Category: True Story

Happy Friday, fellow nonfiction nerds! On my trip last weekend I ended up listening to all six episodes of The Dropout from ABC Radio, a deep-ish dive into the story of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. I liked it quite a bit – it’s both a good follow up to Bad Blood by John Carreyrou and a good primer on the scandal if you’re not already familiar. So… basically good for everyone!

This week’s nonfiction news is all pretty interesting — upcoming adaptations for two books I loved, a secretive book announcement, and a celebration of the contributions women made during World War II (with a bookish connection). Let’s go!

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The Minnesota Opera has commissioned a new work based on The Song Poet, an award-winning memoir by Kao Kalia Yang. The book tells the story of “her family and in particular, her song poet father Bee Yang, as war forces them from Laos into a Thai refugee camp and ultimately on to St Paul.” The opera is going to be part of the organization’s youth training program in 2021, and might be the first time a Hmong story will be presented in this format. I read this memoir last year and loved it – highly recommended.

Susan Orlean’s The Library Book, is going to be adapted for television. The book is an excellent account of the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Public Library and exploration of contemporary public libraries, is going to be adapted for television. According to Variety, Orlean will adapt the book and serve as an executive producer on the project. I can’t quite figure out how an adaptation is going to work – the story of the fire is interesting, but seems a little slim for a tv series – but I do love the idea of a show that tells the story of libraries. So, we’ll see on this one.

Anderson Cooper is writing two more books! He’ll be partnering with historical fiction writer Katherine Howe on two works of nonfiction, the first scheduled for release in 2022. More to come here, I can only assume.

And finally, my favorite thing of this entire week (although it happened a few weeks ago). Last month, the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress hosted a reunion of World War II “Code Girls” – women recruited by the Army and Navy as secret code breakers during the war. Their story was shared in a 2017 book, Code Girls by Liza Mundy. So cool!

And that’s the end! 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 talked about con men, lobster races, and literary murders. Happy reading! – Kim

Hello hello, fellow nonfiction readers! I’m finishing up this newsletter on April Fool’s Day, which is one of those days that can be both fun and annoying all at the same time. My favorite joke was from Pizza Hut because it was a thing I actually wish would happen. And I also have to give a little hat tip to the American Library Association — support your local library!

To take a word from velocireader Liberty Hardy, April is a truly bananapants month for new books. To try and mention as many as possible, I decided to pick five to write about in a little more depth, then list others that seemed interesting near the end. Onward!

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Women’s Work: A Reckoning with Work and Home by Megan Stack – In this book, journalist Megan Stack seeks to understand the lives of the women she hired to help with childcare and housework while living and working abroad, looking at “the trade-offs they’d been forced to make as working mothers seeking upward mobility—and on the cost to the children who were left behind.”

We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood by Dani McClain – As a first-time mother, Dani McClain worked to understand how to raise her daughter in a world that can be unjust and hostile to black women, speaking with “mothers on the frontlines of movements for social, political, and cultural change who are grappling with the same questions.”

 

Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl – Ruth Reichl is one of the best people writing about food right now, so a new memoir from her is cause to celebrate! In this book, Reichl chronicles her time as editor in chief of Gourmet, a story about “a former Berkeley hippie entering the corporate world and worrying about losing her soul.” It’s also a peek into the peak of print magazines, and how the internet has turned that industry upside down.

Woman of Color by LaTonya Yvette – This book is a collection of essays and advice on “style, beauty, and motherhood” from a popular blogger. Each chapter covers a different topic, then ends with “thoughtful advice and lifestyle takeaways” for everyone, though the heart of the book is her experience “growing up as a woman of color in Brooklyn.”

Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen by Mary Norris – If you are a grammar and punctuation geek, this this book will be right up your alley. Mary Norris has been a copy editor and proofreader at The New Yorker for more than 30 years. In this book, she writes about her “lifelong love affair with words and her solo adventures in the land of olive trees and ouzo.” This seems so charming.

And finally, 10 more new books out this week that you might want to check out:

• I Miss You When I Blink by Mary Laura Philpott
• Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
• The Honey Bus by Meredith May
• A Sin by Any Other Name by Robert W. Lee
• All Ships Follow Me by Mieke Eerkens
• Another Planet by Tracey Thorn
• Finding My Voice by Valerie Jarrett
• I’m Writing You From Tehran by Delphine Minoui
• Native Country of the Heart by Cherríe Moraga
• To Stop a Warlord by Shannon Sedgwick Davis

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

P.S. Don’t forget about Book Riot’s new podcast about children’s literature, KidLit These Days. On the show, co-hosts Karina Yan Glaser and Matthew Winner pair the best of children’s literature with what’s going on in the world today. Check it out!

Hello and happy Friday, nonfiction friends! As you’re reading this, I am probably still trying to decide what audiobook or podcast to queue up for a long drive this weekend. I just finished an epic re-listen of the Harry Potter series, so I’m craving something a bit different – I might finish up Becoming by Michelle Obama or take a deep dive into The Dropout from ABC Radio. We’ll see what fits my mood!

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In this week’s nonfiction news, I get to share updates from several favorite authors – some prizes, some sales awards and some upcoming titles. Let’s dive in!

Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies, has been awarded the 2019 Lewis Thomas Prize, an annual award that honors scientists as inspirational writers. He’s a truly amazing writer, and I’ve recommended his biography of cancer to many, many people – don’t let the length deter you, it’s so worth it.

Michelle Obama’s memoir, Becoming, may be the most successful memoir of all time. Last week, her publisher announced the book has sold almost 10 million copies, a number her publisher claims makes it the highest-selling memoir of all time. That’s pretty impressive. I’d be willing to put down some dollars that Barack Obama’s upcoming memoir (no title or release date yet) will challenge that number when it comes out – also super awesome.

Claudia Rankine, author of the amazing poetry collection Citizen: An American Lyric, will be publishing a new book with my favorite Minnesota publisher, Graywolf Press, in 2020. The essay collection is called Just Us: An American Conversation, and “takes place in transitionary spaces … where presumed neutrality gives way to American culture’s overwhelming whiteness.” Oooooo.

A book celebrating the life and career of the late Anthony Bourdain is set to be published this spring. The book, Anthony Bourdain Remembered was originally created by CNN as a keepsake for his daughter, but will now be released to the public. It includes “photos, memories and quotes from the late chef’s fans and famous collaborators.” I expect there will be waterworks reading this one.

And that’s all the nonfiction for this week! Before I wrap up, I also want to mention that Book Riot has launched a new podcast about children’s literature, KidLit These Days. On the show, co-hosts Karina Yan Glaser and Matthew Winner pair the best of children’s literature with what’s going on in the world today. Check it out!

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 end of March, fellow nonfiction readers! I spent a good bit of the last week trying to get my life in order, but mostly succeeded in feeling like I need to jettison some baggage — literally and figuratively — to feel more on top of everything. I suspect I’ll be finding some time to read Gretchen Rubin’s latest book, Outer Order, Inner Calm, to help with that.

One thing that’s not helping is the fact that there are still (still!) so many interesting new books coming out every week. This week’s list is full again with some graphic novels, memoirs, and historical stories I am very interested in diving into. Let’s take a peek!

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Good Talk by Mira Jacob – A graphic memoir about having difficult conversations on race, color, sexuality, love, and more among families.

Murder by the Book by Claire Harman – The story of a Victorian-era murder in literary London that connects the grisly crime with the rise of the novel and popularity of sensational true crime stories.

American Messiahs by Adam Morris – A study of cult leaders in the United States and how their visions are “essential for understanding American history.”

Burnout by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski – A look at how women experience burnout differently than men and how to fight back against the societal pressures at work in this area.

Coders by Clive Thompson – In a world run by algorithms and computer code, a tech writer explores the world of computer programmers – who they are, how they think, how they become great, and how why we should be concerned.

This One Looks Like a Boy by Lorimer Shenher – A coming-of-age memoir where a Calgary detective “shares the story of his gender journey, from childhood gender dysphoria to teenage sexual experimentation to early-adult denial of his identity—and finally the acceptance that he is trans.”

No Happy Endings by Nora McInerny – A collection of essays about how the idea of “moving on” after unimaginable loss is ridiculous and the tension between finding happiness and holding space for the losses that shape us.

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young – “A provocative and humorous memoir-in-essays that explores the ever-shifting definitions of what it means to be Black (and male) in America.”

Biased by Jennifer L. Eberhardt – A look at unconscious bias and how “ingrained stereotypes can infect our visual perception, attention, memory, and behavior.”

How We Fight White Supremacy by Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin – The editors of Colorlines have put together essays from “organizers, artists, journalists, comedians, and filmmakers” about how to fight against white supremacy.

It’s Theranos week! On Monday, HBO’s documentary about Elizabeth Holmes and her company, Theranos, was released. The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley relies on “extraordinary access to never-before-seen footage and testimony from key insiders” to tell the story of how the multi-billion dollar company fell apart.

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Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, the first book to really tell the full story of Theranos, was one of my favorites last year, so this documentary has been on my radar. Sadly, as of the time I’m writing this newsletter, I haven’t gotten to watch it yet. But, I’ve read a lot of articles about it… so that’s pretty close, right? Here are some good ones:

• On All Things Considered, NPR’s TV critic Eric Deggans called the film “a compelling and critical look at startup culture in Silicon Valley” with an “impressive narrative.”
• In Business Insider, director Alex Gibney shared some of the difficulties he encountered getting Theranos employees to speak with him for the film, given the heavyweight lawyers that Holmes employed.
• The WIRED review of the movie gives some details about how it was all stitched together and explores one of the central ideas of the documentary, hubris.
• The Guardian looks at why Americans are so fascinated with fraudsters (guilty as charged), and interviews Gibney about how he approached the film. Gibney’s take in this interview about Holmes’ general nobility is interesting, as well as the discussion of the role gender played in the scandal.
• And finally, another Business Insider story explains why Elizabeth Holmes wasn’t interviewed for the documentary, despite the director’s efforts to do so.

Changing gears… the Editors Buzz books are out! Earlier this month, BookExpo announced this year’s titles for their Editors Buzz panels, “which highlight forthcoming books expected to appeal to readers in the fall and winter.” There are two great memoirs on the adult list that are now definitely on my list too:

• How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones, a coming-of-age memoir about growing up young, black, and gay in the south.
• Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener, a memoir about a woman in the tech industry.

The editors behind these books will be on panels at BookExpo, the publishing industry’s annual conference in May.

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 there, nonfiction friends! I hope you survived St. Patrick’s Day weekend and are enjoying the first bits of spring in your area. This week’s new nonfiction releases have, I think, a little bit of something for everyone — some history, some contemporary politics, and some nature writing. Let’s dive in!

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The Sakura Obsession by Naoko Abe – In 1907, an English gardener traveled to Japan and fell in love with the cherry blossom tree. He took hundreds of cuttings back to England and cultivated a garden of different tree varieties. When he learned the Great White Cherry has become extinct in Japan, he sent a cutting from his own collection to bring it back, eventually sending trees around the world. In addition to being a story about the gardener, this book is also a 1,200 year history of cherry blossom trees… which isn’t a thing I knew I wanted until now.

Further Reading: I didn’t have much luck finding examples of Naoko Abe’s writing to share, but I did enjoy this review of the book from The Guardian.

Doing Justice by Preet Bharara – Preet Bharara served as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. In this book, he explores the way our justice system works and why “the rule of law is essential to our society.” In it, he looks at four phases of the legal system – inquiry, accusation, judgement, and punishment – and “how we all need to think about each stage of the process to achieve truth and justice in our daily lives.”

Further Reading/Listening: NPR interviewed Bharara about the book and his career in the U.S. Attorney’s office, and I thought it was a good read.

Horizon by Barry Lopez – Barry Lopez is an author, essayist and writer who explores humanity and the environment in his work. In this book, Lopez shares his travels across six regions of the world. In addition, he “probes the long history of humanity’s quests and explorations” from prehistoric peoples to colonialists to contemporary ecotourists. I don’t know much about this one, but that cover is so beautiful that I couldn’t not include it.

Further Reading: Lopez won the 1986 National Book Award for Nonfiction for Arctic Dreams, an exploration of the Far North. More recently, an excerpt from the book, titled “Polar Light,” was published in Harper’s.

And that’s all for the 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. Because we recorded this week’s episode on the Ides of March, Alice and I shared some true stories about assassinations. Happy reading! – Kim

Hello nonfiction lovers! It feels like it’s been a pretty quiet week in nonfiction-related news. I’ve got three memoir announcements, plus a couple of recommended essays to round out the week. Let’s go!

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First, memoirs by singers! In October, Elton John will release his “first and only autobiography,” but didn’t share many more details in the video announcement. In November, Alicia Keys will release a memoir called More Myself through Oprah Winfrey’s “An Oprah Book” imprint. I think these could both be pretty exciting!

Speaking of memoirs, gymnast Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to speak up about sexual abuse in USA Gymnastics, will be sharing her story. The title, What Is a Girl Worth?, is a reference to a question Denhollander asked during her victim impact statement during her abuser’s sentencing. After the book is published, Denhollander will go on a national media tour.

I enjoyed this essay by Eula Biss in LitHub about her first book, Notes from No Man’s Land. The 2009 essay collection was an exploration of race in America and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. In the essay, she reflects on how a decade has changed the conversations at the center of the book, the way her life has changed, and what she didn’t understand at the time the book was written. It’s an interesting reflection on revisiting your own thinking and how books don’t change along with us.

I also enjoyed this profile of Gretchen Rubin from the Washington Post. I enjoyed her first book, The Happiness Project, but I know she can be a divisive writer, in the sense that her hyper-organized persona and privileged lifestyle don’t always resonate. She’s gone on to write about personality and, in her newest book, organization for calm (a sort of Type A Marie Kondo, I guess). In any case, I think the profile gets at some interesting things about her, and shares some details I found pretty amusing.

And that’s all for the 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 nerds! After the bonanza of new books that came out last week, I almost feel bad writing about five more titles coming out this week… but not really. This week’s selection has some historical true crime, data science, animal research and more. Let’s go!

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The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson – This book is a new account of one of America’s most sensational murder trials. In the book, Robertson “explores the stories Lizzie Borden’s culture wanted and expected to hear and how those stories influenced the debate inside and outside of the courtroom” using newspaper accounts, transcripts, and letters written by Lizzie herself.

Further Reading: If you like the behind-the-scenes stories of how books get made, Publisher’s Weekly has a great piece on the 16 years it took Robertson to get this book published.

Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez – I love books that make an argument I’ve never really thought about before. In this book, Caroline Criado Perez looks into how the data we collect and use makes men the default, treating women as atypical and, therefore, embedding bias into everything from the workplace to the doctor’s office. I just started this one and it’s so interesting.

Further Reading: Bustle published a great excerpt from the book looking specifically at how “one-size-fits-all” usually means “one-size-fits-men.”

The Lost Gutenberg by Margaret Leslie Davis – A literary history! The Gutenberg Bible, one of the first books published on a printing press, is one of the most widely-sought collectibles in literature. This book traces the history of one copy of the book, from its creation by Johannes Gutenberg to its final major collector, Estelle Doheny. This one looks really fun.

Further Reading: Book Riot has a post of 10 things you should know about the Gutenberg Bible, which seems like a good starting point before reading the book.

Mama’s Last Hug by Frans de Waal – Beginning with a viral moment between an aging chimpanzee matriarch and a biologist saying goodbye, this book argues “humans are not the only species with the capacity for love, hate, fear, shame, guilt, joy, disgust, and empathy.” I feel like this one has a high probability of making me cry, but that’s ok.

Further Watching: Frans de Waal has given a couple of TED Talks about primate social behavior.

What You Have Heard Is True by Carolyn Forché – This memoir is the story of “a woman’s radical act of empathy, and her fateful encounter with an intriguing man who changes the course of her life” during visits to El Salvador at the dawn of a civil war.

Further Reading: Forché is a well-regarded poet. You can read her 1978 poem, “The Colonel” thanks to the Poetry Foundation.

Ya’ll, there are just so many good books out there right now. 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 hello, friends and readers, and cheers to another week of interesting nonfiction news! This week I’ve got some awards finalists, news about Michelle Obama, and a bunch of announcements about upcoming titles, from cookbooks to memoirs.

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Sponsored by Hanover Square Press and The Lady from the Black Lagoon by Mallory O’Meara.

The Lady from the Black Lagoon uncovers the life and work of Milicent Patrick – one of Disney’s first female animators and the only woman to create one of Hollywood’s classic movie monsters—the Creature from the Black Lagoon. For someone who should have been hailed as a pioneer in the genre there was little information about Milicent available. Patrick’s contribution had been claimed by a jealous male colleague, her career had been cut short and she soon after had disappeared from film history. The Lady from the Black Lagoon restores Patrick to her place in film history while calling out a Hollywood culture where little seems to have changed since.

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Before we dive in, a quick apology on my end for a misspelling in Wednesday’s newsletter. The author of The Skeleton Keys is Brian Switek, not what I wrote. Sorry about that!

Queer Eye’s hair guy, Jonathan Van Ness, will be releasing a memoir this fall. Over the Top will start with “his upbringing in a small Midwestern town” and “reveal sides of himself that the public has never seen.” For those counting, that’s the third Queer Eye memoir this year, following Karamo by Karamo Brown and Naturally Tan by Tan France. Chef Antoni Porowski has a cookbook out this fall as well, Antoni in the Kitchen.

In mid-February, the finalists for the LA Times Book Prize were announced. I usually like this prize list a lot, and this year was no exception. The five finalists in current interest – The Line Becomes a River, Bad Blood, The Fifth Risk, Becoming, and The Library Book – are all some of my favorite titles from 2018. Also notable, Book Riot favorite Terry Tempest Williams will be getting a lifetime achievement award. The winners will be announced on April 12 before the start of the LA Times Festival of Books.

Michelle Obama continues to be too good for the rest of us. While in Houston, she met with 20 women of the HTX Book and Brunch book club and visited students at a Houston high school where she handed out copies of her book. She’s also penned a letter to readers over at Goodreads where she talked about her writing process and the wonder of book clubs with friends.

Samin Nosrat, author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, is writing a new cookbook called What To Cook. No news on a date – in the announcement Nosrat said she’s a “painfully slow writer” – but it’s still exciting news!

Karen Abbott, author of Sin in the Second City, revealed the cover of her upcoming book, The Ghosts of Eden Park. The book is about “the Bootleg King, the women who pursued him, and the murder that shocked Jazz-Age America.” Count me in.

Alice Marie Johnson, a 62-year-old woman freed from prison due to the advocacy of Kim Kardashian-West, is publishing a memoir. Johnson was jailed due to a nonviolent drug offense and, in 1997, was sentenced to life in prison. Last year, Kardashian-West advocated on her behalf and she was released. In the book, Johnson will write about how she got involved in the world of selling drugs, and what happened next. After Life is set to come out May 21.

Augusten Burroughs, author of Running With Scissors, is writing a new memoir. Toil & Trouble is all about how Burroughs is a witch, chronicling his “journey to understand himself, to reconcile the powers he can wield with things with which he is helpless.” Intriguing.

And that’s it’s 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, Alice and I offered some recommendations for International Women’s Day, and celebrated our first podcast-iversary. Happy reading! – Kim

Hello and welcome to the biggest week in new releases so far this year!

There are so many new titles out this week, I had a really hard time narrowing it down to the 12 books I decided to include in this list. Keep reading to find books about bones, Chicago, medicine, organization, immigration, and more.

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The Twice-Born by Aatish Taseer – A young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery by seeking out the Brahmins, a caste devoted to sacred learning in India.

Skeleton Keys by Brian Switek – A scientific and anthropological history of our skeletons.

An American Summer by Alex Kotlowitz – The story of one summer in Chicago, about “individuals who have emerged from the violence and whose stories capture the capacity … of the human heart and soul.”

Real Queer America by Samantha Allen – A transgender reporter takes a cross-country road trip to understand queer communities across America’s heartland.

That Good Night by Sunita Puri – A physician specializing in palliative medicine writes about her attempts to “translate the border between medical intervention and quality-of-life care” for terminally ill patients.

The Impossible Climb by Mark Synnott – A book about “free solo” climber Alex Honnold’s record-breaking ascent of El Capitan in 2017 as well as the history of climbing.

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden – “A debut memoir is about coming of age and reckoning with desire as a queer, biracial teenager amidst the fierce contradictions of Boca Raton, Florida.”

The Lady from the Black Lagoon by Mallory O’Meara – The story of one of Disney’s first female animators who helped create the monster in Creature From the Black Lagoon.

Outer Order, Inner Calm by Gretchen Rubin – A guru on happiness and personality looks at techniques to “declutter and organize to make more room for happiness.”

Survival Math by Mitchell Jackson – A story about a young man’s childhood in a small black neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, “blighted by drugs, violence, poverty, and governmental neglect.”

She/He/They/Me by Robin Ryle – A creative exploration of how gender “colors every share and shape of our world” and the idea that there are an infinite number of paths we can choose.

The Wrong End of the Table by Ayser Salman – The subtitle kind of says it all, “a mostly comic memoir of a Muslim Arab American woman just trying to fit in.”