Author: Kim Ukura

Happy Friday, nonfiction lovers! At the time you’re reading this, I will probably be on my way to the Minnesota State Fair, a summer tradition with food on sticks, 4-H crafts, and faces carved out of butter. It’s a delight!

First up this week, I want to highlight a couple of excellent book lists: 

• NPR has put together a collection of 100 favorite funny books, a combination of readers votes and critics curation. In addition to fiction, the list has some awesome suggestions for funny memoirs, essays, and nonfiction. 
• LitHub is doing a series of fall nonfiction previews. As of the day I’m writing this newsletter, they’ve done essays, memoirs, politics, and social science, with history, biography, science, tech and more still to come. Get ready to topple your TBR. 

Writers Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi are teaming up to “start an honest conversation about racism with young people” through a new YA version of Kendi’s best-selling book Stamped from the Beginning. The YA adaptation, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, will be out in March 2020. In an interview, Reynolds said, “I rewrote the book top to bottom… I settled into it and I tried to figure out, if I’m 16, what makes me want to read this book?” I’m fascinated with this idea and can’t wait to read it.

Cyntoia Brown, a child sex-trafficking victim who was jailed after killing one of her johns, has been released from prison and is writing a memoir. Free Cyntoia: My Search of Redemption in the American Prison System is set for release October 15.

There are two interesting bits of news related to one of 2019’s new releases I’m most bummed about not reading yet, Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff:

• ABC is in the process of developing a limited series based on the book, which chronicles the events of September 11 through “stories of those who were lost, saved and forever altered by the most heinous acts of terrorism on American soil.” The series is set to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the attacks.
• Zuckoff was interviewed about the book over at The Millions, where he talked about “what he was doing the day of the attacks, what followed, and how a Boston Globe feature published five days after the attacks turned into an essential book more than 6,000 days later.”

Actor Taron Egerton, who played Elton John in the biopic Rocketman, will be reading the audiobook version of the singer’s memoir! Me, out October 15, will be “the first and only official autobiography,” covering his entire life and career. There’s something I find really charming about this news, although I can’t quite pin my finger on what exactly it is. 

And 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

Hello and happy Wednesday, fellow nerds! For this week’s new nonfiction, I’m highlighting a book of essays on mental illness, a look at women and true crime, and an exploration of modern crime and corruption on the high seas. It’s a good week of books!

I’m Telling the Truth, But I’m Lying by Bassey Ikpi – In this collection of essays, “Bassey Ikpi explores her life—as a Nigerian-American immigrant, a black woman, a slam poet, a mother, a daughter, an artist—through the lens of her mental health and diagnosis of bipolar II and anxiety.” She also explores how mental health impacts all aspects of our lives, as well as how we see the world and ourselves. It sounds amazing, and I adore this cover.

Further Listening: (Trigger warning – suicide) Ikpi’s interview with NPR about living with mental illness and her work as a writer and artist is really good.

Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession by Rachel Monroe – True crime! In this book, Rachel Monroe looks at four true crime archetypes (Detective, Victim, Defender, Killer) and ties them to four true stories of obsessive women. Through these women, she also looks at the history of crime in the United States in a book that “explores empathy, justice, and the persistent appeal of violence.”

Further Reading: In an interview with The Cut, Monroe talks about obsessing over true crime with her mom, whether “this intense embrace of a sisterhood of darkness is a reaction against that mandated glowiness” of places like Instagram.

The Outlaw Ocean: Journey’s Across the Last Untamed Frontier by Ian Urbina – Crime on the high seas! One of the last frontiers of the modern world, the world’s oceans are “too big to police, and under no clear international authority (and) play host to rampant criminality and exploitation.” Based on five years of reporting, this book looks at the hidden world of crime and corruption tied to the global fishing, oil, and shipping industries.

Further Reading: In The Atlantic, Urbina shares the story of Sealand, a “micronation” on a metal platform just off the coast of England. It’s so amazing and weird.

And because three books is never enough, here are four more that might pique your interest this week:

• Tonight We Bombed the U.S. Capitol: The Explosive Story of M19, America’s First Female Terrorist Group by William Rosenau
• Girls and Their Cats by BriAnne Wills and Elyse Moody
• The Conscious Closet: The Revolutionary Guide to Looking Good While Doing Good by Elizabeth L. Cline
• What We Talk About When We Talk About Books by Leah Price

Yay, 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. In this week’s episode, Alice and I scratched the surface of books about cults. Happy reading! – Kim

Hello and happiest of Fridays, nonfiction nerds! This week’s nonfiction news is a mix of stories that made me feel angry, happy, curious, annoyed, and meh. Read on to find out what I am talking about!

Angry – This story makes my blood boil: “When their book deal blew up after sexual misconduct allegations, Glenn Thrush kept his advance. Maggie Haberman hat to pay hers back.” Cheers to BuzzFeed News for their factual-but-pointed headlines, I really don’t have much else to add. The article is a good one, do click through for the details.

Happy – Workman Publishing is publishing a biography of AOC! The political biography about Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will be written by journalist Prachi Gupta and released in November 2019. According to a Workman representative, AOC: Fighter, Phenom, Changemaker will “look and feel like an of-the-moment gift book with a bold cover, easy-to-read text, and tons of vibrant photos in a small package.” I think this sounds like fun.

Curious – Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish Iranian writer, has swept the “Australian literary prize landscape” with his memoir No Friend but the Mountains, the story of “his journey from Indonesia to Australia by boat, and his subsequent imprisonment on Manus Island by the Australian government.” Because he’s still being denied entry by the Australian government, Boochani appeared at the awards ceremony via WhatsApp. It looks like the book is available in the United States, which is exciting news.

Annoyed – The trailer for a movie adaptation of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces has been released. The 2005 memoir was a bestseller, but after a lot of publicity, it emerged that Frey fabricated pieces of the story, including how long he spent in custody. There’s no U.S. release date yet, but I’m still annoyed this is even a thing.

Meh – Lisa Marie Presley has scored a $3 to $4 million book deal to “spill ‘shocking’ details about her last ex-husband Michael Jackson, her father Evils Presley, and more.” There’s not much more to the announcement that I can find, so we’ll see what comes of it.

And finally, a quick re-link for a story that didn’t work for some folks last week – American Crime Story’s third season will take on the Clinton impeachment with Beanie Feldstein playing Monica Lewinsky.

And 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

Hello and happy Wednesday, nonfiction friends! Today marks the first big publishing day of the fall, which means I have 12 exciting new releases to put on your radar. No time for preamble, let’s dive in!

The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom – One family’s story and “their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities.” I started this one last week and it’s great. 

Diagnosis: Solving the Most Baffling Medical Mysteries by Lisa Sanders – A doctor and former advisor for the drama House, M.D. tells the stories of some of her most difficult cases, tracing the stories from presentation to diagnosis to treatment.

Consent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention by Donna Freitas – A published author and scholar offers a “forensic examination” of the time she spent being stalked by a graduate professor for two years. 

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi – A look at antiracism, a concept that “reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism” that combines the author’s experience with ideas about ethics, history, law, and science.”

Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power by Sady Doyle – A look at the “female dark side,” from the Bible through Jurassic Park, to better understand the “patriarchal fear of women.” This title is so great. 

Have You Eaten Grandma? Or, the Life-Saving Importance of Correct Punctuation, Grammar, and Good English by Gyles Brandreth – I love a good grammar book. This one, from “Great Britain’s most popular grammar guru” offers a funny and accessible guide to punctuation and more.

Knock Wood: A Memoir in Essays by Jennifer Militello – A poet explores three pivotal elements of her own story and how those events seem to be connected in different ways, exploring ideas of “family damage and the precarious ties of love.” I adore this cover.

Nobody’s Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs, and Trolls by Carrie Goldberg – A look at the front lines of the war against” sexual violence and privacy violations” that take place on and offline, told by a lawyer who founded a victims’ rights law firm.

Normal Sucks: How to Live, Learn, and Thrive Outside the Lines by Jonathan Mooney – “A neuro-diverse writer, advocate, and father meditates on his life, offering the radical message that we should stop trying to fix people and start empowering them to succeed.”

Heaven’s Breath: A Natural History of the Wind by Lyall Watson – Wind is basically everywhere and serves as both the circulatory and nervous systems of the earth. This rather charming looking book looks at the role win plays in nature, human conflict, and our inner lives. 

The Bells of Old Tokyo: Meditations on Time and a City by Anna Sherman – An exploration of the city of Tokyo that’s a meditation on time, history, memory and impermanence.

The Plateau by Maggie Paxson – The story of a remote village in France that offered safe harbor to Jewish refugees during World War II, a tradition that continues with refugees to this day.

And that’s all for this week’s new book, although I’m sure there are some I missed. 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

Hello and happy Friday, nonfiction nerds. I’ve been sad all week following the death of author Toni Morrison. Although she’s probably best known for her fiction, she was also a prominent thinker and writer of nonfiction.

In addition to editing or contributing to many essay collections, she published several of her own including What Moves At the Margin in 2008, The Origin of Others in 2017, and The Source of Self-Regard in 2019. Her 1993 Nobel Prize lecture is also an amazing read, and is the source of one of the beautiful quotes I’ve seen floating around this week:

“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

This Vulture piece gives some context on her Nobel address, which you can read in full here. She’ll be so missed, but we’re all lucky to have the chance to read her work.

With that, a few other stories of note from the week:

Chelsea and Hillary Clinton are teaming up to write a book! Out October 1, The Book of Gutsy Women will include portraits of more than 100 women – “leaders with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done.” Both Clintons have previously written books, but this is the first time they’re writing together. Women in the book will range from presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm to scientist Marie Curie, as well as other contemporary heroines. I know at some point I’m going to get tired of these kinds of collected biographies… but this is not quite that day.

Speaking of the Clintons… season three of American Crime Story will tackle the Clinton impeachment scandal. The season is being based on a book, Jeffrey Toobin’s 2000 book A Vast Conspiracy. Stars include Beanie Feldstein as Monica Lewinsky, Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp, and Annaleigh Ashford as Paula Jones. I can’t decide how I feel about this, but I’ve got time to figure out – it’s not slated to premiere until September 2020.

Speaking of upcoming books… Publisher’s Weekly has released their list of most anticipated books of Fall 2019, and it’s a doozy! I always like the way PW splits out nonfiction, which gives a lot more titles space on a list like this one. My top title from the list is either Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Diaz (out October 29) or The Queens of Animation by Nathalia Holt (out October 22).

Speaking of other political scandals… Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who leaked a trove of classified documents, has a memoir coming out September 17. There’s not much out about the book, Permanent Record, although the publisher says “Snowden will describe his role in the accumulation of metadata and the ‘crisis of conscience’ that led him to steal a trove of files in 2013 and share them with reporters.” It’s worth noting that publicizing the book might be hard for Snowden, who is living in exile in Moscow.

And 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

Happy Wednesday, nonfiction lovers! After spending nearly all of July not being able to read, I think my slump may finally be ebbing. I found a couple of books that have grabbed my attention (all fiction, but that’s just fine with me), which has been such a welcome change!

It’s also just in time, as the summer new books slow down is officially over! This week’s new titles include books about books, bootleggers, and self-delusion. Let’s check them out!

The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator by Timothy C. Winegard – I didn’t know that I needed a nearly 500 page book about the history of mosquitoes until I saw this book, but now it’s all I want to read. Timothy Winegard, a professor of history and political science looks at how “the mosquito has been the single most powerful force in determining humanity’s fate” throughout history.

Further Listening: Winegard was interviewed for NPR’s Weekend Edition where he talked about how mosquitoes may have contributed to the fall of the dinosaurs and helped with the spread of Christianity.

The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America by Karen Abbott – Karen Abbott writes great historical crime books, so I have little doubt that her newest will be amazing. This book tells the story of George Remus, a whiskey trafficker in the early days of Prohibition with who went on to live a glamorous life reminiscent of Jay Gatsby. His antagonists are Mabel Walker Willebrandt, a female prosecutor who wants to take him down, and her investigator, Franklin Dodge, who begins an affair with his wife that “can only end in murder.”

Further Reading: Abbot has a short excerpt of the book on her website that gives a great sense of her narrative flair. This seems like a great end-of-summer true crime story. You can also check out one of her older books: Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, American Rose, or Sin in the Second City.

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino – Essays! This book jacket for this collection by Jia Tolentino, a culture critic at The New Yorker, describes the book as “an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives.” That sounds intense, but I am pretty into it.

Further Reading: Tolentino has a pretty extensive backlist of writing for The New Yorker. Her piece about the amazing and terrible movie Drop Dead Gorgeous spoke to me.

While I only decided to feature three titles this week, there are so many other great books to choose from. Here are just a few more:

• When I Was White: A Memoir by Sarah Valentine
• Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law by Haben Girma
• In the Country of Women: A Memoir by Susan Straight
• Mayflower Lives: Pilgrims in a New World and the Early American Experiences by Martyn Whittock
• Motherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing by Elissa Altman
• Our Women in the Ground: Essays from Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World, edited by Zahra Hankir
• The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me by Keah Brown

Let’s get this wrapped up! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. In this week’s episode, Alice and I chatted on a topic that’s dear to all readers – books about books! Happy reading! – Kim

Hello and happy Friday, fellow readers! I feel like I might be emerging from the reading slump that’s gripped me through all of July, which is welcome news going into a beautiful weekend. This week’s nonfiction news is a bit of a scattershot, but it all bodes well for future reading. Let’s get going!

Megan Rapinoe is writing a book, and my soul is deeply happy! Scheduled for fall 2020, Rapinoe said “I hope this book will inspire people to find what they can do, and in turn inspire other people around them to do the same.” She’ll also be talking about the political issues she’s been vocal about since the Women’s World Cup – LGBTQ rights and pay equity for women. So psyched!

A new exhibition based on Matthew Desmond’s Evicted will be on display in Milwaukee. To explore issues related to housing insecurity, “the exhibition incorporates audio slideshows, photos, and infographics. And there are powerful displays – such as a vacuum sealed stack of personal belonging.” The display was previously housed at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C.

This is not exactly nonfiction, but it delighted me anyway. The Library of Congress is looking for help transcribing nearly 16,000 pages of diaries, letters, speeches and other documents from suffragists. The original documents are available on By the People, “a crowdsourcing platform launched by the library in 2018.” This sounds so cool!

I really enjoyed this NPR interview with Michal Kranish, author of The World’s Fastest Man: The Extraordinary Life of Cyclist Major Taylor, America’s First Black Sports Hero. I love books that dive deep into sports I’m not super familiar with, so this seems up my alley. I’m bummed I missed out on this book when it came out back in May, but luckily my library had an ebook copy I could check out!

Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women, one of the nonfiction best-sellers of the summer, is going to Showtime. Taddeo “is attached to write and executive produce the drama.” The book centers around the stories of three women. The series “will reportedly revolve around women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.” One other Three Women-related note – although it’s been getting generally positive reviews, there have also been some criticisms. I appreciated this one from author Emily Nagoski, which offered a perspective I hadn’t thought about.

And that’ll close out another 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

Hello and congrats on making it to the end of July, fellow nonfiction readers! When we get a last/fifth week of the month like this one – nearly evenly split between two months – I always find it a little odd. It’s like no one knows what to do with those extra days, outside the rhythm of our four-week months.

Whatever the reason, it’s a very slow week for new nonfiction – I only have two titles to share! So to fill things out, I browsed through some great nonfiction deals for your Kindle, which you can find at the end of this newsletter. Onwards!

---

Sponsored by TBR: Tailored Book Recommendations

TBR is Book Riot’s new subscription service offering Tailored Book Recommendations for readers of all stripes. Been dreaming of a “stitchfix for books?” Now it’s here! Tell TBR about your reading preferences and what you’re looking for, and sit back while your Bibliologist handpicks recommendations just for you. TBR offers plans to receive hardcover books in the mail or recommendations by email, so there’s an option for every budget. Sign up here.

---

Deadly Aim: The Civil War Story of Michigan’s Anishinaabe Sharpshooters by Sally M. Walker – I don’t do a ton of middle grade nonfiction in the newsletter, but I’m glad to get to include this one. The book tells the story of the approximately 20,000 American Indians who served in the Civil War, particularly a group of sharpshooters who fought “despite enduring broken treaties, loss of tribal lands, and racism.”

Further Reading: Sally Walker has written many books for young readers, including Winnie: The True Story of the Bear Who Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh and Boundaries: How the Mason-Dixon Line Settled a Family Feud and Divided a Nation. Great subtitles!

Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark by Cecelia Watson – If you are a person who loves little books about big ideas, this one might be up your alley. In the book, a historical and philosopher of sciences “charts the rise and fall of this infamous punctuation mark.” She explores famous loves and haters, the role of grammar rules in the confusion of punctuation, and more.

Further Thoughts: In her review of the book for the New Yorker, grammar queen Mary Norris describes the book as “a deceptively playful-looking  book that turns out to be a scholarly treatise on a sophisticated device that has contributed eloquence and mystery to Western civilization.”

And finally, a few great Kindle deals to load up your e-reader. One caveat: since it’s close to the end of the month, be sure to check before you buy to make sure the price hasn’t changed:

• 1776 by David McCullough for $3.99
• Robin by Dave Itzkoff for $3.99
• Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King for $1.99
• Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot for $3.99
• The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman for $1.99
• In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi for $3.99

And that’s another Wednesday newsletter! 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

Hello and happy Friday, fellow nonfiction lovers! This week’s nonfiction news includes a lot of tidbits about upcoming movie and television adaptations, plus one upcoming book announcement that sounds particularly excellent. Let’s dive in!

---

Sponsored by TBR: Tailored Book Recommendations

TBR is Book Riot’s new subscription service offering Tailored Book Recommendations for readers of all stripes. Been dreaming of a “stitchfix for books?” Now it’s here! Tell TBR about your reading preferences and what you’re looking for, and sit back while your Bibliologist handpicks recommendations just for you. TBR offers plans to receive hardcover books in the mail or recommendations by email, so there’s an option for every budget. Sign up here.

---

Anna “Delvey” Sorkin, a woman who pretended to be a German heiress to get money from friends and more, may actually be getting paid by Netflix. The streaming service and Shonda Rhimes have licensed her story to make into a show, paying $100,000 along with royalties and a per-episode consulting fee. But now that’s she’s been convicted of theft and grand larceny, officials in New York are trying to prevent her from seeing any more of the Netflix money.

According to Gizmodo, “the office of the New York State attorney general recently filed a request to bar Sorokin from profiting from the series under ‘Son of Sam’ law, which prevents criminals from spinning their crimes into profit.” I’m officially obsessed with this story and will be buying My Friend Anna by Rachel DeLoache Williams immediately.

Michael B. Jordan’s film adaptation of Bryan Stevenson’s memoir Just Mercy will be open nationwide on January 10, 2020. The film focuses on Stevenson’s first case, “that of Walter McMillian, a black man who was sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit.” The movie also stars Jamie Foxx as McMillian and Brie Larson as Eva Ansley, operations director at the Equal Justice Initiative. I can’t wait for this one.

The second season of Mindhunter will debut on Netflix on August 16. The show follows a special team within the FBI “that investigates what makes serial killers tick during the ‘70s.” The show is inspired by a real-life FBI agent, John Douglas, who wrote about his time as a criminal profiler in The Killer Across the Table.

Another new Netflix show out in August, The Family, is also based on a nonfiction book! The five-part documentary series is about a secret organization that “believes the separation of church and state is unnecessary, and political affiliation is irrelevant. The Family grooms and supports leaders, teaching them that the Bible is a story about power, not mercy – that leaders are chosen by God, not elected.” The series is based on a 2008 book by author Jeff Sharlet called The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. 

Daniel Mallory Ortberg is writing a memoir-in-essays! Something That May Shock and Discredit You will “pan pop culture, covering everything from the beauty of William Shatner to a sinister reimagining of HGTV’s House Hunters.” This article for Entertainment Weekly includes a cover reveal (pretty great!) and an excerpt (pretty hilarious!).

And that’s everything 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

Hello nonfiction friends! Since last arriving in your inbox, I have survived a heatwave, hauled fallen tree limbs, and KonMari’d more than 100 books from my overflowing shelves. It feels like it should be the weekend, and it’s only Wednesday.

---

Sponsored by TBR: Tailored Book Recommendations

TBR is Book Riot’s new subscription service offering Tailored Book Recommendations for readers of all stripes. Been dreaming of a “stitchfix for books?” Now it’s here! Tell TBR about your reading preferences and what you’re looking for, and sit back while your Bibliologist handpicks recommendations just for you. TBR offers plans to receive hardcover books in the mail or recommendations by email, so there’s an option for every budget. Sign up here.

---

This week is another slower one in the world of publishing, but I’ll take it. I have three new books to feature including a highly-anticipated memoir about a con artist in New York City, an exploration of the danger facing wild salmon, and a peek at the world of language on the Internet. Let’s get going!

My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress by Rachel DeLoache Williams – There are few things I love more than a good con story, so of course this book has been on my radar. Rachel DeLoache Williams’s friend Anna Delvey claimed to be a German heiress and, for a while, her luxurious lifestyle supported the claim. But after a series of financial mishaps to the tune of $62,000 on a vacation, Williams learned her friend had been deceiving her… and almost everyone else. Shocking rich people problems!

Further Reading: Williams published an essay about her friendship with Anna on Vanity Fair back in 2018. I expect the memoir will expand on all the juicy details.

Stronghold: One Man’s Quest to Save the World’s Wild Salmon by Tucker Malarkey – This book is a profile of Guido Rahr, “an unlikely visionary and his protect the world’s last bastion of wild salmon.” Rahr’s quest began when he started noticing a decline in the salmon runs of the Pacific Northwest where he fished, but goes on to explore the world of wild salmon through the eyes of “scientists, conservationists, Russian oligarchs, corrupt officials” and more. The marketing copy compares the book to Mountains Beyond Mountains and The Orchid Thief – two of my favorite books about obsessions – which has me pretty psyched.

Further Reading: Outside Magazine included the book on a list of favorite summer reads of 2019, which includes some other great titles too.

Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch – I love a good language book. In this one, Gretchen McCulloch, an internet linguist, explores “how the internet is changing the English language, why that’s a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are.”

Further Listening: McCulloch co-hosts a podcast called Lingthusiasm, described as “a lively, nerdy, language-y conversation with real linguists!” I’m mad I didn’t know about this until today, but of course I am going to listen immediately.

Even during the slow season in publishing, it’s exciting to find some additional reads for your TBR. Here are a few more on my radar:

• Amazing Decisions: The Illustrated Guide to Improving Business Deals and Family Meals by Dan Ariely and Matt R. Trower
• Why Digital Transformations Fail: The Surprising Disciplines of How to Take Off and Stay Ahead by Tony Saldanha
• Hummingbird in Underworld: Teaching in a Men’s Prison by Deborah Tobola
• Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian by James Grant
• Screen Tests: Stories and Other Writing by Kate Zambreno

And that’s the end of today’s newsletter! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. This week we talked about a bunch of books celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. It’s out of this world! – Kim