Category: True Story

What. a. week. I cannot count how many new nonfiction releases are out today (ok, it’s around 20). Here, I capture a SMATTERING of them; highlights that have been deemed of interest to me and hopefully to you, the nonfiction reader who is interested in the latest and most up-to-date facts and information in bookish form. Tl;dr: there’s a lot of greatness this week!

The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power by Deirdre Mask. Have you ever thought about why street addresses work the way they do? Why are they organized like that? Why do we need them? Who doesn’t have them and how do they direct people? Speaking as someone who used to have to tell people to “turn left at the pig sign,” this book spoke to me. Author Mask travels the world looking at how addresses were created, how they’re used today, and what they tell us about our global society.

The Betrayal of the Duchess: The Scandal That Unmade the Bourbon Monarchy and Made France Modern by Maurice Samuels. For my fellow lovers of pre-20th c. European history comes the story of 1830s France, the Duchesse de Berry, and how her betrayal by a former confidante was, according to Samuels, a key factor in the surge of anti-Semitism that still holds strong in Europe today.

 

 

Dancing at the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir by Tyler Feder. If you’ve lost a parent, Feder gets it. This graphic memoir walks through her life from the time her mom got sick, to her passing and the following ten years in Feder’s life. It’s part-memoir, part tips for grieving and helping others grieve. It also walks you through Jewish cultural traditions around someone’s death, including the fact that “shiva” means seven, which I definitely did not know before. Definitely recommend.

No Justice in the Shadows: How America Criminalizes Immigrants by Alina Das. Just because we’re inside doesn’t mean we can’t talk about JUSTICE. Das co-directs the Immigrant Rights Clinic and teaches law at NYU. Here she tells the story of America’s immigration system and how we got where we are today. She highlights particular stories and says “we need to confront the cruelty of the machine so that we can build an inclusive immigration policy premised on human dignity and break the cycle once and for all.”

Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myths by Helen Morales. I love a fun classical cover. I’m gonna quote the publisher (Bold Type!) here because I cannot synthesize this as well: Morales “reminds us that the myths have subversive power because they are told — and read — in different ways. Through these stories, whether it’s Antigone’s courageous stand against tyranny or the indestructible Caeneus, who inspires trans and gender queer people today, Morales uncovers hidden truths about solidarity, empowerment, and catharsis.” Yesssssss, preach. I will buy all the hot pink cover, statues-wearing-sunglasses books about the classics meeting feminism that come out.

Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui. We pondered this on For Real this week. Why DO we swim. It’s not natural for humans. And yet a bunch of people who are not me really love it. Tsui is a swimmer and a New York Times contributor and here really dives (!) into why we swim and who some really amazing swimmers are, from a Baghdad swim club to the Olympic champions that grace our cereal boxes. Swimming! What a weird thing for us to do.

 

No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram by Sarah Frier. Do you use Instagram? Isn’t it kind of weird how popular it is and how much influencers can make and how influenced WE are by them? This tells you the story of how Instagram was created, how it became popular, and why you still can’t link from a caption (#LinkintheProfile). Also did you know Instagram only came out in 2010? Super weird.

 

Stay inside if you can, nonfictionites. Wash your hands, wipe down your phone, and read read read (while also taking a break to prevent eye strain!). If you are so inclined, check out COVID-19 Updates from the Bookish World. As always, you can find me on Twitter @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time! Enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.

TIGERS. So hot right now. Mainly because of that Netflix show, which I felt behind the times for not watching, but now apparently it’s all kinds of problematic, so who wins now? That’s right, the lazy one. Anyway, I thought people might want to read some Tiger Facts in the face of all this, so I rounded up some tiger books, with a backlist bonus about the history of India! ENJOY.

The Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. Want to learn all about cats in their many forms? Here y’go. Thomas covers the evolution of 30 cat species (including tigers!) and talks about things like cat societies. She states that cats in all their sizes have some extremely strong commonalities, which makes sense if you’ve watched a lion vs. a house cat pounce on something.

 

Spell of the Tiger: The Man-Eaters of Sundarbans by Sy Montgomery. This is by the woman who wrote The Soul of an Octopus and The Good Good Pig (recommended by Kim on For Real!). In this tiger-focused book, she talks about Sundarbans, a giant and swampy area between India and Bangladesh and home to a big mangrove forest. And also tigers. The tigers there, at least as of 1995 when this book was written, attacked humans living there, but also were worshiped by them. Interesting stuff.

Life in the Valley of Death: The Fight to Save Tigers in a Land of Guns, Gold, and Greed by Alan Rabinowitz. The place: Burma. The subject: tigers. Rabinowitz, who passed in 2018, was “CEO, and chief scientist at Panthera Corporation, a nonprofit conservation organization devoted to protecting the world’s 40 wild cat species.” So this guy was legit. He wrote 7 books, but this one covers his creation of the world’s largest tiger preserve. I’m 100% adding this to my TBR shelf because it looks both super interesting and also inspiring.

No Beast So Fierce: The Terrifying True Story of the Champawat Tiger, the Deadliest Man-Eater in History by Dane Huckelbridge. So APPARENTLY in 1900 in Nepal, one tigress killed over 400 people. Over 400! Tigers are such majestic and terrifying creatures! This book makes clear that it happened because she had been shot in the mouth and started going after humans because they were easier prey, which is the same story I heard about the lions of Tsavo (not getting shot, but having mouth pain). This book is described as NOT being pro-hunter, so if you want to read the story of this legendary animal, go-to.

BACKLIST BONUS

Daughters of the Sun: Empresses, Queens and Begums of the Mughal Empire by Ira Mukhoty. Yessss, women’s history. Mukhoty has written two books focusing on women in India, and this one is specifically about the women of the Mughal Empire, which lasted from the 1500s to the 1700s (technically until 1857). The subtitle is all honorifics, as a begum is an aristocratic title. This covers awesome women like Khanzada Begum who, “at sixty-five, rode on horseback through 750 kilometres of icy passes and unforgiving terrain.” There’s political intrigue and battle and romance and all kinds of cool stuff.

City Adrift: A Short Biography of Bombay by Naresh Fernandes. Bombay, now Mumbai, has been occupied by humans since at least the South Asian Stone Age. It’s made up of seven islands, and this very short (less than 200 pages) biography tries to encapsulate the spirit of the city, while giving a peek into its history and how it has changed today (today in this case being 2013). I love brief city histories, so this looks awesome.

 

Stay inside if you can, nonfictionites. Wash your hands, Clorox-wipe your phone, and read read read (while also taking a break to prevent eye strain!). If you are so inclined, check out COVID-19 Updates from the Bookish World. As always, you can find me on Twitter @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time! Enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.

This week is an avalanche of new releases. I don’t even have all the new nonfiction on here! It’s SO much! Speaking as someone who uses the library a lot and is now pivoting to supporting indie bookstores through this, I’m pretty psyched every week to find my top reads and then choose a place to order them. Don’t forget to check out Book Riot Insiders if you want ALL the new releases, regardless of genre, every week. It’s pretty awesome.

Canadian Women Now and Then: More Than 100 Stories of Fearless Trailblazers by Elizabeth MacLeod and Maïa Faddoul. If you’re American, you know that we are TERRIBLE at our Canadian history. Something with France but also England? And Margaret Atwood is from there. Well, here’s a collection to fix that. It has stories of “Indigenous women, immigrants, women with disabilities and women from the LGBTQ+ community.” Each entry is accompanied by a portrait by the awesome Maïa Faddoul.

Life Changing: How Humans Are Altering Life on Earth by Helen Pilcher. This looks like a stodgy academic book, but would a stodgy academic book talk about how “we carved chihuahuas from wolves and fancy chickens from jungle fowl.” I will never be able to forget “carved chihuahuas from wolves.” Pilcher looks at how evolution, formerly a millennia-long process, has been incredibly sped-up by humans, changing life on earth. Fun!

 

 

Ordinary Insanity: Fear and the Silent Crisis of Motherhood in America by Sarah Menkedick. There are a BUNCH of books about motherhood out this week (at least 3 I think?). I was especially drawn to this one because I’m a big fan of an “oh that’s not just me” sentiment, and after talking to my friends with kids, I think the tremendous fear instilled in mothers today can be something easily put into that camp. “Surely everyone else has this figured out.” Menkedick looks into anxiety in new mothers and examines its biology, psychology, history, and societal conditions.

Camp Girls: Fireside Lessons on Friendship, Courage, and Loyalty by Iris Krasnow. Did you go to camp? I didn’t. But my fiancee did, and BOY did she like it. Krasnow recounts her camp experiences and draws lessons from them. I’m going to assume that if you have fond camp memories or know someone who does, this would be an excellent read for them. She talks of camp as a place for “history, loyalty, and tradition.” Which sounds like a 19th century men’s club with canoes.

 

Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life by Marie Kondo, Scott Sonenshein. What a time for this book! Kondo is known for The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Sonenshein wrote Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less – And Achieve More Than You Ever Imagined. They pair up to talk about how to declutter your physical and digital space and organize your work life. A lofty goal!

 

 

Navigate Your Stars by Jesmyn Ward and Gina Triplett. New Jesmyn Ward! Tiny joys in this world, I will take all of them. This is teeny at 64 pages, but the cover is gorgeous and it’s illustrated by Gina Triplett in full color. Excellent. This book is in the grand tradition of published commencement speeches, consisting of Ward’s 2018 Tulane University speech about your life’s next steps, the value of hard work, and the importance of family. And again, dang, what a pretty cover.

Talking to Strangers: A Memoir of My Escape from a Cult by Marianne Boucher. For my fellow readers-of-cult-nonfiction, here’s a graphic memoir! This recounts Boucher’s time in a 1980 Californian cult, which she joined as she was all set to get her figure skating dreams going (which TBH feels like a very 1980s dream). If you want a new graphic memoir for your shelves, here y’go.

 

More than Ready: Be Strong and Be You…and Other Lessons for Women of Color on the Rise by Cecilia Muñoz. Muñoz was the first Latinx to lead the White House Domestic Policy Council and served for eight years on President Obama’s senior staff. Here she “shares her insights, along with those of some extraordinary women of color she met along the way, as an offering of inspiration to women of color who are no longer willing to be invisible or left behind.”

 

I Don’t Want to Die Poor: Essays by Michael Arceneaux. Writer of I Can’t Date Jesus Arceneaux brings his humor and insight to bear on debt. In a series of essays, he covers how it impacts every aspect of his life, from dating (or not) to medical care and planning for the future. He deals with a stressful topic with humor and relatability.

 

 

Stay inside if you can, nonfictionites. Wash your hands, Clorox-wipe your phone, and read read read (while also taking a break to prevent eye strain!). If you are so inclined, check out COVID-19 Updates from the Bookish World. As always, you can find me on Twitter @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time! Enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.

Happy Friday to all. Weekends are especially important now, IMHO, because when you work at home, it can be easy to just stay at your computer all day. My hope for this weekend is to spend some time away from my laptop and focus on either a book or my Kindle. I know Kindles are still screens kind of, but whatever, it is different. Anyway, here’s some chill nonfiction to counter last week’s theme:

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. YESSS, come to me, gentle memoirs about nature. Tova Bailey was laid up with an illness (ignore that part) and becomes semi-obsessed with a snail that lives next to her bed in a flowerpot. Just thinking about this makes me want to reread it. It is calming and slow-paced and great. And makes you more interested in snails than you thought you could be.

 

The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs: Use Outdoor Clues to Find Your Way, Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals―and Other Forgotten Skills by Tristan Gooley. Look. This will all be over someday. And when that day comes, you’re gonna want to know how to predict the weather and track animals. Or, probably not, but it’ll be cool to know you COULD should the situation call for it.

 

The Compton Cowboys: The New Generation of Cowboys in America’s Urban Heartland by Walter Thompson-Hernández. Men and women! Cowboys! In Compton, California! “In 1988 Mayisha Akbar founded The Compton Jr. Posse to provide local youth with a safe alternative to the streets, one that connected them with the rich legacy of black cowboys in American culture.” Are there photos inside? YES there are.

 

Meaty by Samantha Irby. Irby’s first book is a magnificent tower of hilarity and good writing. If you will. She covers her childhood through early adulthood. I first discovered Irby through a GoFundMe for some tooth surgery that a friend of hers set up, and then through her amazing blog. Her style is distinctive and her words are a mix of poignant and so very, very funny.

 

 

Stay inside if you can, nonfictionites. Wash your hands, Clorox-wipe your phone, and read read read (while also taking a break to prevent eye strain!). If you are so inclined, check out COVID-19 Updates from the Bookish World. As always, you can find me on Twitter @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time! Enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.

New releases to soothe the soul! Books are still coming out, and some author events have pivoted to virtual ones, so check out your favorite author’s social media to see if you can attend an event you normally might not have been able to. This week has some excellent new releases, check ’em out:

Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic by Eric Eyre. A David vs. Goliath battle! This starts with a story you might have heard of: there was a pharmacy in Kermit, West Virginia, that distributed 12 million opioid pain pills in three years to a town with a population of 382 people. Yes. You read that correctly. Author Eyre’s local paper was the smallest newspaper ever to win a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, and it broke the story. Read if you want to immerse yourself in a fight for justice.

More Myself: A Journey by Alicia Keys. Keys is a musician, activist, singer, composer, actress and pianist. She got a record deal by age 15 and won 5 Grammys by 21. In her new memoir, she talks about growing up in Hell’s Kitchen in the ’80s, her early exposure to jazz, and how she came to cut through all the noise surrounding her and discover who she really was.

 

 

Empire of the Black Sea: The Rise and Fall of the Mithridatic World by Duane W. Roller. Yeah, like I’m letting you all off without some in-depth nerdy-as-all-get-out history book. What is the Mithridatic world? I didn’t know! But I looked it up and I’ll tell you it has to do with the ancient world around 100 BCEish, and the kingdom of Pontos! There they were, holding out against the might of the Romans, until…*pause*….they did not. If you want to feel the dramatic suspense and noble despair of a lost cause while sitting in your living room, here you go.

Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby. We stan a new Samantha Irby release. Who doesn’t want to be whisked away from their cares and set directly into essays like “Girls Gone Mild” and “Late-1900s Time Capsule”? Irby’s writing is a balm unto these weary times. Maybe if we all tweet affirmations at her, she’ll write another one real fast.

 

 

Stay inside if you can, nonfictionites. Wash your hands, Clorox-wipe your phone, and read read read (while also taking a break to prevent eye strain!). If you are so inclined, check out COVID-19 Updates from the Bookish World. As always, you can find me on Twitter @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time! Enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.

If you’re choosing to deal with your anxiety in ways other than “if I study the history of similar crises, perhaps I shall be better equipped for this one,” then these book picks may not be for you. I started thinking today about how people dealt with the influenza outbreak in 1917 (my great-aunt had it as a baby! she lived for so long!) and started looking up some well-reviewed nonfiction reads. Here they are!:

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry. This seems like a good overview of the influenza outbreak of 1918 if you’re looking for a straight-up history. It was on the NYT bestseller list for more than a year. “At the height of World War I, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century.”

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World by Laura Spinney. Ok, I am seriously so interested in this: “Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankind’s vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted–and often permanently altered–global politics, race relations and family structures, while spurring innovation in medicine, religion and the arts. It was partly responsible, Spinney argues, for pushing India to independence, South Africa to apartheid and Switzerland to the brink of civil war. It also created the true “lost generation.””

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly. Do you really want to lean into this virus/plague thing? Why not read about one of the most devastating plagues of all time and how it affected the world.

 

 

 

Balanced Books

Want some reads to balance this deep dive into the world as we know it today and instead practice some nice avoidance? Great. Check out:

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling. I read this while hiding in a room during a particularly stressful holiday party, and it. was. great. Mindy Kaling absolutely felt like my friend telling me smart, funny stories, and I love this book forever for providing some extreme comfort.

 

 

Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice for Living Your Best Life by Ali Wong. You all with kids right now. I don’t even know how you’re doing it. But if you have a free minute, maybe check this out! Also check it out if you don’t have kids, ’cause I do not and I loved it. Wong “shares the wisdom she’s learned from a life in comedy and reveals stories from her life off stage, including the brutal singles life in New York (i.e. the inevitable confrontation with erectile dysfunction), reconnecting with her roots (and drinking snake blood) in Vietnam, tales of being a wild child growing up in San Francisco, and parenting war stories.” It’s hilarious and emotional, but not TOO emotional for these trying times.

Stay inside if you can, nonfictionites. Wash your hands, Clorox-wipe your phone, and read read read (while also taking a break to prevent eye strain!). If you are so inclined, check out COVID-19 Updates from the Bookish World. As always, you can find me on Twitter @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time! Enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.

Is everyone staying safe and warm and caring for themselves and maybe reordering their bookshelves? Ok great, let’s jump into new nonfiction releases for the week:

Intimate Alien: The Hidden Story of the UFO by David J. Halperin. So. Ok, hear me out. It’s published by Stanford University Press, and looks at “what [UFOs] tell us about ourselves as individuals, as a culture, and as a species.” Which is neat! Especially because we should all currently spend some time looking at the world like it’s a slight-of-hand magician that is very obviously holding something giant in its right hand, but we are gonna force ourselves to look at the left one for a bit, because we need a break. Maybe we should all just spend some time thinking about UFOs.

Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory by Claudio Saunt. So maybe you want to think about another tragedy, but one like, far removed in subject matter from this current situation. I used to study American disasters so much, my mom said if I ever got married, it would be on “some tragedy boat.” If you’d like to cathartically exorcise your emotions, check this out! It looks into how Native American “expulsion became national policy and describes the chaotic and deadly results of the operation to deport 80,000 men, women, and children.” This was in 1830 under the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Just wanted to highlight that.

The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History by Andy Greene. I am having an absolutely lovely time with this book. It goes from the idea of The Office in the UK to it being brought to America, its rocky start, and subsequent extreme success. Greene interviewed everybody for this book. Like most of America, I’m a massive Office fan, and this book couldn’t have come at a better time. If you want a total distraction, then here y’go.

Save Yourself: Essays by Cameron Esposito. Chicago comic Esposito spends this memoir telling her story up to the “big break” of moving to LA. So you learn about her childhood, becoming a comedian, coming out, and more.

Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown by Anne Glenconner. I requested this galley and was denied, presumably because my parents were in trade. So I can’t attest to its goodness, but Glenconner was lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret, who we all know was a real piece of work, so presumably it is at least fun. I usually hold some level of skepticism about tell-all books, but Glenconner is 87-years-old, so maybe she just feels (rightly) like people would be interested in her perspective about a very famous family.

Backlist Pairings

We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True by Gabrielle Union. Nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, which is awesome, early 2000s icon Union uses her memoir to tackle “power, color, gender, feminism, and fame.” She shares what it was like growing up in white California suburbia and then spending summers with her black relatives in Nebraska, coping with crushes, puberty, and the divorce of her parents, and more. This somehow hasn’t been on my to-read list, but it is now.

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer. Historian Treuer wrote this as a counterpoint to Dee Brown’s well-known Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. He is emphatic about Native American history not ending with the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, and he tells that story here. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and on the Carnegie Award longlist.

Stay inside if you can, nonfictionites. Wash your hands, Clorox-wipe your phone, and read read read (while also taking a break to prevent eye strain!). If you are so inclined, check out COVID-19 Updates from the Bookish World. As always, you can find me on Twitter @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time! Enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.

Hi, nonfiction fans! Reporting to you from my bunker in Chicago with dwindling Coca-Cola supplies, but staying strong nonetheless. Wow, things are happening in the world. With that in mind, I put together some quarantine reads for today, which I’m defining as “books you maybe always meant to get around to but you never had the time.” Well, friends, the time is now. Here we go:

Good-Bye to All That by Robert Graves. I’ve been meaning to read this for some time. Poet Graves wrote this memoir in 1929, and the “unsentimental and frequently comic treatment of the banalities and intensities of the life of a British army officer in the First World War gave Graves fame.” If you’re interested in what can happen after a major event changes a society, here you go.

 

 

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass. If you had to read this in high school (I did), then I suggest a re-read as an adult. Douglass was a social justice powerhouse in the 19th century, fighting not only for the rights of African Americans, but for women’s suffrage. He attended the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 and was friends with Abraham Lincoln. His 1845 memoir was so popular that it’s still in print today. It’s a pretty quick read too, so, bonus points.

 

I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb. Oh man, I have been wanting to read this for a while, but I tend to forget about very popular memoirs because my jam is extremely specific 19th century historical reads, like “Bostonian Thimble Makers: 1845-1862.” But I started this once and loved it, so my plan is to quarantine-read it. Yousafzai is clearly an inspirational figure of our time and is doing more than her share of the work that we should all be taking part in.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I haven’t read a single book about Lincoln, and I feel like I…keep meaning to? So this extremely well-regarded book is one for the #QuarantineReads list. Kearns Goodwin’s thesis is that Lincoln’s success was because “he possessed an extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires.” Empathy! How novel.

Stay inside if you can, nonfictionites. Wash your hands, Clorox-wipe your phone, and read read read (while also taking a break to prevent eye strain!). If you are so inclined, check out COVID-19 Updates from the Bookish World. As always, you can find me on Twitter @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time! Enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.

YOU ALL. Omg. Okay, obviously a million things are going on in the world right now (mostly related to one same big thing), but I am extremely glad I get to promote people’s nonfiction new releases this week (and some backlist picks!) because book tours are canceled, stores are doing ship-to-sender only, and bookstores and authors need our support more now than ever. With that in mind, here are nonfiction new releases for March 17, 2020:

Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener by Kimberly A. Hamlin. Gardner was born Alice Chenoweth, but after having an affair with a married man and being named in Ohio newspapers, she changed her name and moved to New York City. Which is a real burning bridges move and I approve of it. She fought for suffrage and died as the highest-ranking woman in federal government. Seems like a good curl-up-on-the-couch book.

 

Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can’t Live Without Them by Adrienne Raphel. This book is a delight. Even if you aren’t good at crossword puzzles (*points to self*), it’s still fascinating to hear about those who are obsessed with them, how they’re created, and what their history is. If you want something light to skip through, here y’go.

 

 

The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness: A Memoir by Sarah Ramey. For years, Sarah Ramey suffered through an unknown illness that few medical professionals would take seriously. Her memoir deals with the struggle to be believed, as well as live her life in the face of something she had no idea how to treat. It’s being called “a memoir with a mission.”

 

 

Broken Glass: Mies van der Rohe, Edith Farnsworth, and the Fight Over a Modern Masterpiece by Alex Beam. Do you know what a Farnsworth House is? It’s basically a glass rectangle of a house, and people LOVE them. Except Edith Farnsworth, who commissioned it and found it impossible to live in (aesthetics vs utility, amirite?). This new release tells the story Farnsworth’s battle with architect van der Rohe over the house she hated.

Backlist Highlights

Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain. This tells the history of how fast food became one of the greatest generators of black wealth in America. Chatelain looks at how fast food restaurants saturated black neighborhoods, how they were initially seen as a path to improved quality of life, and what their current effects are.

 

 

Music to My Years: A Mixtape Memoir by Cristela Alonzo. For something lighter in the nonfiction realm, check out comedian Alonzo as she talks about growing up as a first-generation American, the time she made tap shoes out of bottle caps, and the struggles she faced coming up in the worlds of writing and comedy. I’ve watched her standup and she is hilarious.

 

Stay safe, nonfictionites! Practice social distancing, read or listen to books, support authors, and absorb those facts. As always, you can find me on Twitter @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time!

We’re taking Friday the 13th and Women’s History Month and smushing them together for this very special edition of True Story. What does Friday the 13th mean to you! Creepy, unlucky, potentially gross things? Also POWER and the supernatural. Those are the themes of this week’s books! Enjoy.

Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History by Tori Telfer. Woman serial killers may not be as well known, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Telfer, who wrote a “Lady Killers” series on Jezebel, profiles fourteen women, including Nannie Doss, Erzsébet Báthory, and Kate Bender, and looks into why even when women do horrific things, they tend not to be seen as a threat (hint: it’s sexism).

Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsébet Báthory by Kimberly L. Craft. Right, so speaking of Báthory, have you ever wondered what’s actually true about her absolutely terrifying life story? Craft offers a biography I am extremely interested in, as she looks through letters, documents, and trial transcripts to try and separate fact from fiction (something very much applauded among nonfictionites!). Read this and then “actually” your friends when they inevitably bring up this 16th-century Hungarian countess in casual conversation.

Legendary Ladies: 50 Goddesses to Empower and Inspire You by Ann Shen. Friday the 13th doesn’t have to be all scary! Although some of these goddesses are (lookin’ at you, Kali), albeit in an awesome way. Shen also did Bad Girls Throughout History, and has really cornered the market on beautifully illustrated anthologies of ladies. Here she takes you through goddess mythology, including the Chinese deity Mazu, Hopi and Navajo goddess Spider Woman, and Greek goddess Tyche.

Basic Witches: How to Summon Success, Banish Drama, and Raise Hell with Your Coven by Jaya Saxena and Jess Zimmerman. Yeah, like we’re getting through this list without a witch book. Witches: so hot right now. If you’re interested in an easy how-to sort of guide, this is it. It mixes things like “Our Favorite Pop Culture Witches” with “How to Clothe Yourself in Literal Darkness” and “A Collaborative Ritual to Deepen Friendship.”

As always, you can find me on Twitter @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time! Enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.