Author: Kim Ukura

This season of For All Mankind is all about a fictional race to Mars, so of course this book caught my attention. Geologist Simon Morden tells the story of Mars from the planet’s formation 4.5 billion years ago through all its various geographic eras that included meteors, volcanos, and even an ocean! From what I can tell, this book is best for readers with a general interest in science and space, rather than someone who is already deeply familiar. So if that’s you, check it out!

Over her lifetime, social justice advocate Sofia Ali-Khan has lived in 12 different communities across the United States. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and ahead of the 2016 election, Ali-Khan began to feel more acutely that the American dream she’d been taught to strive for was not open to families like her in the same way. In this book, Ali-Khan looks at the racial divides in the 12 towns she’s called home, digging into the forced migration experiences that have shaped communities throughout the country. I love a mix of history and contemporary memoir, which this one seems to do really well!

There’s a lot in the description of this book that I’m not sure I will explain correctly, but I am going to try! This book offers a counter-history to general ideas about economic growth, arguing that “the ideology of growth conceals the rising inequalities and ecological descriptions associated with capitalism.” The authors go on to argue that there needs to be a vision for the economy that goes beyond growth, which is unsustainable. Instead, they suggest ideas to try and democratize the economy or think of economics in new ways. I think I would learn a lot from this one!

Like the subtitle indicates, this book is a history of swimming. It begins with the tension that came about when “non-swimming northerners” met swimmers from Africa and Southeast Asia. Initially, swimming seemed like an activity connected to the uncanny, an example of sin or witchcraft. Swimming was used as an excuse to enslave people, and a way to try and claim power themselves. Karen Eva Carr uses this initial power dynamic to show how contemporary swimming still sexualizes women and marginalizes people of color, among other complicated dynamics. I’m so intrigued by this one! 

Raised amidst political violence in Colombia in the 1980s and ‘90s, Ingrid Rojas Contreras grew up believing in magic. Her mother’s fortune-telling clients were regular visitors to their home, while her grandfather was a community healer who could speak to the dead, tell the future, heal the sick, and move clouds – gifts he passed along to his daughter, Rojas Contreras’ mother. After an accident in her 20s leaves her with amnesia, Rojas Contreras returns to Colombia to see if her family history can shed light on her situation, exploring her family’s history in Colombia and her own complicated inheritance.

In this book, a journalist and a private investigator team up to explore the world of the international salmon farming industry, showing how the path from ocean to table is not nearly as healthy or environmentally-friendly as we’re often led to believe. To tell this story, they visit oceanic salmon feedlots, expose the conditions inside salmon hatcheries, and look at the environmental impacts of coastal salmon farms. In all of these places, they profile the people making decisions, then pull back to look at how industrialization has impacted this important industry. I am so fascinated by all of this!

At the end of the Chinese Civil War, sisters Jun and Hong ended up on opposite sides of a divided country. Jun ended up in Taiwan, marrying a Nationalist general and living among exiles to the Chinese Community regime. Hong was able to stay on the mainland, but was forced to renounce her sister and, eventually, practice medicine in some of the poorest areas of the country. Author Zhuqing Li, Jun and Hong’s niece, uses the story of her aunts to explore the history of China, particularly the lives of women who lived through this period of political turbulence.

This is a collection of 12 pieces of Patrick Radden Keefe’s best articles from The New Yorker, bringing together stories of “crime and corruption, secrets and lies, the permeable membrane separating licit and illicit worlds, the bonds of family, the power of denial.” The stories include wine forgery, whistleblowers, Anthony Bourdain, black market weapons, and more. I love his writing and can’t wait to dig into these stories!

In this book, internet culture reporter Kaitlyn Tiffany dives deep into the world of superfandom, specifically the girls and young women who have shaped how we interact with the internet today. Tiffany herself is a fangirl of One Direction, so she brings the kind of insider-outsider perspective I love most in my reported nonfiction. I haven’t read any of this one, but from the description and reviews, my sense is that it’s a book that has fun with some of the most extreme examples of fandom while also giving it— and the women who participate— the kind of serious attention they deserve.

In 2018, Linda Villarosa published a blockbuster article exploring the maternal and infant mortality rates of Black mothers and their children. Although many studies had demonstrated these poor outcomes, her article was one of the first to bring them into popular discussion. This book expands on those ideas, looking at the larger forces in healthcare and society that mean Black people “live sicker and die quicker” due to many preventable causes. She also explores the public health impact of racism, a timely and important addition to this topic.

I love when I find a book that explores a small aspect of history that I’ve never heard of before. In the case of this book, it’s the story behind Creek Nation, a Native tribe that “owned slaves and accepted Black people as full citizens” more than 200 years ago. Because of the work of Black Creek leaders, the U.S. government recognized citizenship for Black Creek members all the way back in 1866. However, tribal leaders revoked that citizenship in the 1970s, pitting two marginalized communities against each other in lawsuits that continue to this day. Journalist Caleb Gayle digs into all aspects of this story, trying to understand how the community formed, then fractured under the weight of white supremacy. 

This book is a coming-of-age memoir set in rural North Dakota, which author Tyler Brorby describes as “a place where there is no safety in a ravaged landscape of mining and fracking.” Brorby grew up on a farm, loved books, and realized at a young age that he was different from other boys because he was gay. Now an environmentalist, he uses fracking, a violent taking of natural resources from the land, as a metaphor to explore his sexuality and growing up in a community that wasn’t welcoming to people who are different. I love a good, rural Midwestern memoir, so of course this one is high on my list to read soon. 

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Could there be anything more delightful than the story of “a fearless paleontologist, the founding of America’s most loved museums, and the race to find the largest dinosaurs on record”? I think not! This book is about the partnership between fossil hunter Barnum Brown and museum president Henry Fairfield Osborn, after Barnum found the first T-Rex fossil in Montana. Gilded Age history is full of amazing stories like this one, which sounds so fun!

This book offers a new history of modern medicine centered around the discovery of the circulatory system and the role that blood plays in our bodies. For centuries, physicians believed in the idea that blood was like the sea, moving back and forth within the body. After William Harvey proved that blood circulates, the entire understanding of life sciences was upended. Sethna shows how this discovery led to groundbreaking advances like cardiac imaging, bypass surgery, and more.

In this book, critic Melissa Febos explores the narratives women are told about being female and how to get away from those stories. She begins with her body changing at 11, then follows with other experiences where she defined herself by her relationships and perceptions she had about herself. Eventually, she set about trying to reframe the ideas she had about safety, happiness, and freedom to reimagine relationships and herself.

This collection seeks to explore borders, the natural world, and the stories we tell ourselves through the lens of travel and movement. In one essay, Aminatta Forna writes about the charms of air travel (how nostalgic!). In another, she explores narratives and expectations for young Africans traveling to the United States for school. In others, she brings her perspective as an African person to issues of race in America. This is a beautiful collection!

I learned about the murder of Jane Stanford in one of my favorite books of 2020, Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller. The story of Stanford’s murder is a turning point for the protagonist of that story, and it made me deeply curious about the woman herself. In 1885, Jane and her husband, Leland, cofounded a university to honor their son, who had recently passed away. Jane was an eccentric and a spiritualist who expected the university to bend to her whims. In 1905 she was poisoned while on vacation in Hawaii. Leaders at the university tried to suggest it was natural causes, covering up the crime to protect their own interests. In this book, historian Richard White offers the first full account of Jane’s murder and the cover-up. 

I love young adult adaptations of nonfiction books! In this young readers edition of Professional Troublemaker, Luvvie Ajayi Jones encourages teens “to be their bravest, boldest, truest selves, in order to create a world they would be proud to live in.” Ajayi Jones gives teens permission to be troublemakers, encouraging them to use their voices for good while knowing that a good life is pushing through the things that are scary.