Category: True Story

Happiest of Fridays, nonfiction readers! The Twin Cities area where I call home is now officially in the middle of the snowiest February on record, with 30.4” on the ground so far (and more in the forecast this weekend 😱). This is my mood until spring.

This Friday’s newsletter is a bit of hodge-podge, with some news about three upcoming nonfiction titles and a roundup of some great nonfiction now out in paperback. Let’s dive in!

---

Sponsored by Lerner Publishing Group.

In 1911, three men were in the final round of the famed Pendleton Round-Up. One was white, one was Indian, and one was black. When the judges declared the white man the winner, the audience was outraged. They named black cowboy George Fletcher the “people’s champion” and took up a collection, ultimately giving Fletcher far more than the value of the official prize. Award-winning author Vaunda Micheaux Nelson tells the story of Fletcher’s unlikely triumph with a Western twang that will delight kids—and adults—who love true stories and unlikely heroes. “[A] triumphant tale of fairness trumping prejudice.”—starred review, Publishers Weekly

---

Upcoming Book News

Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, will be writing a second book for Beacon Press. The book, scheduled for 2020 or 2021, doesn’t have a title yet, but “will look at the ways in which white people form alliances with one another, and the need for them to break those alliances in order to support racial equality.”

Katie Couric will be writing a memoir, out in 2021, where she’ll “share details both ‘hilarious’ and ‘humiliating’ as she looks back on her prize-winning, 40-year career.” I honestly can’t decide if I’m looking forward to this one or not.

We’re getting a true crime book from Stieg Larsson! Before he died, Larsson (author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) was investigating the 1986 unsolved assassination of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. Larsson had been working with his partner Eva Gabrielsson, on investigating the murder, amassing 20 boxes of research. The Man Who Played with Fire was acquired by Amazon Crossing and will be out in October.

New Books in Paperback

Feel Free by Zadie Smith – A collection of essays that brings together some classic essays and previously unpublished pieces on culture, politics, and life.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara – A true crime memoir about one woman’s search for the Golden State Killer, a predator who committed 50 sexual assaults and 10 murders over a decade in California.

In the Enemy’s House by Howard Blum – The true story of a linguist and codebreaker who helped uncover a top secret Soviet mission to place spies in the United States beginning in 1946.

Sharp by Michelle Dean – The story of 10 women who made contributions to cultural and intellectual history through the 20th century.

Eat the Apple by Matt Young – A memoir about Marine Corps culture written by a man who joined at 18 and served on three deployments to Iraq.

The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú – A look at the border between the United States and Mexico, written by a former Border Patrol agent.

One Goal by Amy Bass – The story of a high school soccer team and coach that helped bridge the gap between residents and Somali refugees in a small town in Maine.

What Are We Doing Here? by Marilynne Robinson – A collection of essays from a celebrated novelist, focusing on modern politics and climate.

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. Happy reading! – Kim

Happy last Wednesday of February, friends and fellow readers! Minnesota continues to be pummeled by snow, but I’m still here and excited about chatting new books.

---

Sponsored by our giveaway of $100 to Amazon in support of Swords and Spaceships, our sci-fi/fantasy newsletter!

Swords and Spaceships is our biweekly newsletter about all things sci-fi and fantasy literature, and we’re giving away a $100 gift card to Amazon to one lucky reader! Enter HERE by signing up for the newsletter (if you win, send us a pic of all the SFF books you buy with it!), and enjoy a regular dose of your favorite genre news, recs, and more, in your inbox.

---

Based on the first few months of 2019, I think it’s going to be an awesome year for essay collections. This week there are three interesting ones to mention:

• The Future is Feminist, edited by Mallory Farrugia – This collection by “poets, essayists, activists, actors, and professors” takes an intersectional look at what it means to be a feminist in the past, today and into the future. It looks like it mixes some important historical essays with contemporary work, which is exciting.
• The Good Immigrant by Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman – In this collection by first and second-generation immigrants, pieces explore “what it’s like to be othered in an increasingly divided America” and what it means to try live in the United States while also holding other identities and cultures. The contributor list is excellent too.
• Nobody’s Looking at You by Janet Malcolm – This book pulls together previously uncollected pieces by one of the best narrative nonfiction writers today. The essays cover everything from designer Eileen Fisher to journalist Rachel Maddow to email etiquette. I’m excited to pick this one up.

And now, a couple other new titles out this week that may be worth picking up:

The Art of Dying Well by Katy Butler – As a sort of follow up to her first book, Knocking on Heaven’s Door, journalist Katy Butler is back with a practical book about “living as well as possible for as long as possible and adapting successfully to change.” The book includes information about how to age in place, how to choose the best doctor, how to have honest conversations with medical professionals and family, and more.

Backlist Bump: Butler’s first book is one of my favorites. Reading it helped facilitate some difficult conversations in my family, and was just a deeply moving account of the complexities of medicine and aging. Definitely pick up a copy of Knocking on Heaven’s Door.

The Threat by Andrew McCabe – Amidst all of the personnel changes of the Trump administration, the firing of Andrew McCabe, deputy director of the FBI, in March 2018 feels like a lifetime ago. In this book, McCabe offers an account of his career – including investigations into Russian organized crime and the Boston Marathon bombing – and a defense of both FBI agents and the institution they work for.

Further Reading/Watching: This one is, unsurprisingly, getting a lot of press due to McCabe’s assessments of Trump and Vladimir Putin, particularly in an interview with 60 Minutes. It’s hard to tell if this means the book is good – at least one review has been positive – but I’m looking for more this week.

And that’s the new books on my radar 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. In this week’s episode, we dove into some contemporary black writers for Black History Month. Happy reading! – Kim

Happy Friday, dear nonfiction readers! Between the weather and the news and life in general, it’s really been A WEEK for just about everyone in my immediate circles. But we’re so close to the weekend, let’s get some nonfiction news and just power through. This week we’ve got more adaptations, more fact-checking, and charming Grammy win. Let’s go!

---

Sponsored by Libby, the one-tap reading app from your library and OverDrive

Meet Libby. The award-winning reading app that makes sure you always have something to read. It’s like having your entire library right in your pocket. Download the app today and get instant access to thousands of ebooks and audiobooks for free thanks to your public library and OverDrive.

---

I feel like we’ve been hearing chatter about an adaptation of Eric Larson’s The Devil in the White City, but we finally got some concrete news this week. The adaptation is coming to Hulu as a series produced by Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio! According to IndieWire, DiCaprio has been involved since rights for the project were picked up in 2010, but this is the most solid news yet.

The plagiarism and fact-checking storm around Jill Abramson’s new book, Merchants of Truth, had another twist late last week. Abramson initially denied the accusation, suggesting on Twitter that those who were critical were just mad about how their organization was portrayed. Shortly after, Abramson issued a statement to the Associated Press admitting some fault. She noted there are some issues with the page numbers in the notes section, and that “some sources ‘should have been cited as quotations in the text.’” More to come, I assume.

If you still want more about Elizabeth Holmes and the scandal around her company, Theranos, Refinery29 has been doing some interesting reporting on the story, including this look at what her ex-boyfriend and former COO, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, is doing now. And, of course, I will never stop recommending Bad Blood by John Carreyrou.

You have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of this Vulture article to get to the good stuff: Comedy Central is developing a show based on Samantha Irby’s 2013 essay collection Meaty. Two of the show’s executive producers, Abbi Jacobson and Jessi Klein, both come from tv backgrounds and are both authors of their own essay collections, I Might Regret This and You’ll Grown Out of It, respectively.

On Sunday, former President Jimmy Carter won a Grammy Award for his audiobook Faith: A Journey for All. This is his second Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album. He previously won in 2016 for his audiobook A Full Life, Reflections at Ninety. The article linked above has some other fun facts about presidential Grammy awards.

And that’s all the news that made it on my radar 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 friends, and happy Galentine’s Day! That really has nothing to do with this newsletter, I’m just excited about plans to eat waffles, drink mimosas, and hang out with my best girlfriends later this evening.

But before that, we’ve got some new books to celebrate! Here are four new nonfiction titles you are going to want get your hot little hands on ASAP.

---

Sponsored by The Book of Delights, essays by Ross Gay, from Algonquin Books.

Ross Gay, one of today’s most dynamic literary voices, spent a year writing daily essays about things that delighted him. With enthusiasm and thoughtfulness, these essays record the small joys that occurred in one tumultuous year, the small joys we often overlook in our busy lives. He finds wonder in the mundane, celebrates beauty in the natural world, and takes a clear-eyed view of the complexities in his life, including living in America as a black man. The Book of Delights is an inspiration, a powerful reminder that we can, and should, stake out a space in our lives for delight.

---

The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison – A collection of Toni Morrison essays! This book gathers “essays, speeches, and meditations on society, culture, and art, spanning four decades.” I don’t feel like I have much to add to the description, just that she’s amazing and I bet this collection will be too.

Further Reading: Morrison’s Nobel Lecture in Literature, one of the pieces included in the book, is always worth a read.

Good Kids, Bad City by Kyle Swenson – An investigative journalist looks at the wrongful conviction and incarceration of three African American men in Cleveland in the 1970s. Their conviction in a robbery and murder resulted in a combined sentence of 106 years and hinged on the “more-than-questionable testimony of a pre-teen.” The book looks at the case specifically as well as “the corruption and decay of the city responsible for their imprisonment.”

Further Listening: The third season of Serial is all about criminal justice in Ohio. Over the season, host Sarah Koenig looks at a range of cases that take place at the Justice Center Complex in downtown Cleveland to look at how the institutions of justice usually operate. It’s incredible.

Parkland: Birth of a Movement by Dave Cullen – Timed to publish on the first anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, this book “unfolds the story of Parkland through the voices of key participants whose diverse personalities and outlooks comprise every facet of the movement.” Instead of focusing on the shooter, Cullen turns his storytelling to the survivors and how they managed both high school and surviving a tragedy.

Backlist Reading: If you haven’t read Columbine, Cullen’s account of the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, go pick it up right now. It’s an incredible piece of journalism I can’t recommend highly enough.

Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman – When a young violinist gets a job performing with a small, New York City ensemble, she thinks she has it made. But, the gig turns out to be a sham – instead of playing, the group performs in front of turned-off microphones while a recording of each piece is played from a CD… all at the behest of the group’s organizer, who Hindman calls The Composer. The con part of this story is a trip, but I’ve also enjoyed the story of Hindman’s childhood in rural Appalachia and her experiences with ambition, gender, and poverty. It’s a weird, readable, exciting book.

Further Reading: You can read an excerpt from one of the early chapters of the book on LitHub that gives a pretty good sense of her writing.

That’s all for today. Enjoy some waffles, text your BFF, and we’ll meet back in your inbox on Friday. 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, fellow readers! I wish I had something fun and pithy to open this newsletter with, but this week has just felt long… thanks, winter. This week’s been a little light on nonfiction news, but there’s still some interesting controversies brewing. Let’s dive in!

---

Sponsored by I Am Yours: A Shared Memoir by Reema Zaman, from Amberjack Publishing.

To Speak is a Revolution. I Am Yours tells of Reema’s unwavering fight to free her voice from those who have sought to silence her. Moving from Bangladesh to Thailand, New York, and Oregon, it explores her struggles with racism, misogyny, abuse, and anorexia in incisive, poetic prose. I Am Yours is the first English-language memoir by a woman from Bangladesh that so powerfully explores the intersection of personal and political, for the sake of creating a world where all voices are welcome and respected. Because we’re in this together. You are mine, and I am yours.

---

Merchants of Truth, a new book by former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson has been getting some bad press from a couple different angles. First, on notetaking… in an interview with The Cut, Abramson said that she never records interviews because “I’m a very fast note-taker” who has “an almost photographic memory.” While every journalist has their own process, the fact that Abramson didn’t record any of her interviews is eyebrow-raising, especially with the factual criticisms of the book that have already surfaced.

Second, on plagiarism… on Wednesday evening Michael Moynihan, a correspondent for Vice News Tonight, issued a Twitter thread pointing to several possible instances of plagiarism in the book. In a TV appearance, Abramson responded that the book has extensive footnotes, and suggested Moynihan was just upset because the book is critical of his organization. This is unfolding as I’m writing, so I’ll have to update on it next week.

If you loved reading John Carrerou’s Bad Blood, the true story of the rise and fall of a biotech startup in Silicon Valley, then this podcast will be of interest. The Dropout from ABC Radio is true crime podcast look at Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos, and “an unbelievable tale of ambition and fame gone terribly wrong.” I haven’t gotten to listen yet, so I’m not sure how overlaps there will be with Bad Blood, but it’s such a bananas story I imagine there’s a ton we don’t even know yet. It’s also going to be a documentary, if that’s more your jam.

The trailer for Hulu’s comedy Shrill, inspired by Lindy West’s Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman was released last week! The series stars Aidy Bryant as Annie, “a fat young woman who wants to change her life — but not her body. Annie is trying to start her career while juggling bad boyfriends, a sick parent, and a perfectionist boss.” Episodes will drop on March 15.

Finally, let’s close out this week with five great books you can get for cheap on Kindle right now:

• What Truth Sounds Like by Michael Eric Dyson for $2.99, a look at “the fraught conflict between conscience and politics – between morality and power – in addressing race.”
• Act Natural by Jennifer Traig for $1.99, a 2019 release about “the strange and often contradictory history of Western parenting.”
• To Marry an English Lord by Gail MacColl and Carol McD. Wallace for $1.20, a look at the true stories of American heiresses “who staked their ground in England, swapping dollars of titles and marry peers of the British realm.”
• Bad Girls Throughout History by Ann Ahen for $1.20, the stories of 100 revolutionary women who changed the world.
• Prince of Darkness by Shanre White for $3.99, the larger-than-life story of Jeremiah G. Hamilton, the first Black millionaire on Wall Street.

That’s all folks! 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 welcome to February! This Tuesday was the first really, really big new books day of the year, with so many great new nonfiction books to choose from – I’ve rounded up a dozen that caught my eye. Let’s go!

---

Just for Book Riot readers: sign up for an Audible account, and get two audiobooks free!

---

The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang – A collection of personal essays by a woman struggling with the effects of mental and chronic illnesses, with pieces on diagnosis, labeling, institutions, and more. This is one of my most highly-anticipated books of the year.

I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening) by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth A. Silvers – A book from the co-hosts of the Pantsuit Politics podcast (“two working moms from opposite ends of the political spectrum”) share their tools and principles for having grace-filled political conversations.

No Beast So Fierce by Dane Huckelbridge – An account of the Champawat Tiger, a Bengal tiger who killed 436 people in northern India and Nepal between 1900 and 1907, and the young man hired to stop her.

The Unwinding of the Miracle by Julie Yip-Williams – A posthumously-published memoir by a young woman who fled Vietnam in the 1970s, became a Harvard-educated lawyer in the United States, and mother of two children… and then was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer at 37. This one seems like a read on a day you need a good cry.

How to Be Loved by Eva Hagberg Fisher – A memoir about how “an isolated person’s life was ripped apart only to be gently stitched back together through friendship” after a devastating illness and recovery.

Merchants of Truth by Jill Abramson – A look at the current state of the news business, specifically how  companies like the New York Times, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed and VICE Media, are coping with the digital revolution in news, written by the former executive editor at NYT. I expect this one will get a ton of media coverage.

Brown White Black by Nishta J. Mehra – A collection of essays on “motherhood, marriage, love, and acceptance” from a family that has had to push against America’s “rigid ideas of race, gender, and sexuality.” Mehra is the daughter of Indian immigrants, her wife is white, and their adopted child, Shiv, is black.

Hard to Love by Braillen Hopper – A collection of essays on the “loves and relationships beyond marriage, the ones that are often treated as invisible or seen as secondary” like friendship, adult siblings, care teams, and found families.

Figuring by Maria Popova – A book that “the complexities of love and the human search for truth and meaning through the interconnected lives of several historical figures across four centuries” by the creator of Brain Pickings.

Brave, Not Perfect by Reshna Saujani – Based on a TED Talk, this book from the founder of Girls Who Code is about how girls and women can feel empowered by letting go of guilt and tiny mistakes, embracing decisions that lead to a bolder path.

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport – One blurb described this book as like Marie Kondo for technology, which made me laugh. In this book, thinker Cal Newport looks at people who don’t feel tethered to technology and offers suggestions for “a thoughtful method to decide what tools to use, for what purposes, and under what conditions.”

Fraternity by Alexandra Robbins – After spending a year looking at sororities in Pledged, journalist Alexandra Robbins is back with a look at a year in the life of a fraternity focusing on two young men, a freshman thinking of joining and a chapter president trying to keep his fraternity out of trouble.

And that’s it 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 talked about books for Black History Month and some true story podcasts we enjoy. Happy reading! – Kim

Welcome to February, fellow nonfiction nerds! As I’m typing this, I’m smack in the middle of the polar vortex, which means the temperature and wind chill where I live in Minnesota was so cold even the U.S. Postal Service suspended deliveries. It’s pretty awful, and I’m being kind of a grump about the whole thing.

What does that have to do with nonfiction? Not very much, but it’s about all I can think about right now as I cuddle up in my warmest sweatpants, shawl, and slippers while I hope my space heater is ready to work. But what you really want is some nonfiction news, so let’s get going.

---

Sponsored by Flatiron Books

At the Wolf’s Table is the internationally bestselling novel based on the untold true story of the women conscripted to be Hitler’s food tasters, from Rosella Postorino. Germany, 1943: Twenty-six-year-old Rosa’s parents are gone, and her husband’s fighting in WWII. Impoverished and alone, she decides to leave war-torn Berlin for the countryside. But one morning, the SS come and say she’s been conscripted to be one of Hitler’s tasters: each day, she and nine other women go to his headquarters to eat his meals before he does. And as secrets and resentments grow, this unlikely sisterhood reaches a dramatic climax.

---

Kiese Laymon’s memoir, Heavy, is this year’s winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in nonfiction. In the memoir, “Laymon recalls the traumas of his Mississippi youth; the depthless hunger that elevated his weight; his obsessive, corrective regime of diet and exercise; his gambling, teaching, activism, and trust in the power of writing.”

Two people you know – and one person you ought to know – have signed deals to publish political (or politics-adjacent) memoirs in the next year or so. The two you know… Jim Acosta, CNN’s Chief White House Correspondent, has a book about covering the Trump administration coming out June 11 titled The Enemy of the People. Bill Clinton is set to release a new book about his post-presidential life (no news on the title or contents yet).

And then the one you might not, and that I’m most excited about! Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota has sold her debut memoir, This is What America Looks Like. Omar is a Somali refugee who now represents Minnesota’s 5th congressional district in the House. She represents a ton of firsts – first Muslim refugee in Congress, first woman of color to represent Minnesota, and the first person to wear a hijab in Congress. The book is set to publish in April 2020.

Another best-selling nonfiction book will be coming to Netflix. The company paid $45 million and tapped director Ron Howard to direct and produce an adaptation of Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance’s 2016 memoir about growing up in a working class Appalachian family. There’s no news on casting yet, but given how much cultural conversation there has been around this book, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some big names in contention.

Still as obsessed with Marie Kondo as I am? Bustle recommends 15 books like Tidying Up With Marie Kondo that can “help you get yourself and your household back on track.” Excuse me while I go add all of these to my TBR list.

And that’s it 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. Stay warm and safe, friends who are still in the middle of this cold snap. Happy reading! – Kim

Happy Tuesday, nonfiction lovers! I’m trying not to start every newsletter with a comment about the weather, but I live in Minnesota where that’s basically the entirety of our small talk. And this week it’s actually relevant! We’re in the middle of a historic cold snap, with high temperatures in the negatives. It’s awful, and makes me just want to curl up with a good book.

Luckily, there are even more to choose from! This week I’ve got three new books to feature, plus some nonfiction favorites recently out in paperback. Onward!

---

Sponsored by our Unusual Suspects giveaway of $100 to the bookstore of your choice!

We’re giving away $100 to the bookstore of your choice! Enter to win by signing up for Unusual Suspects, our mystery/thriller newsletter about new releases, book recommendations, book deals, and more. Enter here.

---

New Books

All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf by Katharine Smyth – Books about books are such a beautiful thing. In this one, Katharine Smyth dives deep into Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, a novel she first read while living with her father. After his death, she returned to the book “as a way of wrestling with his memory and understanding her own grief.” The book offers a personal reading of the novel that mixes memoir, literary criticism, and biography.

Further Reading: Smyth published an essay in LitHub called “How Virginia Woolf Taught Me to Mourn” that I thought was lovely.

Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig – Following up on a 2016 memoir about living with depression, Matt Haig looks at the ways the world and modern society contributed to his anxiety and panic disorders as an adult. This book collects observations about how some technological advances can hinder happiness and what we can do to change that.

Further Reading: Haig was interviewed about the book for Salon where he talked about the book’s structure, effective coping skills in a busy world, and more.

The Pope: Francis, Benedict, and the Decision that Shook the World by Anthony McCarten – In this book, a Hollywood screenwriter shares the story of how the resignation of conservative Pope Benedict XVI led to the unlikely choice of Francis, the first non-European pope in more than 1,000 years. The book explores a bunch of questions about this decision, but the one that intrigues me most is this: “If, as the Church teaches, the pope is infallible, how can two living popes who disagree on almost everything both be right?”

Future Watching: The book is being adapted for a film by Netflix, although I couldn’t find information on a release date. You can get a peek of Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce in costume though.

New in Paperback

Finally, I’m going to round out this newsletter with some nonfiction favorites recently out in paperback if you, like me, vastly prefer to read books in that format:

• The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison
• Daughters of the Winter Queen: Four Remarkable Sisters, the Crown of Bohemia, and the Enduring Legacy of Mary, Queen of Scots by Nancy Goldstone
• Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff
• The Milk Lady of Bangalore: An Unexpected Adventure by Shoba Narayan
• The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers
• No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters by Ursula K. Le Guin

That’s all I’ve got for this new books Wednesday! 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, fellow readers! Before jumping into links from the week, I want to take a quick little diversion into a recent nonfiction discussion that may cause ripples over the next several weeks.

---

Sponsored by our Unusual Suspects giveaway of $100 to the bookstore of your choice!

We’re giving away $100 to the bookstore of your choice! Enter to win by signing up for Unusual Suspects, our mystery/thriller newsletter about new releases, book recommendations, book deals, and more. Enter here.

---

Jill Abramson, former executive editor of the New York Times, has a book coming out in early February, Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts. Journalists love writing about the media, so I think this book is going to get a lot of attention when it’s officially released. But, Abramson’s fact-checking in the book is already raising some critical concerns. This article in Vox does a good job of summing up the whole affair, but I’ll try to give a quick-and-dirty version here too.

After galleys – uncorrected review copies – began to circulate, several journalists started tweeting about errors in the book. Arielle Duhaime-Ross, a correspondent for HBO’s VICE News Tonight, issued a Twitter thread that pointed to six specific errors in a single paragraph. Abramson responded to this criticism and others (on Twitter) to say that the screencaps are from galleys, not from the finished book. So… basically wait and see what the finished version looks like before you get mad.

I’m not a publishing expert, but that feels like kicking the can down the road a bit since the errors are significant. It also brings attention to one of publishing’s sort of secrets – fact-checking isn’t really part of the process for the publication of nonfiction books, unless the author specifically chooses to do it. I’m very curious to see what the response is once critics have finished copies in their hands. Again, that Vox article sums everything up really well, so take a few minutes to read it!

And with that, on to some other news of note this week:

The finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced on Tuesday. On the nonfiction side, the awards recognize the best autobiography, biography, criticism, and nonfiction of 2018. The press release noted that the autobiography category was especially strong this year, resulting in six finalists rather than the usual five. It also has two of my favorites of the year, All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung and Educated by Tara Westover. I am disappointed, however, that there aren’t any female finalists on the nonfiction list (although there are many on each of the others). The winners will be announced on March 14.

Another one of my favorite books read in 2018, Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, has gotten a YA adaptation. The book is specifically geared for readers ages 9 to 13, and definitely fills a gap of engaging, diverse nonfiction about people of color. The article also notes that the book has been optioned for the big screen – very cool!

Speaking of nonfiction for teens, last month Beacon Press announced they would be publishing a line of “radical histories for teens.” According to Publisher’s Weekly: “The series will debut in 2019 and draw from Beacon’s decade-old ReVisioning American History series, bringing forward youth-focused adaptations of titles that emphasize the stories of underrepresented groups in American history.”

I’m constantly in awe of the danger foreign correspondents put themselves in, so I can’t believe I missed including Prisoner by Jason Rezaian in Wednesday’s new releases newsletter. In the book, Rezaian recounts his 544 days as an Iranian prisoner, accused of being a spy for the United States. This week he was interviewed for Fresh Air, a piece that’s worth a read/listen.

There are a lot of pieces about New Year’s reading recommendations, but I particularly liked these recommended listens from Libro.fm. The five books are interesting picks that I haven’t seen repeated on other lists – LikeWar by P.W. Singer and Emerson Brooking is going in my audiobook queue ASAP.

And that’s it 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 hello, nonfiction lovers! This week, I’m highlighting some new nonfiction about the working poor, modern Native American history, and the discovery of family secrets.

Plus, I combed through this month’s Kindle deals to find some great biographies and memoirs to add to your ebook collection. Let’s dive in!

---

Sponsored by our Unusual Suspects giveaway of $100 to the bookstore of your choice!

We’re giving away $100 to the bookstore of your choice! Enter to win by signing up for Unusual Suspects, our mystery/thriller newsletter about new releases, book recommendations, book deals, and more. Enter here.

---

New Books

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land – There’s been chatter about this book, pitched as Evicted meets Nickel and Dimed, since last summer when it was chosen as one of Book Expo’s Editor’s Buzz titles. In it, Stephanie Land writes about working as a housekeeper while going to college and writing at night, trying to build a better life for her daughter. It’s a book about what it’s like to be a member of the working poor, and what Land saw in “the underbelly of upper-middle class America.”

Further Reading: Land published an essay adapted from the book in the New York Times about one of her clients, an elderly woman dying of cancer. This Q&A with Bookselling This Week was also a good, especially if you’re interested in some behind the scenes about how a book is published.

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer – Most histories of Native Americans tend to stop around 1890 with the massacre at Wounded Knee, assuming that Native culture and civilization also ended. In this book David Treuer, an Ojibwe tribe member and anthropologist, shares a different narrative about how these cultures survived because of struggles “to preserve their language, their traditions, their families, and their very existence.”

Further Listening: In October, Treuer was interviewed by On the Media where he discussed “the overlooked American Indian Movement that informed the viral 2016 protest at Standing Rock, and the means by which Indians have been fighting for social and political change for centuries.”

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro – In 2016, author Dani Shapiro submitted her DNA for genetic testing on a genealogy website. When the results came back, Shapiro learned that her father was not actually her biological father. Since both her parents were already dead, Shapiro was left to investigate this family secret on her own in this “gripping genetic detective story” and “meditation on the meaning of parenthood and family.”

Further Reading: Dani Shapiro’s By the Book interview is a good read. Her recommendation of a book for the president to read made me laugh out loud (and then sigh because, well…).

Bookish Deals in Biographies and Memoirs

Since this week was a little lighter on new releases, I’ll close out this email with a few awesome ebook deals so you can lighten your wallet without adding more to your actual bookshelves (I feel like Marie Kondo would approve?):

• The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Andersen Brower ($2.99)
• My Girls: A Lifetime with Carrie and Debbie by Todd Fischer ($1.99)
• The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders by Stuart Kells ($3.99)
• Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years by David Litt ($2.99)
• Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir by Padma Lakshmi ($1.99)
• After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry ($2.99)
• Fire Shut Up in my Bones by Charles M. Blow ($2.99)
• Stretched Too Thin: How Working Moms Can Lose the Guilt, Work Smarter, and Thrive by Jessica N. Turner ($1.99)

And that’s it 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 talked about some great nonfiction set in very cold places and very warm places. Happy reading! – Kim