Author: Alice Burton

A gift item for you or a loved one! Or for an enemy if you really wanna CONFUSE them. This is a coffee table book with behind-the-scenes info, chit-chat, and illustrations of David’s sweaters and Moira’s wigs I cannot emphasize this enough. So exciting. Wow.

Author Contreras is an authority on human genetics law (again I say — there’s something for everyone). Here he dives into the case where an attorney “discovered that women were being charged exorbitant fees to test for hereditary breast and ovarian cancers, tests they desperately needed—all because Myriad Genetics had patented the famous BRCA genes.” They patented genes! So this attorney (Chris Hansen), the ACLU, and a whole team took the case to the Supreme Court. I do love a book that gets real into one court case.

Okay, so we know about the weirdo Brontës and their graveyard house, but what about their mother! This is a biography of Maria Branwell (yes! Branwell! like their ne’er-do-well brother), who died at 38 (Charlotte was six at this time) and moved from Cornwall to Yorkshire, which was probably pretty tough. What do we know of her? How did she influence her children? True questions we should get into in this bio.

This cover is so spooky! This is cool because we only hear about Salem or sometimes the witch trials in England during the 1640s, but not during the Spanish Inquisition (you probably didn’t expect that) or in Spain’s colonial territories in the Americas. This features ten essay portraits of women, which “study their subjects’ social status, particularize their motivations, determine the characteristics of their prosecution, and deduce the reasons used to justify violence against them.” And again — please look at that spooky cover.

This is for ages 8 – 12! Which is extremely great because, as recently mentioned in this newsletter, it is v v difficult to get non-super-academic African history books in the US, and especially so for kids! This is about ten “real-life kings, queens, inventors, scholars, and visionaries who lived in Africa thousands of years ago and changed the world.” Ugh, so cool. Learn about Mansa Musa and Amanirenas and eight others!

The year is 1743. It’s prime smuggling time. The ship Rising Sun sells a group of enslaved people from Africa to the Dutch colony of Suriname and is sailing away when three of its sailors murder four people on board and mutiny, taking over the schooner. This is about the mutiny and “an international chocolate smuggling ring.” ALSO it’s from NYU Press, so it’s an academic press book!

The federal tipped minimum wage since 1991 (yes, that is thirty years) has been $2.13. Prior to COVID, six million people that we are aware of worked off this system, meaning when the pandemic hit, tons of them lost their jobs and the varied security that came with them. In Jayaraman’s newest book, she “shines a light on these workers, illustrating how the people left out of the fight for a fair minimum wage are society’s most marginalized: people of color, many of them immigrants; women, who form the majority of tipped workers; disabled workers; incarcerated workers; and youth workers.” Jayaraman is the director of the Food Labor Research Center at U-C Berkeley.

In 1799, the Rosetta Stone was discovered in Egypt. Carved in 196 BCE, it uses Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts, and also Ancient Greek. It is how we in the modern era could finally decipher Ancient Egyptian. DID the British steal it from Egypt in 1801 and haul it back to their country? Yes. It has been on display in the British Museum since 1802. Hm. But THIS book is about the translation itself and how two British and French guys decided to make it a big competition. It’s also about the culture of Egypt and I am a sucker for a book that talks about history and objects and dramatic happenings, even if those dramatic happenings were two dudes trying to be James Spader in Stargate.

Hossain grew up in Bangladesh, and never thought that she would almost die in childbirth in the United States, but she almost did. In this new release, she discusses how this experience “put her on a journey to explore, understand, and share how women—especially women of color—are dismissed to death by systemic sexism in American healthcare.” This is important!

The Howards! Just makes me remember how great Arrested Development is. Ron and his brother Clint’s memoir looks at their childhood on TV, including Andy Griffith and Happy Days. Kim and I were just talking about how dual memoirs can be so good because you get these two perspectives on what was going on and gets you a little closer to a true picture. Exciting.

I’m gonna throw some numbers at you: in the 1920s, American’s consumed 75% of the world’s rubber (primarily by having most of the cars), but America controlled 1% of the rubber supply. So, “to solve its conundrum, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company turned to a tiny West African nation, Liberia, founded in 1847 as a free Black republic” and turned it into America’s rubber empire through exploitation and environmental devastation. This is one of those things you don’t hear about, but which had a huge impact.

Law professor Hessick talks about “he unstoppable march of plea bargaining, which began to take hold during Prohibition and has skyrocketed since 1971, when it was affirmed as constitutional by the Supreme Court.” Read about the case against plea bargaining and how it can be reformed.

The history of Africa “has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity?” Author French is a professor at Columbia and was one of the New York Times‘s first Black correspondents, covering West and Central Africa in the ’90s. I am SUPER psyched for this book; there are not enough African history books published in the US.

A forgotten scandal and a title with a pun! Confession that this is by a professor from my college, but I didn’t know that until AFTER I picked it. You wouldn’t think this would influence my choice in any way more than ten years later, but I was one of those kids who spent most of her college free time in office hours, and I am FOND of the University of Illinois’s haunted English Building. Anyway! This is about an acclaimed turn of the century poet, her affair with a married man, and the deaths of all three.

Profiles of fifty notable American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian people! This covers “the lives, stories, and contributions of Indigenous artists, activists, scientists, athletes, and other changemakers.” And it’s illustrated! It also includes “accessible primers on important Indigenous issues, from the legacy of colonialism and cultural appropriation to food sovereignty, land and water rights, and more.” Author Keene is a member of the Cherokee Nation and founder of the blog Native Appropriations.

If author Blain’s name looks familiar, it’s because she is co-editor of this year’s Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America 1619-2019. Hamer was a leader in the mid-20th century American civil rights movement, as well as organizer of Mississippi’s Freedom Summer, along with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (aka SNCC). This bio “explores the Black activist’s ideas and political strategies, highlighting their relevance for tackling modern social issues including voter suppression, police violence, and economic inequality.” And it’s 200 pages! The length that all books should be.

It’s a university press book about Carrie Fisher and Princess Leia! It is a “full-length exploration of Carrie Fisher’s career as actress, writer, and advocate” and “Fisher’s entangled relationship with the iconic Princess Leia.” Contributors talk about Fisher’s memoirs, the use of Fisher/Leia references in the Women’s March, and her mental health advocacy, among other things. V exciting.

Did you watch Olivia Lux do a terrible job as Tabitha Brown on Drag Race season 13? That’s the first time I heard of Tabitha Brown, but she seems like a delight. She is a vegan and TikTok star! In her book, she talks about struggling with chronic autoimmune pain and “shares the wisdom she gained from her own journey, showing readers how to make a life for themselves that is rooted in nonjudgmental kindness and love, both for themselves and for others.”

It’s a book by Roxane Gay’s imprint, Tiny Reparations Books! And by the hilarious Phoebe Robinson. She shares “stories about her mom slow-poking before a visit with Mrs. Obama, the stupidly fake reassurances of zip-line attendants, her favorite things about dating a white person from the UK, and how the lack of Black women in leadership positions fueled her to become the Black lady boss of her dreams.” YAY.

What is it like to be a veterinarian! And what do you need to know. Schott answers this, as well as all-important topics like “the mysteries of catnip, dog flatulence, and duck erectile dysfunction.” Really just covers it all there. I hope I never have to examine a wolverine, but I am interested in HOW one does it.

Journalist Mouallem “travels to thirteen remarkable mosques and discovers the surprising history of their communities” across the Americas, from Canada to Brazil. He learns how Islam shaped the Americas, and, in the recent tradition of road trip nonfiction, learns a little something about himself.

This is one of the books I pre-ordered! Ok, I cannot explain why I love Elvira so much, except that her attitude is such a complete delight. Her combination of sex positivity and corny jokes just make for this enduring icon who has been around for literal decades and I love her extremely silly ’80s movie and I’m so glad she wrote a book.

Black Seminoles were “descendants of Seminole Indians, free Blacks, and escaped slaves who formed an alliance in Spanish Florida.” John Horse, whose life squarely occupied the nineteenth century, “defended his people from the US government, other tribes, and slave hunters.” This is a YA biography, which usually equates to just enough information for your daily life as opposed to the deep dive of adult nonfiction! Very exciting.

Leng’ete grew up in a Maasai village in Kenya. She became an activist who ended female genital mutilation in her village entirely, “and Nice continues the fight to end FGM throughout Africa, and the world.”

I’m sorry, but as a person who loves Gosford Park a weird amount, I have to highlight this Yale University Press book about British country houses and the people who lived in them. There is literally ANOTHER nonfiction book about British country houses being published next week. What a weird month. How amazing is this cover though?

SPEAKING OF COVERS ermg. Tarana Burke, founder of the Me Too movement, writes a memoir “about her own journey to saying those two simple yet infinitely powerful words―me too―and how she brought empathy back to an entire generation in one of the largest cultural events in American history.”

Author Kamei teaches a course on the legal ramifications of the World War II incarceration of people of Japanese ancestry. This looks at the over 120,000 people forcibly removed from their homes by the U.S. government and kept in detention camps until the end of WWII. The background and context for these events are “interwoven with more than 130 individual voices of those who were unconstitutionally incarcerated, many of them children and young adults.”

The Violence Project is a nonprofit “dedicated to reducing violence in society and using data and analysis to improve policy and practice.” It is also a comprehensive database of mass shooters. Through interviews and hundreds of data points, “instead of offering thoughts and prayers for the victims of these crimes, Peterson and Densley share their data-driven solutions for exactly what we must do, at the individual level, in our communities, and as a country, to put an end to these tragedies that have defined our modern era.”

What is the Devils Hole pupfish! Great question — it is “a one-inch-long, iridescent blue fish whose only natural habitat is a ten-by-sixty-foot pool near Death Valley.” And yet it survives! This looks at its history on the endangered species list (a controversial listing!) and why we should care about this tiny fish.

Bronzeville is one of Chicago’s historic Black neighborhoods (a few people who lived in Bronzeville: Ida B. Wells, Louis Armstrong, Gwendolyn Brooks, among others!). Turner grew up in ’70s Bronzeville and her memoir focuses on the story of her, her sister, and her friend Debra, as well as that of her mother, aunt, and grandmother. Really psyched about this one, because 1970s + Bronzeville + woman-centered memoir. A+.

Children’s author Bolden tells the story of Dovey Johnson Roundtree, famous for her “successful defense of an indigent Black man accused of the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer, a prominent white Washington, DC, socialite, in 1965.” Roundtree also was the first lawyer to bring a bus desegregation case before the Interstate Commerce Commission, “the first Black women to enter the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, and was one of the first ordained female ministers in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.” Dovey Undaunted indeed!

Know that I pick this having the Funko Pop of Lagertha from Vikings on my bookshelf. In this history, Brown “lays to rest the hoary myth that Viking society was ruled by men and celebrates the dramatic lives of female Viking warriors.” Take that, hoary myth! It combines archaeology, history, and literature (amazing) to tell the story of a female Viking warrior found in a grave in Sweden. You also learn about medieval women like Queen Gunnhild Mother-of-Kings, the Viking leader known as The Red Girl, and Queen Olga of Kyiv. So cool.

Alexander’s website describes himself as “a theoretical physicist specializing in cosmology, particle physics and quantum gravity.” Which is fancy. He emphasizes the importance of intuition and thinking outside the box (four dimensions! forget the three dimensional box) for great physics. Also how much we need diversity in science, which, as someone who regularly covers science/nature books in her newsletter/podcast, YES PLEASE. Give diverse scientists book deals!

This was inspired by the Yves St Laurent sardine dress, which basically looks like the cover (fish scales!) and “celebrates the fading crafts, industries, and artisans that have defined communities for generations.” She looks at Manhattan dressmakers of the nineteenth century and “the fishermen on Grand Manan Island, a community of 2,500 residents, where the dignity of work and the bounty of the sea ruled for hundreds of years.” Grand Manan is in Canada!

Chinese diaspora! Gold! Ngai covers the gold rushes of the nineteenth century and how they led to “the Chinese Question,” namely: “would the United States and the British Empire outlaw Chinese immigration?” Spoiler: they did. Ngai links themes from “Europe’s subjugation of China to the rise of the international gold standard and the invention of racist, anti-Chinese stereotypes that persist to this day.” Basically, we are always being influenced by events and decisions of the past, and here are some you might not have known about that impact you.

Chemerinsky is dean of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. His new book “reveals how the Supreme Court has enabled racist policing and sanctioned law enforcement excesses through its decisions over the last half-century” and how “its conception in the late eighteenth century until the Warren Court in 1953, the Supreme Court rarely ruled against the police.” If you like deep dives into Supreme Court history (I do) and again, why we do the things we do (history!), then check this out.

Ok yeah, this came out in June, but I am only HEARING about it now. In the Heights is my wife’s favorite musical and this behind-the-scenes look offers “untold stories, perceptive essays, and the lyrics to Miranda’s songs—complete with his funny, heartfelt annotations. It also features newly commissioned portraits and never-before-seen photos from backstage, the movie set, and productions around the world.” SO NEAT.