Category: True Story

Hellooooo, nonfiction fans!

It is, once more, me, Alice, co-host of Book Riot’s nonfiction podcast For Real and your substitute Kim for today’s True Story newsletter. While I have neither the calm grace nor journalistic background of a Kim, I do have a lot of enthusiasm for FACTS.

With that in mind, today we’re going to do a roundup of some good nonfiction reads to shove in your bookbag, stow in your work satchel, or carefully fold into your bindle as you roam this country in a rail car. I don’t know your life. None of these are super long or overly ponderous, if you know what I mean (side-eyes Chernow’s Hamilton).

Good On-the-Go Reads

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Obviously. Super readable, great info, and a story that should have been told well before this.

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean. I read this and started throwing out amazing facts at everyone I met.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X. This book will stay with you for a long, long time.

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It’s pocket-sized! And you can read it in an afternoon and then feel a proud sense of ACCOMPLISHMENT.

The Boys in the Boat: Nine American and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown. Ok, I haven’t read this, but everyone else has and they love it.

Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream by Joshua Davis. I recommended this on For Real this week and I am saying it again here because: robots! Teen angst! Immigration! Hope! A classic underdog story! This book has it all.

That’s it for now! An honor to be here subbing, as always. You can find me and Kim on For Real every other Tuesday (don’t forget to subscribe). Happy weekend and keep nonfictioning!

Hello and happy September, nonfiction friends! As sad as I am to see this summer start to wind down, there’s been something very soothing about the slide into fall this year. The air feels crisp, I’m eating a lot of apples, and the fall publishing season is kicking off.

This week, I have 10 interesting new books to put on your radar. Let’s go!

My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education by Jennine Capó Crucet – A collection of essays on being an “accidental” American and “her family’s attempts to fit in with white American culture.”

Axiomatic by Maria Tumarkin – A look at “the ways we understand the traumas we inherit and the systems that sustain them.”

How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems by Randall Munroe – The creator of the webcomic xkcd is back with an “entertaining and useless” self-help guide of ridiculous solutions to common problems.

Elements of Fiction by Walter Mosley – A guide to writing fiction that “transcends convention and truly stands out.”

Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic by Ben Westhoff – An investigation into the world of synthetic drugs, from factories in China to dealers in the United States, and how they’re part of the next wave of the opioid crisis.

The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You by Dina Nayeri – A memoir by a refugee that also shares “the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys.”

Scan Artist: How Evelyn Wood Convinced the World that Speed-Reading Worked by Marcia Biederman – A true-life con story about a woman with no background in education and little classroom experience who became a renowned teacher of speed reading.

Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by Mike Isaac – An inside peek at Uber during 2017, a dramatic year when the company rose to the top of the tech world and removed its CEO in a boardroom coup.

Unbreakable: The Woman Who Defied the Nazis in the World’s Most Dangerous Horse Race by Richard Askwith – “The courageous and heartbreaking story of a Czech countess who defied the Nazis in a legendary horse race” in 1937.

Whose Story Is This?: Old Conflicts, New Chapters by Rebecca Solnit – New essays from Rebecca Solnit! This collection explores who gets to shape the narrative of our times.

One last thing for this week: Don’t forget to enter our giveaway of the year’s 10 best mystery/thrillers so far! It’s such a good list!

You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. In this week’s episode, Alice and I chatted about books about school. Happy reading! – Kim

Hello, nonfiction friends! It’s the last Friday in August, which means I can sneak in one newsletter in honor of Women in Translation month, an annual celebration that’s been happening around the book world since 2014.

Given my personal interest, this list of nonfiction in translation is heavy on memoirs and books by journalists, but I did manage to get a pretty decent geographic spread in titles. Let’s go!

Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich – This book is an account of the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, told through the personal stories of people affected by the meltdown. As a collection of monologues, the book was the first to truly give voice to that experience. As a result, parts of this book were the basis for the HBO miniseries Chernobyl. Journalist Svetlana Alexievich is the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, so any of her books would make a great read.

 

In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri – Twenty years after studying in Italy and falling in love with the country, novelist Jhumpa Lahiri returned to Rome where she began to read and write exclusively in Italian. This book is a “meditation on the process of learning to express herself in another language – and the stunning journey of a writer seeking a new voice.”

 

 

I’m Writing You from Tehran: A Granddaughter’s Search for Her Family’s Past and Their Country’s Future by Delphine Minoui – After losing her grandfather in 1998, journalist Delphine Minoui decided to go to Iran, her first visit since the Iranian Revolution. She ended up staying a decade, immersing herself in the country, growing as a writer, falling in love, and learning more about her family history.

 

Oriana Fallaci: The Journalist, the Agitator, the Legend by Cristina De Stefano – This biography tells the story of one of Italy’s most famous and controversial journalists. During her career, she conducted blockbuster interviews with leaders like Henry Kissinger, Muammar Gaddafi, Indira Gandhi, and more. She also caused her own share of controversies, “leaving behind epic collateral damage in her wake.”

 

A Massacre in Mexico: The True Story Behind the Missing Forty-Three Students by Anabel Hernández – In 2014, 43 students went missing from a teaching college in Mexico. The young men boarded buses to travel to Mexico City, but disappeared after a confrontation with local police. This book is a definitive account of this mystery that shows the official version of the story from Mexican officials is largely false.

And that’s a wrap! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, via email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. Happy reading! – Kim

Hello, nonfiction friends! I cannot believe it’s the last week of August – the summer has absolutely flown by me. This week is another great one for nonfiction new releases. I’ve got three books to feature, plus six more that caught my eye. Let’s get going!

March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women  by Kate Bolick, Carmen Maria Machado, Jane Smiley, and Jenny Zhang – In celebration of the 150th anniversary of Little Women, four authors write about their connections to the novel, including “what it has meant to them and why it still matters.” This is such an interesting combination of writers, and I have such a soft spot for Little Women – it’s right in my wheelhouse.

Bookish Reading: Since this book is so short, I want to direct you to previous/future work by each of the authors – Spinster by Kate Bolick (memoir), In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (memoir), The Man Who Invented the Computer by Jane Smiley (nonfiction), and Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang (short stories).

The Optimist’s Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age by Bina Venkataraman – If you have ever wondered why making the decision that will benefit you most in the long-term is so hard, this is a book for you. Bina Venkataraman, a writer and former Obama administration advisor on climate change, explores the biology, psychology, and economics of making better decisions over time and shares practices we can adopt ourselves and as a society.

Further Reading: It’s not super recent, but Venkataraman’s 2018 article about why we should rethink the idea of a forced quarantine was interesting.

See Jane Win: The Inspiring Story of the Women Changing American Politics by Caitlin Moscatello – The November 2018 midterm elections resulted in a record number of women running for and winning elected offices. In this book, journalist Caitlin Moscatello follows four candidates (one for Congress, three for state offices) through their campaigns and the “brutal realities of running for office while female.”

Further Reading: Earlier this year, Moscatello wrote about the work of Millennial women in Congress and how they’re fighting back against the sexist, ageist rhetoric trying to convince them to keep their heads down and wait their turn.

And finally, a few more titles that I am curious about:

• Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother’s Disappearance as a Child by Laura Cumming
• Silver, Sword, and Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story by Marie Arana
• Human Relations and Other Difficulties: Essays by Mary-Kay Wilmers
• The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains by Joseph Ledoux
• Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have by Tatiana Schlossberg
• Scam Me If You Can: Simple Strategies to Outsmart Today’s Rip-off Artists by Frank Abagnale

Hooray, new books! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. Happy reading! – Kim

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s all for this week. You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. Happy reading! – Kim

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yay, books! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. In this week’s episode, Alice and I scratched the surface of books about cults. Happy reading! – Kim

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s all for this week! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. Happy reading! – Kim

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s all for this week’s new book, although I’m sure there are some I missed. You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. Happy reading! – Kim

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s all for this week! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. Happy reading! – Kim

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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