing that Roxane Gay has called transgressive, provocative, and brilliant. This is an unmissable collection of essays that speaks to the times in which we live in a poignant, funny, and thoughtful way.

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals by Saidiya Hartman. This work of social history dives into the lives of Black women in Harlem and Philadelphia in the 1890s. Already fascinated? You should be. Hartman, a professor at Columbia University, explores the intersection of Black life and womanhood for these women who were seen as living outside the bounds of respectability for their time. As a bonus, there are 67 black and white stunning illustrations to complement Hartman’s academic but accessible look into this slice of 1890s America.

Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon. Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction, Kiese Laymon writes ” about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi.” Discussed as a personal narrative that illuminates national failures, Heavy is a powerful memoir about what can happen when you bring secrets and lies into the open and begin to be free.

I hope you pick up at least one of these this month or even this year, as they’re all amazing reads. Let me know if you do! As always, you can find me talking history and books on Twitter @itsalicetime and cohosting the For Real podcast with former True Story runner @kimthedork.

I’m pretty excited because after the holiday lull, we’re starting to enter a time when there are a lot of really interesting books being published. Let’s learn All the Facts for 2020! Here are some new releases this week:

American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI by Kate Winkler Dawson. By the author of Death in the Air about the Great London Smog comes the story of Edward Oscar Heinrich, one of America’s greatest and first forensic scientists, who had “an uncanny knack for finding clues, establishing evidence, and deducing answers with a skill that seemed almost supernatural.”

A Map Is Only One Story: Twenty Writers on Immigration, Family, and the Meaning of Home ed. by Nicole Chung and Menshah Demary. Humans have been immigrating since their beginning, which means the story of immigration is in our ancestral DNA. Everyone knows a story about migration, the search for home, and what it means to belong. In this anthology from Catapult, twenty writers from around the globe share their stories.

The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird by Joshua Hammer. For those who like true crime but want to avoid murder, here’s a classic tale of a bird thief and a wildlife detective determined to stop him.

Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights by Gretchen Sorin. Historian Sorin highlights the importance of the car to the Civil Rights Movement. Black Americans’ mobility was severely restricted due to enslavement, and with segregation and related laws and unstated policies, this continued into the 20th century. With the automobile came independence and possibility. Sorin highlights the Green Book, begun in 1936, which helped Black Americans take family vacations, go on road trips, and just travel with some assurance of where they would be welcome.

That’s it for new release highlights! Again, there’re a lot of great titles coming up in the next few months, so watch for this to hit your inbox every Wednesday. And don’t forget to enter the Book Riot giveaway for Layla F. Saad’s Me and White Supremacy! As always, you can find me talking history and books on Twitter @itsalicetime and cohosting the For Real podcast with former True Story runner @kimthedork.

Welcome to your Friday 3 on a Theme! This week, we’re looking at three reads focused on black women’s history. These picks all have a focus on American history; I’ll be doing an international history theme in the future. While there are increasingly more reads on this theme, I wanted to pick an array of titles that could be a jumping-off point for various ages and types of interest. Let’s get to it!

How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. Published by the awesome Haymarket Books, How We Get Free‘s title comes from the Combahee River Collective statement that “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free.” This slim volume (I love that phrase) is a collection of essays and interviews about this group of radical black feminists in the 1960s and ’70s and is edited by the fantastic activist-scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. It’s a novel. It’s poetry. It’s autobiography. This. book. is. something. It won the Newbery, National Book Award, and Coretta Scott King Book Award and tells the story of Woodson’s adolescence, moving from Ohio to South Carolina to New York. This book is stunning and well worth your time.

Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era by Ashley D. Farmer. Ok you nerds, I see you; here’s your university press book. Farmer “examines black women’s political, social, and cultural engagement with Black Power ideals and organizations” and looks at artwork, political cartoons, manifestos, and political essays to see how they reimagined black womanhood. Here’s your comprehensive history if you want a really deep dive.

There’s your 3 on a Theme! I’m really excited to bring in different themes every week, so be on the lookout for those every Friday. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. See you next week, you awesome nonfiction fan.

Hello to all you nonfiction fans! I’m Alice, co-host of Book Riot’s nonfiction podcast For Real. I’ll be your new nonfiction newsletter sender, giving you themed roundups and info on new nonfiction releases. Real quick about myself:

1. I love nonfiction about history, science, women’s studies, nature, memoir, and more, but those are the big ones.
2. Kim and I like to tell a story about how we realized we were both huge nonfiction nerds when we attended BookExpo in NYC together and were both VERY excited to find a university press galley of a book on the history of baking powder. From there, our podcast was born.
3. Futurama is one of my favorite TV shows, and I appreciate any and all references to it. Lots of good nerd jokes in it and, let’s be honest, if you’re into nonfiction, you’re at least a bit of a nerd.

That’s it for now, so let’s get into some new releases for February!

A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross. The authors, both award-winning historians, center Black womanhood and discuss artists, queer women, enslaved and freedwomen, religious leaders, activists and more in this expansive history that testifies to the “beauty, richness, rhythm, tragedy, heartbreak, rage, and enduring love that abounds in the spirit of Black women in communities throughout the nation.”

Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad. Saad’s Instagram challenge asked people to examine and own the ways they uphold white supremacy. Over 80,000 people downloaded her Me and White Supremacy workbook, and now that guide is a published book that leads you through how to stop inflicting damage on people of color and how to help others do so too.

18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics by Bruce Goldfarb. They might look like dollhouse scenes at first, but Frances Glessner Lee’s nutshell studies of the 1940s and ’50s trained law enforcement officers in the investigation of violent crimes, and are still being used today. 18 Tiny Deaths explores how this Chicago socialite became one of the strongest proponents of modern forensics in the 20th century.

Smacked: A Story of White-Collar Ambition, Addiction, and Tragedy by Eilene Zimmerman. A memoir about Zimmerman’s life with and without her ex-husband and the drug addiction he hid from his family that eventually led to his death. This shocking event compelled her to start her research into drug addiction among similarly work-obsessed white collar professionals, which she undertakes while rebuilding her life into something completely new.

That’s it for new releases this week! You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. See you on Friday for 3 on a Theme!