Author: Kim Ukura

Hello again, nonfiction readers! This week has felt, to me, like a week for catching up and catching my breath before the sprint to the holidays and the end of 2018. News has been pretty slow – other than the announcement of a new Margaret Atwood (SQUEEEE!) – and the pace of new books has slowed too.

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Today’s newsletter is sponsored by our $250 All the Books Barnes and Noble gift card giveaway!

Enter to win a $250 gift card to Barnes and Noble in support of our All the Books! podcast. Click here for more info.

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In the spirit of slowing down, just for a moment, I thought it made sense to use this week’s newsletter to catch up on some of the great nonfiction content we’ve been publishing over at Book Riot.

But first, I wanted to point you towards one of my favorite year-end books roundups. NPR’s Book Concierge is a collection of 300 of the year’s best books recommended by the editors and writers at NPR. I’ve only gotten to browse it a little bit, but I’ve already come across books that completely missed my radar or I’d forgotten about. I love that, and can’t wait to dig in more.

Back over at the Riot, here’s what we’ve been working on:

Curious about the differences between biography and memoir? We broke down down some of the defining characteristics and has some great recommendations.

Illness and death seem to be on our minds. One Rioter shares the books she’s reading right now to understand those topics, and another rounded up five recent memoirs about struggling with illness. On a similar heavy note, here are nine memoirs about recovering from trauma.

Get a snapshot of women’s lives around the world with the most recent edition of The Women’s Atlas. We’ve got some fascinating and horrifying facts from the book to pique your interest.

If you need a break from reading nonfiction, a true crime podcast might be a perfect filler. We’ve got 18 of them to check out (especially ones that are great for people who also love mysteries).

No one likes to think about money, but we all have to do it. Rioter Aisling shares some of the best books she’s read on managing your finances that are perfect for the average person.

This list of 50 must-read microhistories is a must-read post. This is one of my favorite sub-genres!

We’ve also got a list of memoirs by diverse dancers, a collection of books I didn’t know I needed until this post went up.

Want to read something fast? Try one of these 50 short nonfiction books you can polish off in a day or two. These seem perfect for an upcoming holiday weekend. Or try one of the great essay collections that came out in 2018. Or snag a YA nonfiction book that came out this fall. Those are a lot of books you can read pretty quick!

And with that, it’s time to call it a week. Thanks again so much for reading! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot with questions and comments!

Hello, dear readers, and happy day after Thanksgiving! As tempting as all the bookish Black Friday deals are, I’m planning to spend most of the day on my couch watching Hallmark Christmas movies, reading, and building the LEGO Hogwart’s Castle we just bought. It couldn’t be a more nerdy day.

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Today’s newsletter is sponsored by our $250 All the Books Barnes and Noble gift card giveaway!

Enter to win a $250 gift card to Barnes and Noble in support of our All the Books! podcast. Click here for more info.

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Before we jump into this week’s new books and book news, I want to take this opportunity to say a deep and heartfelt thank you for checking in with this newsletter each week. The fact that I get to this platform to share what I’m excited about in the world of books is something I don’t take for granted. Thank you for making it possible and worthwhile!

New Books!

The holiday week has been a little bit slow for new releases, so I’m using this as a chance to catch up on a few I missed earlier in November:

First Comes Marriage by Huda Al-Marashi – Huda Al-Marashi met the but she was supposed to marry through an arranged marriage when they were six, the children of Iraqi immigrants living in California. As they grew up, Huda had dreams about a storybook romance, but when she and her soon-to-be husband, Hadi, weren’t allowed to spend time together alone before their wedding, she learns she’ll need to adjust her expectations when it comes to love, intimacy, and marriage. This one seems really charming!

American Overdose by Chris McGreal – “Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the opioid epidemic, Chris McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs, but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it.”

We the People by Erwin Chemerinsky – In this book, a University of California-Berkeley legal scholar “exposes how conservatives are using the Constitution to advance their own agenda” and puts forward a vision for a progressive reading of the Constitution that rests on the promise of the Preamble, liberty and justice for all.

Bringing Down the Colonel by Patricia Miller – Don’t let the title fool you, this book sounds totally excellent! After an affair with a prominent, married politician threatened to ruin her prospects, Madeline Pollard sued him for breach of promise for proposing and then breaking off their engagement. The subsequent trial gave her the chance to fight back and assert herself at a time when women’s sexuality was harshly judged.

Fed Up by Gemma Hartley – Building on a viral 2017 article in Harper’s Bazaar, this book looks at the idea of unpaid, uncredited “emotional labor” and the toll that having to manage relationships and expectations can have on women. This one strikes me as an excellent companion piece to the books on women’s anger that have come out this year.

Book News!

In truly glorious news, Michelle Obama’s Becoming may just become the biggest adult title of 2018. The book sold more than 725,000 copies on the first day of sales – a number that represents the largest single-day sales for any book by Penguin Random House. Becoming also had the biggest first-week sales of any adult book this year, surpassing both Fear by Bob Woodward and A Higher Loyalty by James Comey. Huzzah!

If you’re trying to make sense of all the Trump, 2016 election, and contemporary political books that are in the world right now, take a gander through Trump’s Terrible Presidency Book Club, an excellent round-up of some political books worth reading from the last couple of years).

Everyone loves to put out best of the year lists, including the scholars at the Smithsonian. This list of their favorites is a real treat, and includes some familiar faces (The Library Book by Susan Orlean) and new-to-me titles (Light of the Stars by Adam Frank – aliens!).

If you’re not still full of food from Thanksgiving yesterday, then maybe some food writing is in order. Over at Book Riot, we’ve recently shared 25 of the best cookbooks of 2018 or 20+ of the best food books of 2018. My TBR is toppling.

Have a wonderful rest of your weekend! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot with questions and comments!

Hello hello, nonfiction readers! This week marks the publication of another book that might be the biggest nonfiction release of 2018 – Becoming by Michelle Obama.

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Sponsored by Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom by Ariel Burger.

The world remembers Elie Wiesel—Nobel laureate, activist, and author of more than forty books—as a great humanist. He passed away in July of 2016. Now, in Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom, we see him as never before—not only as an extraordinary human being, but as a master teacher. Written by Wiesel’s devoted protégé and friend, Ariel Burger, Witness takes us inside the classroom, where listening and storytelling keep memory alive. Witness provides a front row seat to these lessons in compassion, teaching us that listening to a witness, makes us all witnesses. In this book, Wiesel’s legacy lives on.

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According to Barnes and Noble, the former First Lady’s memoir sold more preorders than any other adult title since Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman in 2015. Oprah also selected the book for her next book club pick. On Tuesday, Oprah also helped kick off Obama’s enormous fall book tour in front of a sold-out crowd of 14,000 people in Chicago. Obama also signed books at 57th Street Books, a community bookstore on Chicago’s south side.

“It seems like yesterday that @barackobama and I were taking our girls to @57thstreetbooks store. Today, I was there with a book of my own. Thanks to everyone who braved the cold and stopped by. #IAmBecoming” — From Michelle Obama’s Instagram

I have to say, I am just over-the-moon delighted by this news. I am so happy that the biggest publishing story of this year isn’t going to be our current president (even if one of the major pre-release headlines from Becoming was that Obama criticized Trump for his advocacy of birtherism). I love that we’re finally hearing from Obama after she had to spend so many years holding herself back. It’s just so inspiring. A few other links of note:

• NPR has two excerpts from the audio of the book, which I enjoyed listening to while I was waiting for my pre-ordered audiobook to arrive.
• USA Today shares five behind-the-scenes moments from the book, including a charming anecdote about another one of my favorites, Queen Elizabeth II.
• Bustled rounded up 15 inspiring quotes from the book.
• The 2 Dope Queens podcast officially signed off with an extended interview with Obama.
• Barack Obama’s Instagram post about his wife’s book is so charming.
• And at Book Riot, we updated our guide to Obama memoirs and books with a few details about Becoming.

That seems like enough for now, although I imagine you’ll see a lot more about the book around Book Riot in the next few weeks – it seems like just about every editor and writer has a copy of this one. Now, let’s round out this newsletter with a few more bookish news stories from the last few weeks:

Last week, Amazon announced their 10 best books of 2018. In the top ten, there were three nonfiction selections – Educated by Tara Westover, Indianapolis by Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic, and The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú. I loved Educated, liked The Line Becomes a River, and haven’t read Indianapolis. If you keep going into the top 20, which is how Amazon has it listed on their website, you’ll find four more nonfiction titles, including one of my favorites, Bad Blood by John Carreyrou.

Publishers Weekly also put out their top books of 2018, which is another pretty interesting (and long) list. I like that they don’t pull nonfiction apart too much for that one, it makes for a list that should have something for everyone.

Barack and Michelle Obama have purchased the rights to The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis, the first purchase as part of their development deal with Netflix. The book, which I think I will finally get from the library this week, “follows the chaos and mismanagement that ensued in the departments of Energy, Agriculture and Commerce in the handoff from President Barack Obama to President Donald Trump.” Lewis has had several of his books turned into films – Moneyball, The Big Short, and The Blind Side – so there’s precedent for turning these kinds of data-driven deep dives into compelling movies.

I’m starting to really like B&N Reads monthly nonfiction lists – I appreciate that they pull together new releases and new in paperback titles. This month, they’ve got new history titles, and new memoirs and biographies.

And with that, I’ll sign off by wishing you the happiest of weekends! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot with questions and comments!

It seems like the rest of the big new books of 2018 are packed into the first two weeks of November. Between that and bookish best of the year lists, news will be plentiful all the way until Christmas.

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Sponsored by In the Name of the Children: An FBI Agent’s Relentless Pursuit of the Nation’s Worst Predators (BenBella Books, Inc.)

Recommended by the New York Times Book Review, In the Name of the Children is 30-year FBI veteran Jeffrey Rinek’s personal, harrowing account of what it takes—and what it costs—to try to keep our children safe and to bring to justice those who prey on society’s most vulnerable victims. Rinek and his coauthor award-winning writer Marilee Strong captivate readers with stories from horrific investigations, including the notorious Yosemite Park murders, as he faces predators and elicits confessions from those who kidnap and kill through a unique empathy-based approach.

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To kick off the home stretch of 2018, I’ve got eight new November releases out this week, so you can get them in your hot little hands right now!

The Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome by Venki Ramakrishnan – “An insider account of the race for the structure of the ribosome, a fundamental discovery that both advances our knowledge of all life and could lead to the development of better antibiotics against life-threatening diseases” as well as a personal story about one man’s scientific journey.

The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons, and My Crazy Chinese Family by Lindsay Wong – “In this jaw-dropping, darkly comedic memoir, a young woman comes of age in a dysfunctional Asian family whose members blamed their woes on ghosts and demons when in fact they should have been on anti-psychotic meds.”

How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and If You Don’t by Lane Moore – A former editor at Cosmopolitan and comedy show host writes about what it’s been like to live a life mostly alone in a memoir that’s “powerful and entertaining journey in all its candor, anxiety, and ultimate acceptance—with humor always her bolstering force and greatest gift.”

Faking It: The Lies Women Tell About Sex–And the Truths They Reveal by Lux Alptraum – When we talk about sex, we talk about women as mysterious, deceptive, and—above all— untrustworthy. … But where does this assumption come from?” In this book, a sex educator “tackles the topic of seemingly dishonest women; investigating whether women actually lie, and what social situations might encourage deceptions both great and small.”

An Unexplained Death: The True Story of a Body at the Belvedere by Mikita Brottman – After seeing a ‘Missing’ poster with a sepia-toned photography of a man dressed in a bow tie and a tuxedo, Mikita Brottman spent a decade “sifting through the details of the missing man’s life and disappearance, and his purported suicide by jumping from the roof of her own apartment building, the Belvedere.”

In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum – Journalist Marie Colvin was killed in an artillery attack in Syria in 2012 at just 56 years old. In this book, a fellow reporter offers an investigation into Colvin’s life and death “based on exclusive access to her intimate diaries from age thirteen to her death, interviews with people from every corner of her life, and impeccable research.”

Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts – A chunkster biography of Winston Churchill based on “exclusive access to extensive new material: transcripts of War Cabinet meetings, diaries, letters and unpublished memoirs from Churchill’s contemporaries.”

Why Religion? A Personal Story by Elaine Pagels – “Why is religion still around in the twenty-first century? Why do so many still believe? And how do various traditions still shape the way people experience everything from sexuality to politics, whether they are religious or not?”

Hooray, new nonfiction! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot with questions and comments! Happy reading!

It’s official, the season of bookish awards and “best of the year” lists has begun! This week, the winners of the 2018 Kirkus Prizes were announced – congrats to Rebecca Solnit, who won for Call Them by Their True Names. According to NPR, “Each winning book nets $50,000 for the folks behind it, along with the slightly less tangible — though surely no less rewarding — laurels of recognition.”

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Voting has also opened in the Goodreads Choice Awards, which is celebrating a decade of readers choice award giving. I still haven’t really figured out how they slice and dice all of the nonfiction up, but I was interested in a new category, Best of the Best, which will pick the top books among winners over the last 10 years. There are some great nonfiction books in that category, including some of my favorites like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, and Quiet by Susan Cain.

And with that, on to some more bookish news and some newish books!

News Stories That Made Me Go 🤔

Lena Dunham has been tapped to write the script for a big screen adaptation of A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea by Melissa Fleming. The book is the true story of Doaa Al Zamel, a 19-year-old Syrian refugee who stayed afloat on an inflatable ring with two little girls for four days after the ship they were on sank. It sound like an incredible story, but hearing that Dunham is writing the adaptation feels squicky for some reason I can’t quite place.

Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have signed on to direct and star in an adaptation of David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon. I’m not at all surprised this is getting adapted, but I hope the script veers away from a story about saviors from the FBI and focuses instead on the truly unsettling story of the Osage Nation and the conspiracy behind their murders. A friend and I thought it could make a genuinely creepy horror movie if they go that route.

This last one is 🤔 in a good way. Turns out that each fall Goldman Sachs puts out a reading list that includes “a diverse collection of thought-provoking books you won’t want to put down.” Maybe I’m a cynic, but I was genuinely surprised at how diverse and interesting it is – a cool mix of fiction and nonfiction that doesn’t track to the business books I was expecting. The pictures in it made me smile too – so many ebook readers!

New Books!

Minding the Store by Julie Gaines and Ben Lenovtiz – This nonfiction comic is the story of Fishs Eddy, an iconic housewares shop in New York City. Gaines, one of the co-founders and co-owners of the store, recounts “the ups and downs … of starting a family business, starting a family, and staying true to one’s path while trying to make it in the Big City.”

Well-Read Black Girl by Glory Edim – This collection of essays by black women writers is all about “the importance of recognizing ourselves in literature.” The list of contributors is amazing: Jesmyn Ward, Gabourey Sidibe, Tayari Jones, Morgan Jerkins and more. Wow, that sounds good.

The White Darkness by David Grann – In 2015 Henry Worsely, a British special forces officer, set out to recreate Ernest Shackleton’s solo attempt to cross Antarctica on foot This one feels a little like a cheat because Grann originally wrote the story for the New Yorker, but I feel like the illustrated print edition is going to be a great book to give as a gift this year.

And with that, it’s a wrap on this week’s newsletter. I hope you had an awesome Halloween, and an even more awesome time falling back this weekend. I can’t decide if I’m going to use the extra hour to sleep or read, but either way it’ll be great. You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot with questions and comments!

Happy end of October, fellow readers! The cooler weather and shorter days are definitely inspiring me to read more, which is good because I have a lot of 2018 titles I still want to finish this year. This week, I’ve got 10 more October nonfiction releases you’ll want to add to your TBR ASAP. Enjoy!

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Sponsored by What Would Cleopatra Do? by Elizabeth Foley and Beth Coates.

Irreverent, inspirational, and a visual delight, What Would Cleopatra Do? shares the wisdom and advice passed down from Cleopatra, Queen Victoria, Dorothy Parker, and forty-seven other heroines from past eras on how to handle an array of problems women have encountered throughout history and still face today. Here are Cleopatra’s thoughts on sibling rivalry, Mae West on positive body image, Frida Kahlo on finding your style, Catherine the Great on dealing with gossip—to list only a few. Featuring whimsical illustrations by artist Bijou Karman, What Would Cleopatra Do? is a distinctive, witty, and gift-worthy tribute to history’s outstanding women.

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Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon – A novelist “explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse.”

Lab Rats by Dan Lyons – “At a time of soaring corporate profits and plenty of HR lip service about ‘wellness,’ millions of workers are deeply unhappy. Why did work become so miserable? Who is responsible? And does any company have a model for doing it right?” To find out, Dan Lyons immerses himself in the world of “management science” and how the practices of technology power brokers has affected our work relationships.

Nine Pints by Rose George – “An eye-opening exploration of blood, the life giving substance with the power of taboo, the value of diamonds, and the promise of breakthrough science.” I got so excited about this one, I went out and bought it on Tuesday.

Let It Bang by R.J. Young – A young black man accepts the gift of a Glock from his white, gun-loving father-in-law. “Despite, or because of, the racial rage and fear he experiences among white gun owners, Young determines to get good, really good, with a gun,” eventually becoming an NRA-certified pistol instructor.

I’ll Be There for You by Kelsey Miller – A definitive retrospective on the show Friends, combining “interviews, history and behind-the-scenes anecdotes to offer a critical analysis of how a sitcom about six twentysomethings changed television forever.” This looks so delightful.

Well-Read Black Girl by Glory Edim – A collection of essays by black women writers – Jesmyn Ward, Jacqueline Woodson, Tayari Jones, and more – intended “to shine a light on how we search for ourselves in literature, and how important it is that everyone can find themselves there.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Jane Sherron de Hart – A comprehensive and “revelatory” biography about the private, public, legal, and philosophical life of the Notorious RBG herself. The book explores “central experiences that crucially shaped Ginsburg’s passion for justice, her advocacy for gender equality, (and) her meticulous jurisprudence.”

I Might Regret This by Abbi Jacobson – A collection of “essays, drawings, vulnerabilities, and other stuff” from the co-creator and co-star of Broad City that will let readers “feel like they’re in the passenger seat on a fun and, ultimately, inspiring journey.”

Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay by Phoebe Robinson – Another essay collection, this time a call to arms on a wide range of topics – “giving feminism a tough love talk in hopes it can become more intersectional; telling society’s beauty standards to kick rocks; and demanding that toxic masculinity close its mouth and legs.”

Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne Lamott – A new book by Anne Lamott is always something to celebrate. In this one, “Lamott calls for each of us to rediscover the nuggets of hope and wisdom that are buried within us that can make life sweeter than we ever imagined.”

You’ve got just a few more days to enter our giveaway for a custom book stamp for your personal library. Click here to enter.

You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot with questions and comments!

Hello, nonfiction readers! There are a lot of great books coming out this week, but I wanted to open this newsletter by talking about just one of them, The Library Book by Susan Orlean.

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Sponsored by Chronicle Books

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The book, a look at a 1986 fire that nearly destroyed the Los Angeles Public Library, is fantastic. I’m a hardcore library advocate in both my personal and professional life, so of course this book has been on my radar for awhile. But it really exceeded my expectations, once I stopped expecting it to be a full narrative of the fire and started to look at it more like a collection of essays about why libraries are vital, worthwhile, important institutions.

Another 2018 book on libraries that hasn’t gotten as much attention is Palaces for the People by Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist’s look at how the future of democracy is depending on shared spaces – like libraries – where connections and communities are formed. I haven’t gotten to read this one yet, but it’s sitting next to me at my desk as I am typing.

The awesome thing about these books coming out so close together is that there seems to be a larger-than-usual collection of pieces on why libraries, in particular, are awesome. Here are three of my favorites:

• 12 Authors Write About the Libraries They Love via the New York Times
• Growing Up in the Library via The New Yorker
• Why Libraries are More than Just Books via The Guardian

With that, I’m going to leave you with a bunch of other great links from the vast corners of the bookish internet (many that include other recent titles that should be on your TBR):

BitchReads recommends 15 fall nonfiction books for feminists, a wonderfully diverse list that includes everything from Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China by Leta Hong Fincher Nicole Chung’s memoir All You Can Ever Know.

PopSugar has rounded up seven new nonfiction books for people who don’t really like nonfiction, which includes a few books that missed my radar like Once You Go In: A Memoir of Radical Faith by Carly Gelsinger and some big fall titles like Justin Timberlake’s Hindsight and All the Things I Can’t See in Front of Me.

Looking to cozy up with a smart fall book? Bustle has you covered with a round up of fall’s best introspective essay collections by women. What if This Were Enough? by Heather Havrilesky and How to Be Alone by Lane Moore are both high on my list.

Over at B&N Reads, you can browse through some of October’s best biographies and memoirs, which includes everything from a Babe Ruth biography (The Big Fella by Jane Leavy) to another RBG book (The Unstoppable Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Antonia Felix) and a couple of heavies that seem to be newly out in paperback (Grant by Ron Chernow and Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson).

Entertainment Weekly has a brief peek at the story behind American Like Me, a collection of essays about navigating life as a first-generation American edited by the great and good America Ferrera. I know I’ve mentioned that book before – the contributor list is just so amazing!

Personality tests are addicting and, in many cases, kind of a joke. Merve Emre, author of The Personality Brokers, breaks down five myths about personality tests in the Washington Post.

I hope that gave you something to dive into! And don’t forget to enter our giveaway for a custom book stamp for your personal library. Click here to enter.

You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot with questions and comments!

The National Book Award finalists were announced this week, and I am very excited about the nonfiction list because of the variety it represents. We have memoir, natural history, politics, and straight history, which is pretty good when you think about the kinds of books that typically get nominated in nonfiction.

The titles include The Indian World of George Washington by Colin G. Calloway, American Eden by Victoria Johnson, Heartland by Sarah Smarsh, The New Negro by Jeffrey C. Stewart, and We the Corporations by Adam Winkler. The winners will be announced on November 14.

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Sponsored by Fierce Reads

Rebels, rulers, scientists, artists, warriors and villains Women are, and have always been, all these things and more. Looking through the ages, Anita Sarkeesian, founder of Feminist Frequency, along with Ebony Adams PHD, have reclaimed the stories of twenty-five remarkable women who dared to defy history and change the world around them. From Mongolian wrestlers to Chinese pirates, Native American ballerinas to Egyptian scientists, Japanese novelists to British Prime Ministers, History vs Women will reframe the history that you thought you knew. Featuring beautiful full-color illustrations of each woman and a bold graphic design, this standout nonfiction title is perfect for anyone who wants the true stories of phenomenal women from around the world.

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If you’re feeling particularly angry these days, as I am, then I cannot recommend this proposed syllabus for A Master Class in Women’s Rage, put together by Kate Harding, one of the editors of Nasty Women. She acknowledges books on women’s rage that have come out this year – there are so many good ones! – then offers a selection if books, essays, and other contemporary writing on anger. It’s such a good list.

If you love a good con artist story, as I do, this July article about the best books on con artists, according to true crime experts, has a plethora of suggestions.

Daniel Radcliffe shadowed the New Yorker’s fact-checking department while he was doing research for his newest role in the Broadway adaptation of The Lifespan of a Fact by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal. The story about his visit is fascinating because it’s Harry Potter, and because it’s a meta peek inside that job and that magazine.

Finally, let’s wrap this newsletter up with another smattering of new October nonfiction:

Invisible by Steven Carter – “The forgotten story of the black woman lawyer who took down America’s most powerful mobster.” Steven L. Carter’s grandmother, Eunice Hunton Carter, was the only black woman on a team tasked with taking down a New York mobster in the 1930s.

The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis – Michael Lewis takes another look inside the Trump administration, this time exploring the “engine rooms of a government under attack by its own leaders” that are more focused on short-term gains rather than long-term cost. If anyone can make bureaucracy interesting, I think it’s Michael Lewis.

People Like Us by Sayu Bhojwani – The story of “ a diverse and persevering range of local and state politicians from across the country who are challenging the status quo, winning against all odds, and leaving a path for others to follow in their wake.” Woo, democracy!

Dare to Lead by Brené Brown – A new Brené Brown is always something to celebrate! In this book, Brown writes for “everyone who is ready to choose courage over comfort, make a difference and lead.”

My Squirrel Days by Ellie Kemper – “A hilarious and uplifting collection of essays about one pale woman’s journey from Midwestern naïf to Hollywood semi-celebrity to outrageously reasonable New Yorker.” If you need something cheerful, I bet this will be it.

Thanks again so much for reading! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot with questions and comments!

Don’t forget to enter our giveaway for a custom book stamp for your personal library!

Hello hello! This week’s newsletter features eight new nonfiction books out this week plus a couple of awards longlists, and a collection of great nonfiction posts recently published over at Book Riot.

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Sponsored by How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery.

A restorative memoir from author, naturalist, and adventurer Sy Montgomery reflects on the personalities and quirks of thirteen animals—Sy’s friends—and the truths revealed by their grace. It also explores vast themes: the otherness and sameness of people and animals; the various ways we learn to love and become empathetic; how we find our passion; how we create our families; coping with loss and despair; gratitude; forgiveness; and most of all, how to be a good creature in the world.

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Before we get started, don’t forget to enter our giveaway for a custom book stamp for your personal library!

New Books!

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung – A memoir by an adopted woman exploring her Korean heritage and her childhood growing up as the only non-white person in a small town, ahead of the birth of her first child.

What If This Were Enough? by Heather Havrilesky – A collection of essays on the “cultural forces that shape us” and our obsession with self-improvement.

There Will Be No Miracles Here by Casey Gerald – A memoir of “a boy and a generation who came of age as the world came apart.”

A History of America in Ten Strikes by Erik Loomis – An account of 10 critical workers’ strikes in American labor history.

Behold America by Sarah Churchwell – “The entangled history of ‘America First’ and ‘the American Dream.’”

A Dream Called Home by Reyna Grande – The story of “one woman’s quest to find her place in America as a first-generation Latina university student and aspiring writer.”

Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister – A look at the history of female anger as a political tool. Yes, please.

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics by Donna Brazile, Yolanda Caraway, Leah Daughtry, and Minyon Moore – “A sweeping view of American history from the vantage points of four women who have lived and worked behind the scenes in politics for over thirty years.”

Nonfiction Awards!

In the last couple of weeks, two big groups have announced the longlists/finalists for their best books of the year awards. Kirkus, one of the big names in book reviewing, announced their finalists for the 2018 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction. I haven’t read a single title on the longlist but, they sound amazing. The winners will be announced on Oct. 25.

The other prominent longlist is for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, given out by the American Library Association. I love the nonfiction list, it’s got a ton of variety. A three-book shortlist will be announced on Oct. 24, with the winners named in January.

Links and Links and Links!

These are some of my favorite recent nonfiction posts over at Book Riot. There’s a lot, our contributors do some amazing work!

• 9 Nonfiction Titles That Should Exist (But Don’t) by Michelle Anne Schingler
• 3 Great Books About Public Speaking by Emily Westrom
• #ShoutYourAbortion and 9 Other Nonfiction Books About Abortion by Beth O’Brien
• 10 New Books on Anger, Feminism, and Unruly Women by Rebecca Hussey
• 10 Books That Make You Smarter by Carolina Ciucci
• 50 Must-Read Nonfiction Audiobooks by Rebecca Hussey
• 8 Memoirs From Former Obama Staffers by Kate Krug
• Don’t Mourn, Organize: A Labor Reading List by Nancy Snyder
• 10 of the Best True Crime Audiobooks by Beth O’Brien
• 8 Essay Collections To Look Out For This Fall by Laura Sackton

And with that, I’m out! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot with questions and comments!

This week, I got to hear two nonfiction authors speak in person, something that feels rather unprecedented because nonfiction authors don’t seem to come to the Twin Cities that often, and because I do not usually leave my house on weeknights. #introvertlife

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Sponsored by The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman, published by Ecco

Very few readers of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita know that the subject of the novel was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of eleven-year-old Sally Horner. Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita tells Sally Horner’s full story for the very first time. Drawing upon extensive investigations, legal documents, public records, and interviews with remaining relatives, Sarah Weinman uncovers how much Nabokov knew of the Sally Horner case and the efforts he took to disguise that knowledge during the process of writing and publishing Lolita.

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On Tuesday, I had the chance to hear Peggy Orenstein, author of a recent collection of essays, Don’t Call Me Princess, and several books on motherhood, feminism, girls, and sexuality. Her previous book, Girls and Sex, is an amazing read for parents of all kids and, she shared last night, that she’s working on a follow up about boys and sex… probably called “Boys and Sex,” if her publisher has anything to say about it.

On Wednesday, I got to hear from Eli Saslow, a Washington Post journalist who just published a book about the reformation of a young white nationalist, Rising Out of Hatred. I’m nervous about the subject, and still not entirely convinced that white nationalist thought needs any more publicity (even in a book about a man realizing that the ideology is evil). But Saslow is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, his talk on the book was really smart, and he’s the author of a favorite backlist title, Ten Letters, so I’m willing to give it a shot. More on this one in a future newsletter.

Books and Lists!

The New York Times wrote about three books on the sexism women face in Hollywood, specifically women in television Just the Funny Parts by Nell Scovell, Stealing the Show by Joy Press, and Bossypants by Tina Fey. I’ve only read Bossypants, but the other two are high on my reading list.

LibHub did a series of fall nonfiction preview lists covering pop culture, memoir, politics and social science, history and biography, and science and technology. These lists include the books that staff and editors at LitHub are most excited about. There are a lot of heavy hitters on these lists, and I feel like they’re a good mix of books that have been buzzy and some that are more under the radar. Check them out!

New Books!

Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope – I’m very into the current trend of business true crime books, so Billion Dollar Whale is right up my alley. This book, by two Wall Street Journal reporters, is the story of a Wharton graduate named Jho Low who managed to swindle more than $7 billion dollars “under the nose of the global financial industry.” His fraud eventually led to the downfall of the prime minister of Malaysia, and has left Low a global fugitive.

Additional Reading: This long excerpt/adaptation in the Wall Street Journal is a good overview of the story.

These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore – These Truths is a truly ambitious project, a one-volume history of the United States that explores the three fundamental ideas at the center of American democracy: political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. It’s a political history, rather than a complete history, focusing on areas like law, religion, journalism, and technology. This book is a huge swing, but I’m intrigued by it. I read the first few chapters while traveling and was interested, but I’m kind of a wimp and can’t quite commit to the full 960 pages just yet.

Additional Reading: Jill Lepore was interviewed about the book in Newsweek, where she gives a nice overview of her inspiration and approach for the book.

How to Be an American by Silvia Hidalgo – This book might be the other end of the political reading spectrum from These Truths. As Silvia Hidalgo was studying for her U.S. Citizenship Test, she started her own set of illustrated notes covering facts and historical essentials. These notes are collected and refined in this book. In the introduction, Hidalgo mentions it’s use for people studying for their citizenship test, but it’s really a lovely primer for anyone.

And that’s all for this week! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot with questions and comments!