Category: True Story

Hello and happy Friday, fellow readers! I feel like I might be emerging from the reading slump that’s gripped me through all of July, which is welcome news going into a beautiful weekend. This week’s nonfiction news is a bit of a scattershot, but it all bodes well for future reading. Let’s get going!

Megan Rapinoe is writing a book, and my soul is deeply happy! Scheduled for fall 2020, Rapinoe said “I hope this book will inspire people to find what they can do, and in turn inspire other people around them to do the same.” She’ll also be talking about the political issues she’s been vocal about since the Women’s World Cup – LGBTQ rights and pay equity for women. So psyched!

A new exhibition based on Matthew Desmond’s Evicted will be on display in Milwaukee. To explore issues related to housing insecurity, “the exhibition incorporates audio slideshows, photos, and infographics. And there are powerful displays – such as a vacuum sealed stack of personal belonging.” The display was previously housed at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C.

This is not exactly nonfiction, but it delighted me anyway. The Library of Congress is looking for help transcribing nearly 16,000 pages of diaries, letters, speeches and other documents from suffragists. The original documents are available on By the People, “a crowdsourcing platform launched by the library in 2018.” This sounds so cool!

I really enjoyed this NPR interview with Michal Kranish, author of The World’s Fastest Man: The Extraordinary Life of Cyclist Major Taylor, America’s First Black Sports Hero. I love books that dive deep into sports I’m not super familiar with, so this seems up my alley. I’m bummed I missed out on this book when it came out back in May, but luckily my library had an ebook copy I could check out!

Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women, one of the nonfiction best-sellers of the summer, is going to Showtime. Taddeo “is attached to write and executive produce the drama.” The book centers around the stories of three women. The series “will reportedly revolve around women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.” One other Three Women-related note – although it’s been getting generally positive reviews, there have also been some criticisms. I appreciated this one from author Emily Nagoski, which offered a perspective I hadn’t thought about.

And that’ll close out another 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 congrats on making it to the end of July, fellow nonfiction readers! When we get a last/fifth week of the month like this one – nearly evenly split between two months – I always find it a little odd. It’s like no one knows what to do with those extra days, outside the rhythm of our four-week months.

Whatever the reason, it’s a very slow week for new nonfiction – I only have two titles to share! So to fill things out, I browsed through some great nonfiction deals for your Kindle, which you can find at the end of this newsletter. Onwards!

---

Sponsored by TBR: Tailored Book Recommendations

TBR is Book Riot’s new subscription service offering Tailored Book Recommendations for readers of all stripes. Been dreaming of a “stitchfix for books?” Now it’s here! Tell TBR about your reading preferences and what you’re looking for, and sit back while your Bibliologist handpicks recommendations just for you. TBR offers plans to receive hardcover books in the mail or recommendations by email, so there’s an option for every budget. Sign up here.

---

Deadly Aim: The Civil War Story of Michigan’s Anishinaabe Sharpshooters by Sally M. Walker – I don’t do a ton of middle grade nonfiction in the newsletter, but I’m glad to get to include this one. The book tells the story of the approximately 20,000 American Indians who served in the Civil War, particularly a group of sharpshooters who fought “despite enduring broken treaties, loss of tribal lands, and racism.”

Further Reading: Sally Walker has written many books for young readers, including Winnie: The True Story of the Bear Who Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh and Boundaries: How the Mason-Dixon Line Settled a Family Feud and Divided a Nation. Great subtitles!

Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark by Cecelia Watson – If you are a person who loves little books about big ideas, this one might be up your alley. In the book, a historical and philosopher of sciences “charts the rise and fall of this infamous punctuation mark.” She explores famous loves and haters, the role of grammar rules in the confusion of punctuation, and more.

Further Thoughts: In her review of the book for the New Yorker, grammar queen Mary Norris describes the book as “a deceptively playful-looking  book that turns out to be a scholarly treatise on a sophisticated device that has contributed eloquence and mystery to Western civilization.”

And finally, a few great Kindle deals to load up your e-reader. One caveat: since it’s close to the end of the month, be sure to check before you buy to make sure the price hasn’t changed:

• 1776 by David McCullough for $3.99
• Robin by Dave Itzkoff for $3.99
• Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King for $1.99
• Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot for $3.99
• The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman for $1.99
• In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi for $3.99

And that’s another Wednesday newsletter! 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, fellow nonfiction lovers! This week’s nonfiction news includes a lot of tidbits about upcoming movie and television adaptations, plus one upcoming book announcement that sounds particularly excellent. Let’s dive in!

---

Sponsored by TBR: Tailored Book Recommendations

TBR is Book Riot’s new subscription service offering Tailored Book Recommendations for readers of all stripes. Been dreaming of a “stitchfix for books?” Now it’s here! Tell TBR about your reading preferences and what you’re looking for, and sit back while your Bibliologist handpicks recommendations just for you. TBR offers plans to receive hardcover books in the mail or recommendations by email, so there’s an option for every budget. Sign up here.

---

Anna “Delvey” Sorkin, a woman who pretended to be a German heiress to get money from friends and more, may actually be getting paid by Netflix. The streaming service and Shonda Rhimes have licensed her story to make into a show, paying $100,000 along with royalties and a per-episode consulting fee. But now that’s she’s been convicted of theft and grand larceny, officials in New York are trying to prevent her from seeing any more of the Netflix money.

According to Gizmodo, “the office of the New York State attorney general recently filed a request to bar Sorokin from profiting from the series under ‘Son of Sam’ law, which prevents criminals from spinning their crimes into profit.” I’m officially obsessed with this story and will be buying My Friend Anna by Rachel DeLoache Williams immediately.

Michael B. Jordan’s film adaptation of Bryan Stevenson’s memoir Just Mercy will be open nationwide on January 10, 2020. The film focuses on Stevenson’s first case, “that of Walter McMillian, a black man who was sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit.” The movie also stars Jamie Foxx as McMillian and Brie Larson as Eva Ansley, operations director at the Equal Justice Initiative. I can’t wait for this one.

The second season of Mindhunter will debut on Netflix on August 16. The show follows a special team within the FBI “that investigates what makes serial killers tick during the ‘70s.” The show is inspired by a real-life FBI agent, John Douglas, who wrote about his time as a criminal profiler in The Killer Across the Table.

Another new Netflix show out in August, The Family, is also based on a nonfiction book! The five-part documentary series is about a secret organization that “believes the separation of church and state is unnecessary, and political affiliation is irrelevant. The Family grooms and supports leaders, teaching them that the Bible is a story about power, not mercy – that leaders are chosen by God, not elected.” The series is based on a 2008 book by author Jeff Sharlet called The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. 

Daniel Mallory Ortberg is writing a memoir-in-essays! Something That May Shock and Discredit You will “pan pop culture, covering everything from the beauty of William Shatner to a sinister reimagining of HGTV’s House Hunters.” This article for Entertainment Weekly includes a cover reveal (pretty great!) and an excerpt (pretty hilarious!).

And that’s everything 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 nonfiction friends! Since last arriving in your inbox, I have survived a heatwave, hauled fallen tree limbs, and KonMari’d more than 100 books from my overflowing shelves. It feels like it should be the weekend, and it’s only Wednesday.

---

Sponsored by TBR: Tailored Book Recommendations

TBR is Book Riot’s new subscription service offering Tailored Book Recommendations for readers of all stripes. Been dreaming of a “stitchfix for books?” Now it’s here! Tell TBR about your reading preferences and what you’re looking for, and sit back while your Bibliologist handpicks recommendations just for you. TBR offers plans to receive hardcover books in the mail or recommendations by email, so there’s an option for every budget. Sign up here.

---

This week is another slower one in the world of publishing, but I’ll take it. I have three new books to feature including a highly-anticipated memoir about a con artist in New York City, an exploration of the danger facing wild salmon, and a peek at the world of language on the Internet. Let’s get going!

My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress by Rachel DeLoache Williams – There are few things I love more than a good con story, so of course this book has been on my radar. Rachel DeLoache Williams’s friend Anna Delvey claimed to be a German heiress and, for a while, her luxurious lifestyle supported the claim. But after a series of financial mishaps to the tune of $62,000 on a vacation, Williams learned her friend had been deceiving her… and almost everyone else. Shocking rich people problems!

Further Reading: Williams published an essay about her friendship with Anna on Vanity Fair back in 2018. I expect the memoir will expand on all the juicy details.

Stronghold: One Man’s Quest to Save the World’s Wild Salmon by Tucker Malarkey – This book is a profile of Guido Rahr, “an unlikely visionary and his protect the world’s last bastion of wild salmon.” Rahr’s quest began when he started noticing a decline in the salmon runs of the Pacific Northwest where he fished, but goes on to explore the world of wild salmon through the eyes of “scientists, conservationists, Russian oligarchs, corrupt officials” and more. The marketing copy compares the book to Mountains Beyond Mountains and The Orchid Thief – two of my favorite books about obsessions – which has me pretty psyched.

Further Reading: Outside Magazine included the book on a list of favorite summer reads of 2019, which includes some other great titles too.

Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch – I love a good language book. In this one, Gretchen McCulloch, an internet linguist, explores “how the internet is changing the English language, why that’s a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are.”

Further Listening: McCulloch co-hosts a podcast called Lingthusiasm, described as “a lively, nerdy, language-y conversation with real linguists!” I’m mad I didn’t know about this until today, but of course I am going to listen immediately.

Even during the slow season in publishing, it’s exciting to find some additional reads for your TBR. Here are a few more on my radar:

• Amazing Decisions: The Illustrated Guide to Improving Business Deals and Family Meals by Dan Ariely and Matt R. Trower
• Why Digital Transformations Fail: The Surprising Disciplines of How to Take Off and Stay Ahead by Tony Saldanha
• Hummingbird in Underworld: Teaching in a Men’s Prison by Deborah Tobola
• Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian by James Grant
• Screen Tests: Stories and Other Writing by Kate Zambreno

And that’s the end of today’s newsletter! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. This week we talked about a bunch of books celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. It’s out of this world! – Kim

Hello and happy Friday, readers! I would usually greet you as “fellow readers,” but I am in the middle of a massive reading slump that I don’t see ending any time soon. I just haven’t been in the mood to pick up a book since I got back from vacation, which is a bummer when your side hustle is all about talking books!

Luckily, not being able to read doesn’t mean I haven’t been paying attention to the nonfiction news that’s coming out this month. This week I’ve got a bubbling conversation on citations, an update on Elizabeth Holmes, and news about adaptations. Onward!

---

Sponsored by Shadow Mountain Publishing

World War II famously gave rise to human atrocities such as the Holocaust and the atomic bomb, but it also became a proving ground for heroes who refused to back down from the fight against evil. This title tells the stories of many of these brave soldiers and noncombatants…. Each story … gives readers a chance to see what elements led up to their heroic acts and service during the conflict. A solid primer for those just learning about World War II, this collection also offers new stories that will interest even the most avid history buff.” -School Library Journal

---

I’m not really sure how to sum up this story, other than the great headline from The Lily: “A female historian wrote a book. Two male historians went on NPR to talk about it. They never mentioned her name. It’s Sarah Milov.” While this is a pretty shocking example of not giving credit, the more general issues it raises – obligations for citations, the way it results in erasing women’s work, to name just two – are really interesting. I’m still noodling on all of it. But for now, take a peek at Milov’s book, The Cigarette, due out in October.

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is set to stand trial for fraud and conspiracy in July 2020. In the interim, Holmes and her lawyers are looking to mount a defense that reporter John Carreyrou had “an undue influence on federal regulators” who forced the company to close down its labs. I cannot get enough of this story! I’m also required to tell you to read Bad Blood because it’s amazing.

Lakeith Stanfield will star in a film adaptation of Chef Kwame Onwuachi’s memoir Notes from a Young Black Chef! The memoir follows “Onwuachi’s unprecedented journey from childhood in the Bronx with a mostly single mother to opening a fine-dining restaurant in Washington D.C. at the age of 26.” This is so exciting!

A book about “black athletes, a divided America, and the politics of patriotism” is set to be adapted for television. The Heritage by Howard Bryant is being made into a “multi-part docuseries.” According to Deadline, producer Sacha Jenkins will direct an episode and “each subsequent episode will be helmed by a different African-American filmmaker to provide a unique and personal perspective on the story.” The book, published in 2018, “is a powerful chronology of black athletes’ activism within a tense American political climate.”

And that, fellow nonfiction nerds, is all for this week! Until this reading slump ends, I’ll be spending a lot of time watching Veronica Mars, playing Wizards Unite, browsing knitting patterns for the fall, and checking out books wish I was in the mood to read from the library.

You can also 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 welcome to a new week, nonfiction readers! This week’s most exciting new nonfiction title connects contemporary politics to a shameful moment in American history. Learn what title I’m talking about, plus a collection of essays by Native writers and a traveling guide/manifesto. Let’s go!

---

Sponsored by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, publishers of Reckoning: The Epic Battle Against Sexual Abuse and Harassment by Linda Hirshman.

Linda Hirshman, acclaimed historian of social movements, delivers the sweeping story of the struggle leading up to #MeToo and beyond: from the first tales of workplace harassment percolating in the 1970s, to the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal—when liberal women largely forgave Clinton, giving men a free pass for two decades. And yet, legal, political, and cultural efforts were quietly paving the way for the takedown of abusers and harassers. Reckoning delivers the stirring tale of a movement catching fire as pioneering women in the media exposed the Harvey Weinsteins of the world, women flooded the political landscape, and the walls of male privilege finally began to crack. This is revelatory, essential social history.

---

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, and Steven Scott, illustrated by Harmony Becker – This graphic memoir tells the story of George Takei’s time spent imprisoned in American concentration camps during World War II. Beginning in 1942, Takei and his family were sent to a “relocation center” where they spent the remainder of the war.

Further Watching: Takei spoke about his experience in an internment camp and why he’s still proud of being an American back in a 2014 TED Talk. It’s a totally different context now, but the story is similar.

Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers, edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton – This collection uses the techniques of basketweaving as organizing principles for essays by Native writers “from tribal nations across Turtle Island.” It includes established and emerging writers who “demonstrate the slippery, shape-changing possibilities of Native stories.”

Further Reading: Editors Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton were interviewed by Pen America about their favorite books, their process as editors, and their favorite bookstores.

Ten Years a Nomad: A Traveler’s Journey Home by Matthew Kepnes – In 2005, Matthew Kepnes decided to go on a year-long trip around the world. That trip turned into 10 years, for a total of 500,000 miles traveled in 90 different countries. This book is a collection of those stories, experiences, and insights to explore what it means for us to travel.

Further Reading: Kepnes’ blog, Nomadic Matt’s Travel Site, has some great content where you can get a sense of his writing style.

And finally, a few other titles that piqued my interest this week:

• The Weil Conjectures: On Math and the Pursuit of the Unknown by Karen Olsson
• A Beginner’s Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death by BJ Miller and Shoshana Berger
• Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood by Maureen Stanton
• Everything Below the Waist: Why Health Care Needs a Feminist Revolution by Jennifer Block

Before I wrap this up, I’d like to make an addendum from last week. A reader correctly pointed out that my brief description of one of the stories in Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women didn’t give the story the gravity it deserves. So, I wanted to include some more information from the book jacket about Maggie’s story:

In North Dakota we meet Maggie, a seventeen-year-old high school student who finds a confidant in her handsome, married English teacher. By Maggie’s account, supportive nightly texts and phone calls evolve into a clandestine physical relationship, with plans to skip school on her eighteenth birthday and make love all day; instead, he breaks up with her on the morning he turns thirty. A few years later, Maggie has no degree, no career, and no dreams to live for. When she learns that this man has been named North Dakota’s Teacher of the Year, she steps forward with her story—and is met with disbelief by former schoolmates and the jury that hears her case. The trial will turn their quiet community upside down.

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 Friday, nonfiction nerds, and congrats on making it through another week! The post-vacation let down is always rough, but I’ve been nursing my back-to-work hangover with plenty of books and Instagram videos of the United States women’s national soccer team celebrating their World Cup victory.

For this week’s newsletter, I rounded up some of Book Riot’s best nonfiction content over the last several weeks — I’m sure you’ll find something great. Let’s dive in!

---

Sponsored by Book Riot’s Amazon store. Shop our favorite summer reads (including some of our favorite books of 2019 so far), bookish accessories, deals, and more.

---

If you want a bite-sized dose of nonfiction, check out these essays you can read online for free right now. It’s a great mix of classic and contemporary writing.

Want to read some Brené Brown? We’ve got a reading pathway to help you get started. And there’s a link to her TED Talk, if you aren’t ready to read yet.

If you are as obsessed with women’s soccer as I am, grab one of these five great books about the sport in celebration of the Women’s World Cup. Under the Lights and In the Dark by Gwendolyn Oxenham is on my list now!

Get some career advice for artists, thinkers, makers, and founders in these modern-day business books. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert was one of my favorite books last year.

Watched Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us? We’ve got books on police corruption, brutality, and the prison industrial complex to read when you’re done.

I’m in the middle of a podcast kick at the moment, but when I shift back to audiobooks I am going to be looking into some of these audiobook memoirs narrated by the author.

Interested in reading more criticism? These books by Pulitzer Prize-winning critics are a great place to start.

If you’re digging (or totally horrified) by Chernobyl on HBO, we’ve got six recommended reads to pick up next. I’ve heard great things about Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham.

I feel like we read a lot of Victorian-era true crime, but the Edwardian era was pretty grisly too. Here are 11 great recommended reads of true crime from approximately 1902 to 1910.

Or, try reading some true crime books with your book club (we’ve got recs).

One of my nonfiction blind spots in history, but of course there’s a Book Riot post for that. I’m going to be looking through several of these fascinating and readable history books.

In the time of “fake news,” it can be difficult to separate truth from nonsense. Get some help with these 10 good books about bad information.

Thanks for hanging with me 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, dear nonfiction readers! I am freshly back from a vacation, which mostly meant time spent reading by the lake or lounging around on the couch. I also watched a bunch of women’s soccer – count me among the women’s national team’s newest fans.

July seems like a bit of a slowdown for new releases, but there are still plenty of books out this week that will help topple your TBR. Let’s dive in!

---

Sponsored by Book Riot’s Amazon store. Shop our favorite summer reads (including some of our favorite books of 2019 so far), bookish accessories, deals, and more.

---

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo – Journalist Lisa Taddeo spent eight years crisscrossing the United States to profile real women and explore female sexual desire. The three women at the center of the story are Maggie, a high school student who had an affair with a teacher; Lina, a housewife in a passionless marriage; and Sloan, a woman whose husband likes to watch her have sex with other people. This is one of the most highly-anticipated nonfiction books of the year.

Further Reading: Elle published an essay by Taddeo where she shares a story from a trip to Puerto Rico as a teenager and how it connects to the book. The magazine also has three reasons you’ll want to read this book.

Beneath the Tamarind Tree by Isha Sesay – In 2014, militant Islamic group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from their dorm rooms in Nigeria. Despite the high profile of this event, the true story behind their abduction and survival isn’t well known. In this book, Isha Sesay, an internationally-renowned journalist from Sierra Leone tells this story through the experiences of three girls exploring the inadequate response to the event and critiquing how it was covered in the media.

Further Watching: As she was leaving CNN after 13 years with the network, Sesay did a video offering tips for career success as a journalist.

Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl – In this collection of essays, Margaret Renkl explores “the cycles of joy and grief that inscribe human lives within the natural world.” She explores her childhood in Alabama, observations about her life in Nashville, and other reasons to find astonishment in common things. I’ll be honest – one of the reasons I picked this one to feature is because I am in love with the cover. But also it sounds great!

Further Reading: Renkl is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times where she’s recently written pieces like “Let’s Hear It for the Average Child” and “Girl on a Red Dirt Road.”

Finally, a few other new books coming out this week that should be on your radar:

• The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s Ten-Year Road Trip by Jeff Guinn
• When Islam is Not a Religion: Inside America’s Fight for Religious Freedom by Asma Uddin
• The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb by Sam Kean
• Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem by Daniel R. Day
• Hungry: Eating, Road-Tripping and Risking it All With the Greatest Chef in the World by Jeff Gordinier
• The Trouble With Gravity: Solving the Mystery Beneath Our Feet by Richard Panek

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. This week we took another dive into great young adult nonfiction for readers of all ages. Happy reading! – Kim

Hello, readers! I have been informed I can write about any nonfiction topic I choose as the guest host for this week, so I’ve picked out some Preferred History Reads to share with you, the carefully discerning bookish type.

---

Sponsored by Hawking by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick, and First Second

From his early days at the St Albans School and Oxford, Stephen Hawking’s brilliance and good humor were obvious to everyone he met. At twenty-one he was diagnosed with ALS, a degenerative neuromuscular disease. Though the disease weakened his muscles and limited his ability to move and speak, it did not limit his mind. He went on to do groundbreaking work in cosmology and theoretical physics and became a pop-culture icon and an outspoken advocate for disability rights. In Hawking, New York Times bestselling graphic novelists Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick deliver a gripping biography of Stephen Hawking, one of the most important scientists of our time.

---

The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age by Myra MacPherson. Not only was Victoria Woodhull the first woman to run for president, she and her sister Tennessee were the first women stockbrokers on Wall Street. They also had their turn as mediums, AND got embroiled in a giant tiff with Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brother Henry (the Beechers were real mungbeans about the whole thing).

Heroines of Mercy Street: The Real Nurses of the Civil War by Pamela D. Toler. Did you know Louisa May Alcott was a nurse during the Civil War? Alcott nerds, I know you do, but I did NOT. This book is great. We know about battles like Gettysburg, Bull Run, Antietam, and others, but we aren’t told what happened after them – what happened to the wounded soldiers, and who cleaned up after the initial horror.

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward. What is history? Mostly us telling stories about what happened in the past (real historians, don’t @ me). Ward beautifully and painfully recounts how she watched five men in her life die around her in five years and what this says about our nation and its racist past and present.

Mary, Queen of Scots: A Study in Failure by Jenny Wormald. This is my favorite of all book titles. Down with Mary, Queen of Scots.

Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar. Really short but really good, Dunbar takes you through Ona Judge’s enslavement by George and Martha Washington to her amazing race to freedom and refusal to be recaptured.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. I know, you’re going “Alice. I haven’t read it by NOW, so hasn’t the moment passed?” And I am here to tell you that I read this only in the past year and I am so glad I did. Pick it up!

---

That’s all from me for this week! Kim will return next week for more new releases and fun book links. As always, you can find us podcasting about nonfiction on For Real, and you can find me on Twitter at @itsalicetime.

Greetings to all, I am Alice Burton, your nonfiction news provider this week, and co-host with Kim of For Real, Book Riot’s nonfiction podcast. I’m delighted to meet you all. Let’s explore some new releases and backlist picks!

---

Sponsored by Dynamic Dames by Sloan De Forest

Celebrate 50 of the most empowering and unforgettable female characters ever to grace the screen, as well as the artists who brought them to life! Through engaging profiles and more than 100 photographs, Dynamic Dames looks at some of the most inspiring female roles in film from the 1920s to today. The characters are discussed along with the exciting off-screen personalities and achievements of the actresses and, on occasion, female writers and directors, who brought them to life. Among the stars profiled are Audrey Hepburn, Josephine Baker, Barbra Streisand, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Gal Gadot, Emma Watson, and many more.

---

New Releases

What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal by E. Jean Carroll — Columnist Carroll and her poodle head out on a road trip from Vermont to Louisiana to ask the women she meets: “what do we need men for?”

American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century by Maureen Callahan — The story of serial killer Israel Keyes, how he planned murders across the United States, and the slip-up that led to his capture.

The Lie: A Memoir of Two Marriages, Catfishing & Coming Out by William Dameron — A shocking memoir of stolen identity, addiction, divorce, coming out, and healing.

Reading Behind Bars: A Memoir of Literature, Law, and Life as a Prison Librarian by Jill Grunenwald — Grunenwald recounts her time as a librarian at a minimum security prison in Ohio; what she learned; and which parts of a library remain the same, no matter where they are.

Backlist Picks

It’s the week of July 4th, so let’s check out some diverse books about the people who have contributed to what is now the United States.

An Indigenous People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz — A story of over 400 years of history that “examines the legacy of Indigenous peoples’ resistance, resilience, and steadfast fight against imperialism.”

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson — The story of the decades-long migration of six million African Americans in the 20th century from the rural South to northern and western cities.

The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee — A history of Asian Americans, from sailors coming across the Pacific in the 16th century to the problematic 21st century label of “model minority.”

 

You can find me on Twitter @itsalicetime, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. Last week, Kim and I shared some great reads about the ocean and what you can find in “mysterious fathoms below.” Happy reading! – Alice