Author: Kendra Winchester

I’ve been listening to audiobooks for my entire life, but I’ve never read a history of them! Rubery has compiled a detailed history of the “talking book,” as they were first known. From the very first moments of the initial invention of sound recording, people began to ask questions around what would happen if they recorded a book onto audio? For decades they didn’t have the funds or other resources to make recording widely available. Rubery covers the role disability played in pushing technology forward. I loved how detailed this history was, and think it’s the perfect choice for audiobook reading.

Samantha Irby is back with her fourth essay collection, Quietly Hostile. Like her previous essays, Irby uses humor to discuss the difficult things in her life. Chronic illness, the end of a dream, the pandemic — Irby approaches each one with a fresh quip or spot of dark humor. In one essay, Irby and her wife adopt a terrible dog that they definitely didn’t mean to keep. In another essay, Irby describes a major allergic reaction she has when she tries out one of her wife’s supplements. And if you love audiobooks, this is definitely one you need to check out on audio. Irby is a phenomenal narrator, using her sense of perfect comedic timing to create a laugh-out-loud performance that will have you being far too loud in quiet spaces.

I read A Fever in the Heartland for a book club with some friends, and we all couldn’t stop talking about it. We all agreed that when we think of the KKK, we typically think of the South. But Timothy Egan is here to remind folks that the KKK took a national approach, finding strongholds across the country. Egan focuses on Indiana, which had local clubs of the KKK in all but two of its counties. He describes the history of the organization in the region, how the KKK had many different goals of ridding the region of various groups that they felt weren’t “desirable.” This book clearly outlines that the KKK had control over a lot of local politics, which gave them great success in their heinous work to destroy any community they thought was not supporting their efforts in white supremacy.

Imani Perry’s family is originally from Alabama, but she moved North for her education and her academic career. In South to America, Perry returns to her home region with fresh eyes, seeing the South in all of its complexities. Each chapter looks at a different sub-region of the South, highlighting important events and histories. The whole reading experience feels like Perry is a docent giving readers a tour of the South, pointing out interesting places and things along the way. Perry argues that the South is the heart of America, that the South is the truest measure of where America is as a nation. She shares many incredible insights with readers, and her work is so well researched and laid out. She also reads the audiobook, so if you love listening to your books, this is definitely one to read with your ears.

When Christine Hyung-Oak Lee was in her early 30s, she experienced a stroke, which changed her life forever. For over a year, she had little to no short-term memory. She wrote details down in a notebook so her future self could reread the things that had happened earlier that day. She tried to take care of herself, making her own food and dressing herself, but she struggled to do everyday tasks. In her memoir, Lee describes herself as “Unstuck in Time,” referring to Kurt Vonnegut’s work, which she read and reread during this time. Lee’s memoir is such an important account of someone experiencing a brain-related illness.

Wang has lived most of her life with schizophrenia. As she’s moved through the world, she’s experienced a countless number of people who have made a lot of assumptions about her based purely on her diagnosis. But most people she’s encountered have little to no idea what living with schizophrenia is actually like. In her essay collection, Wang shares her experience with the condition, highlighting a lot of the lesser-known details of the disease. Her writing is stunning, with incredible prose and insightful observations. The Collected Schizophrenias is such a beautiful book that I love more every time I read it.

I had a different book in mind to talk about today, but I couldn’t stop thinking about this one. T Kira Madden has such a brilliant way of precisely writing the story of her life. She grew up in Boca Raton, Florida, the daughter of a Jewish father and a Chinese Hawaiian mother. While she came from a wealthy family, not all was well in her household. From her child’s eyes, she sees her parents’ struggle with their cycles of addiction. Madden has a brilliant way of communicating with the reader, choosing the precise details to include in each scene. Her writing is so entrancing, so moving. I’ve read and reread Madden’s memoir in essays, and I discover something new every time.

There’s something that I love about a good essay, especially essays about the South. Margaret Renkl is one of the best, and her regular columns are a breath of fresh air. She writes about the complex realities of the new South, with all of its difficult history and present day issues. But there’s also the joy of the successes, no matter how small. Not to mention the incredible nature writing — such descriptions she brings to the page! Each essay is self-contained, a bright, perfectly cut gem. You can read one or all of them if you like.

Winner of the IACP 2019 First Book Award presented by The Julia Child Foundation, Bottom of the Pot celebrates Persion cooking, highlighting the incredible wealth of flavors of the cuisine. Naz Deravian is a home cook based in L.A., and she shares recipes from her childhood and her takes on Persian classics. When she was just a girl, Deravian and her family fled Iran during the height of the revolution. Food has been a way that Deravian and her family have stayed connected to their culture. I loved these recipes, photos, and little snippets that Deravian shares about her past, connecting moments in her life with her recipes.

Victuals, a winner of a James Beard Award, is one of my newest cookbook acquisitions, and I fell in love with it from the moment I saw it. In the last several years, Southern Appalachian cooking has been making its mark on the literary world. Ronni Lundy looks at traditional heritage recipes from Appalachia, celebrating simple ingredients like beans and greens. The photos by Johnny Autry are gorgeous, and take me back to summers watching my grandparents eat salted tomato slices while relaxing on the back porch of their cabin.

Morgan Jerkins follows her ancestry, visiting the different places around the country where her family is from and where they made their home. I love the way she takes readers along on her journey, giving readers a front-row seat to her mental process as she learns new things about her ancestors. She visits places across the South, like South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana. Each new place explores the history of her ancestors in that location, and she discovers both good and bad things about her family’s history. I feel like her writing is so intimate as she shares the many feelings she works through. This book is perfect for road trips or to travel the country through reading Jerkins’ story.

Last year, I finally read Patrick Radden Keefe’s incredible narrative nonfiction book Say Nothing, which follows the Troubles in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He begins his story with the disappearance of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten. From there, he jumps around to many of the characters involved in different aspects of the I.R.A., detailing how key events in Northern Ireland’s history impact these characters’ lives. It’s truly an incredible work of nonfiction, and I keep recommending it to everyone and their mother’s brother.