Category: True Story

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.

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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!

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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

As I’m writing this newsletter, I have the first episode of Netflix’s Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on the tv in front of me. I’m not sure how long that will last – I have a hard time writing with talking in the background – but I feel like it’s my duty as a person who writes about nonfiction news to see what the show’s all about.

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As with most things on the Internet, it’s been interesting to watch the cycle of reviews, from the backlash to backlash-to-the-backlash, play out online around the show. When I sent last week’s newsletter, we were at the point in the cycle where people – particularly bookish people – were up in arms about the idea of using the KonMari method to get rid of books.

This week, we’re getting to the backlash-to-the-backlash phase with discussion about how many critiques of Kondo have both fundamentally misunderstood her point and have racist and classist undertones we ought to grapple with. That article linked above is an excellent recap, so please do read it if this is interesting to you.

Over at Book Riot, we’ve had some pieces on this issue too, including one about why Marie Kondo isn’t telling you to throw away your books, and one from a contributor who disagrees entirely with the KonMari method for books. If you are ready to KonMari your collection, Good Housekeeping has some suggestions about what to do with the books you’re planning to discard.

And with that, on to some other interesting nonfiction news of note from the week:

Michelle Obama’s memoir, Becoming, is now one of the best-selling books of the decade. According to Amazon, the book has held the top spot on the best-seller list longer than any book since Fifty Shades of Grey in 2012. The book was at the top for 47 days, was briefly dethroned, and then returned to the top (followed closely by authors Marie Kondo and Rachel Hollis).

Essayist Leslie Jamison, one of my all-time favorites, previewed her upcoming essay collection, Make It Scream, Make It Burn. The collection, out September 24, is “an exploration of longing and obsession” that covers everything from whales to Civil War photography. At the Entertainment Weekly link above, Jamison writes about the process of writing the book – super meta and interesting.

Carmen Maria Machado shared the first details about her upcoming memoir, In the Dream House, releasing October 1 from Graywolf Press. The book is “an innovative memoir chronicling a relationship gone bad, and a dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse” (TW for queer domestic violence). Click through to see the cover, which is gorgeous.

Finally, Europa Editions is launching a new nonfiction imprint! Europa Compass will feature titles on “travel, contemporary culture, popular science, history, philosophy, and politics.” This is super great news for readers interested in reading more diverse nonfiction and nonfiction in translation, since that’s a specialty of Europa Editions more broadly. Fingers crossed that is reflected in their nonfiction list.

Man, that is all such exciting news. I’m feeling so jazzed about all the great nonfiction we have coming in 2019. You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. Happy reading! – Kim

Happy Wednesday, nonfiction nerds! Last week was a true bonanza of new books, so this week I’m catching up on a couple I missed along with a few more exciting titles out this week. Onward!

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Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married by Abby Ellin – Abby Ellin’s courtship with the Commander was a whirlwind. Six months after meeting – despite red flags like mysterious travel, stories about international espionage, and secrets from his family – the two were engaged. It eventually became apparent, however, that he was a liar and none of it was true. As she tried to make sense of her experience, Ellin discovered that habitual liars and confidence tricksters are more common than we realize, there’s an art and science to lying, and we all could stand to learn more.

Further Reading: Marie Claire ran an excerpt of the book – I Almost Married a Con Man – that will give you a good sense of the book’s style and tone.

It Was All a Dream: A New Generation Confronts the Broken Promise to Black America by Reniqua Allen – In this book, journalist Reniqua Allen explores what it’s like for Black millennials trying to realize the American dream of success, happiness, and freedom. It explores how Black millennials are “flipping the script and rejecting White America’s standards” to forge a path ahead.

Further Reading: BuzzFeed News published an excerpt from the book about a Black millennial and his $100,00 of student debt. It’s an interesting read, especially as a companion to the many, many pieces about millennials that reflect a largely white experience.

Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime that Wasn’t by Edward Humes – In 1989, a mother of three survived the tragic house fire that killed her children. Investigators said they found evidence the woman caused the fire, landing her in jail for life. Decades later, the science behind arson investigations showed that much of the evidence in 1989 was little more than guesswork, setting the stage for an appeal of her conviction.

Further Reading: Humes has written several other books including Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash and Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation.

None of the Above: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal, Corporate Greed, and the Criminalization of Educators by Shani Robinson and Anna Simonton – That is quite an amazing subtitle, isn’t it? This book is an insider account of a 2013 scandal in the Atlantic Public Schools where 35 educators were charged with racketeering and conspiracy for allegedly changing student answers on standardized tests. The book looks back at the history of disadvantage faced by black students in Atlanta thanks to corporations and policies that undermine public schools.

Further Reading: This case is still ongoing. In October, the Atlanta Journal Constitution published an update after two teachers who pled guilty entered prison, and included some commentary from Robinson.

Code Name: Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Highly Decorated Spy by Larry Loftis – Female spies! This book is the story of Odette Sansom, a British spy operating in Nazi-occupied France in World War II. While there, she fell in love with her commanding officer before being captured and imprisoned by the German secret police. A couple reviews have said this book reads like a novel, which is exactly what I want in WWII nonfiction.

Further Reading: Loftis is the another of another WWII spy book, Into the Lion’s Mouth, about a British double agent who became the inspiration for James Bond.

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! The big nonfiction news of this week was the release of Sen. Kamala Harris’ much-anticipated memoir, although the anticipation is really more about what the memoir says about her interest in running for president in 2020 than it is about the memoir as a memoir.

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The Truths We Hold is about her childhood, family, and political credentials, and specifically addresses her past as prosecutor (a possible sticking point for some Democrats). It’s also about “problem solving, in crisis management, and leadership in challenging times,” which is just so generic and political memoir-y I can hardly stand it.

But, the release of the memoir did get me curious to read a bit more about political memoirs more generally. I thought this piece from Danielle Kurtzleben at NPR best gets at the difficulty of campaign books – they’re delivery devices, not stories; marketing tools, not memoirs; and glossy rather than entirely truthful. This bit is my favorite:

So is it a great book? No. No, it is not.

But that’s not a particularly interesting question, as campaign books are rarely great reads. The question is whether it’s an effective book.

On that count, Harris is more successful. In The Truths We Hold, Harris presents herself as a potentially formidable presidential candidate. Which is to say: She efficiently makes her case, like the prosecutor she is.

If you want a little more on political memoirs, Voice of America ran a story about all of the 2020 Democrats who have penned books recently that was a good read. This Book Riot piece about how to write your political memoir also made me laugh, both when it was written and re-reading it now.

Looking for some great true crime? Crime Reads put out a list of true crime coming out in January that has a bunch of titles that missed my radar. I’m psyched about Burned by Edward Humes, a look at “rapidly-evolving world of fire forensics” and the science of arson. So interesting!

There have also been a couple of exciting book announcements:

• Michael W. Twitty, author of The Cooking Gene, will release a new book at Hanukkah called Kosher/Soul. I couldn’t find anything else about it, but that’s exciting news!
• Karamo Brown, Queer Eye’s culture expert, will be releasing a book in March called Karamo: My Story of Embracing Purpose, Healing and Hope. His co-stars Antoni Porowski and Tan France both also have books coming out – a September cookbook for Porowski (Antoni in the Kitchen) and a May memoir for France (Naturally Tan).

Finally, the release of Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix has resulted in another round of think pieces on the idea of decluttering and sparking joy. The critic at Esquire seems generally complementary about the show, although notes “the show itself lacks a certain entertainment factor—primarily because it’s not particularly enthralling to watch people sort through clothes and then fold them.”

The pieces about books have been kind of funny too – a writer at Oprah magazine said she’ll never get rid of her books, Twitter didn’t like the idea of decluttering books, and the Guardian argues we gain more from books than just sparking joy.

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 readers, and welcome to the first Wednesday edition of the True Story newsletter! My plan is to focus the Wednesday newsletter on weekly new releases and suggestions for related reading. Friday’s newsletter will be focused on links, news, and other backlist book discussion – that’s the plan for now, anyway.

This week’s new books include stories of anxiety, personal essays on race, a peek at a vanishing tribe in Indonesia, and a highly-anticipated political memoir. Let’s dive in!

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Kind of Coping: An Illustrated Look at Life with Anxiety by Maureen Marzi Wilson – I loved Marzi Wilson’s first book, Introvert Doodles, and have been eagerly awaiting her second. This collection of comics and doodles explores what it’s like to live with anxiety. She uses her own experiences and stories sourced from her social media followers to create comics that are supportive, encouraging, and funny. She reminds me of a gentler version of Allie Brosh (Hyperbole and a Half), who I also love.

Further Browsing: Wilson’s Instagram feed, @introvertdoodles, is a total delight for introverts and the people who love them.

Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom – This collection of eight essays explores “beautify, media, money, and more” by a leading modern, black, American feminist voice. Part of what intrigues me is the collection is described as “more genre-bending” than a typical collection. Rebecca Traister also called her one of “America’s most bracing thinkers on race, gender, and capitalism,” which is also an excellent endorsement.

Further Reading: You can browse all of McMillan Cottom’s writing on her website. This conversation about race and the idea of the “national black friend” was illuminating for me.

The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life by Doug Bock Clark – This book is the story of the Lamalerans, a tribe of about 1,500 hunter-gatherers who live on a remote island near Indonesia. They’re also the world’s last subsistence whalers who survive hunting whales with “with bamboo harpoons and handmade wooden boats powered by sails of woven palm fronds.” To write the book, Clark spent time living with the tribe over three years, learning their traditions and language so he could tell their story.

Further Reading: This is the author’s first book, but he’s published a lot of long-form writing, including a piece in The Atavist about the 1994 whale hunt that’s become a legend in the Lamalerans’ community.

The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris – I feel like it’s kind of a joke that people who are considering running for president will put out a memoir articulating their point of view before officially going in. I’m often skeptical of these books, but I still think there’s a lot of anticipation for Sen. Kamala Harris’ entry into this genre. The Truths We Hold is about her life as the daughter of immigrants, her passion for justice as a prosecutor in California, and her emphasis on “smart on crime” approach change communities. The book is a lesson “in problem solving, in crisis management, and leadership in challenging times.”

Further Reading: Harris recently published an essay in the New York Times about her mother’s death and what it taught her about healthcare in America that was adapted from the book.

And that’s all for this week, fellow readers! 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’s episode is all about nonfiction to help with your “new year new you” resolutions. Happy reading! – Kim

Happy new year, fellow nonfiction lovers! I always love the feeling of a new year, even if the idea of a fresh start for goals and plans and life changes is mostly just in my head.

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Part of getting in the zone for me is choosing a nonfiction book that will help set the stage for the year. In 2018, a year when I wanted to explore new things and stretch creatively, my first book was Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. This year’s first book is Awakening Your Ikigai: How the Japanese Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day by Ken Mogi because I’m hoping to spend time thinking about how the different pieces of my life fit together and help me feel fulfilled.

Have you ever deliberately picked a first book to help set the tone for your year? I’d love to hear about it!

Before we finally get going, one quick piece of newsletter-related news. Starting next week, you can expect to see True Story in your inboxes on both Wednesday and Friday mornings. Twice the bookish goodness!

This week, I want to play a little bit of catch up with some nonfiction news that almost got lost in the focus on favorites and best of lists at the end of 2018. There were some big memoirs and adaptations announced that I think you’ll find interesting, so let’s get going!

NPR put together a brief look at all of the political nonfiction that came out in 2018, noting that part of the reason it’s been such an unusual year for political nonfiction is that so many people leaving the White House have chosen to write books about what’s happening inside rather than just how they got there. The article also highlights the number of books on authoritarianism that came out in 2018 – an alarming trend if ever there were one.

YALSA has announced finalists for the 2019 Excellence in Nonfiction for Adults award. The list has an interesting range of titles – from a YA memoir of Sonia Sotomayor to a collection of stories about Syrian refugees – that I’ll be checking out, as part of my interest in reading more YA nonfiction. The winners will be announced in late January.

Speaking of young adult books, Katherine Johnson, “the pioneering NASA mathematician and computer scientist whose work was integral to the Apollo 11 mission to the moon,” will be releasing an autobiography for young readers this year! Reaching for the Moon will be targeted at middle grade readers, which seems perfect. Can’t wait? Make some time to read Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, in which Johnson is one of the main characters.

BuzzFeed collected their list of best nonfiction of 2018, which is another list that has several of my favorites and managed to surprise me with titles that I missed this year – Retablos by Octavio Solis, Passing for Human by Liana Finck, and Spying on Whales by Nick Pyenson, to just grab three.

Cher is writing a memoir! In early December, Cher tweeted that she’ll be sharing her life story in a book and biopic scheduled to come out in 2020. Apparently she also has a collection of essays called The First Time that was published in 1998. Excuse me while I go search for that one at the library…

The first eight episodes of Netflix’s Tidying Up with Marie Condo dropped on January 1. I haven’t seen much about it yet, but from the trailer it seems like this will fit right in with what Netflix is doing in the self-improvement show space.

If you’re someone who loves lists and data, LitHub has put together a massive collection of the biggest nonfiction bestsellers of the last 100 years, as well as the books we actually remember from each year instead. It’s big, long, and very full of white dudes, but still an interesting skim if you’ve got some time on your hands.

And that’s all for this week, fellow readers! You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@rionewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. Let me know how you’re kicking off your year of books! – Kim

Woo hoo! Since this is the last edition of True Story for the year, it’s finally time to share 10 of my favorite nonfiction reads of 2018 (mostly, but not necessarily, published in this year). Then, I’ll share some of the submissions that other True Story readers shared via email and on Twitter to round out this extravaganza of great nonfiction. Let’s go!

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All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung – Nicole Chung grew up never questioning the correctness of her adoption. Despite growing up as one of the only Asians in a predominantly white, rural community, Chung felt that she was where she was meant to be. But as the birth of her own daughter approached, she felt compelled to get in touch with her birth family. She shares the joy and complexity of that decision in this memoir, a thoughtful story about family, identity, and the stories we build about where we come from. I thought it was beautifully told.

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou – At one point, the young CEO of Theranos, a medical company in Silicon Valley, was seen as the next Steve Jobs. Soon after the company she built fell apart, leaving investors scrambling and the tech industry wondering what they had missed. This is the book I’ve recommend most often this year because it’s just so, so great. The truth behind the company is more bananas than I can describe here, the reporting is stellar, and the storytelling had me hooked from the first page.

Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan – This collection of personal essays about difficult conversations and why we need to have them anyway felt like it had a little bit of everything. The funny parts worked because Kelly Corrigan is so specific in her stories, and the heavy parts worked the storytelling in the funny parts is so excellent. One of the last essays in the book absolutely gutted me in the best possible way.

One Person, No Vote by Carol Anderson – Historian Carol Anderson looks at America’s history of voter suppression since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, and how new techniques have emerged since that law was gutted in 2013. This book was enlightening, infuriating, and relevant given what we saw happen in Novembers midterm elections.

No One Tells You This by Glynnis MacNicol – When a book arrives at exactly the right moment, it can be a special sort of magic. That was the case for this memoir about the year Glynnis MacNicol turned 40 and grappled with the idea that there was no accepted narrative for her life as an uncoupled and childless woman. It was thoughtful, funny, feminist, and inspiring in equal measure.

Educated by Tara Westover – This book was my pick for Book Riot’s Best Books of 2018 collection, so I’ll just point you there for my thoughts. It’s stellar, read it.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean – It is not a secret that I love libraries, so it’s probably not surprising that a book chronicling a 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Public Library would be among my favorites of the year. What I loved most about this one is that Susan Orlean used the story of the fire to anchor a collection of essays and musings on the importance and social good of libraries grounded in her specific reporting and eye for detail. It was so great!

Never Caught by Erica Dunbar – This book is the kind of historical nonfiction I love, using a specific, under-the-radar story to add another dimension to the history we learn in school. In this case, Dunbar offers a more complicated look at George and Martha Washington, the slaves in their household, and life for African American women in early America via the story of an escaped slave, Ona Judge. It’s a quick, interesting read.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara – This posthumously published book chronicling the search for the Golden State Killer is one of the most genuinely creepy true crime books I’ve ever read. It’s also remarkable for being empathetic, well-reported, and unceasingly thoughtful in its treatment of the many, many victims the GSK affected. Despite feeling a little unfinished, it’s remarkable.

Tomorrow Will Be Different by Sarah McBride – I’ve had a tough time putting my finger on why I loved this memoir from a young transgender activist so much, but something about it has stuck with me all year. Sarah McBride writes about her work advocating for transgender rights in Delaware, her young marriage and widowhood, and her current work with empathy, intersectionality, and a clear heart. I was very moved by her story, and appreciated her empathy and kindness in writing about her friends, family, and community.

And that’s my 10! But there are so many excellent books out this year, I’m excited to share some of the favorites submitted by True Story readers too.

Alex L. – The Wisdom of Wolves by Jim and Jamie Dutcher and Ghostbuster’s Daughter by Violet Ramis Stiel

Alanna K. – How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee, I Can’t Date Jesus by Michael Arceneaux, and Not That Bad edited by Roxane Gay

Mary C. – Indianapolis by Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic, When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, and Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Jason P. – Frederick Douglass by David W. Blight, Boom Town by Sam Anderson, The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton, plus several other titles shared on Twitter. 

@shm – Bad Blood by John Carreyrou and In Extremis by Lindsey Hilsum

Carolyn J. – Educated by Tara Westover, Atticus Finch by Joseph Crespino, Desert Cabal by Amy Irvine, Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxis, and The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

Brett D. – Brazen by Pénélope Bagieu

Amy M. – Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper, No Place to Go by Lezlie Lowe, I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya, Text Me When You Get Home by Kayleen Schaefer, When They Call You A Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors

And with that, I’ll close out the last letter of 2018. Thanks so much for letting me hang out in your inbox this year, it’s been a real honor. Happy holidays, and see you in the New Year! — Kim

It’s time for a paperback round up! I love putting together this quarterly list of nonfiction recently out in paperback because it always reminds me of books I’ve already forgotten about but still want to read. Plus, paperbacks are the best way to read!

Speaking of forgetting… don’t forget to send me your favorite nonfiction reads of the year! Email me at kim@riotnewmedia.com or share your 2018 nonfiction favorites with me on Twitter @kimthedork by Tuesday and I’ll round them all up, along with my favorites of the year, in the last newsletter of 2018 next week.

And with that, on to the paperbacks!

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Sponsored by Becoming by Michelle Obama

Becoming is an intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by Michelle Obama, the former First Lady of the United States. With wit and candor, Mrs. Obama takes readers inside her remarkable journey from Chicago’s South Side to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, telling her full story—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same. Becoming by Michelle Obama is available now.

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Garden of the Lost and Abandoned: The Extraordinary Story of One Ordinary Woman and the Children She Saved by Jessica Yu – A biography of Gladys Kalibbala, a journalist in Uganda with a newspaper column, “Lost and Abandoned,” that helps police and others unite lost children with their families.

Happiness: The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After by Heather Harpham – “A shirt-grabbing, page-turning love story that follows a one-of-a-kind family through twists of fate that require nearly unimaginable choices.”

What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton – A memoir by the first woman to run for president, all about what the 2016 campaign was like for her. It’s a doozy of a read.

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates – A collection of essays reflecting on the impact of America’s first black president and what has come after.

Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone by Richard Lloyd Parry – In 2011, a 120-foot tsunami hit the coast of northeast Japan, setting off a national crisis and a nuclear power plant meltdown. In this book, a journalist who lived through the earthquake reports from the disaster zone.

Where the Past Begins: Memory and Imagination by Amy Tan – An exploration of one author’s creative life, and how we can all channel our experience and memories into creative work.

Wallis in Love: The Untold Life of the Duchess of Windsor, the Woman Who Changed the Monarchy by Andrew Morton – A definitive biography of Wallis Simpson from her childhood in Baltimore to her infamous affair with the king of England.

Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City by Kate Winkler Dawson – A chronicle of five days in 1952 when a killer smog crippled London, killing more than 12,000 people.

The Only Girl in the World by Maude Julien, translated by Adriana Hunter – The story of a young woman raised by fanatics who hoped to turn her into “the ultimate survivor.”

Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose by Joe Biden – An emotional memoir about the year after Biden’s oldest son, Beau, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.

Dare Not Linger: The Presidential Years by Nelson Mandela and Mandla Langa – The story of Nelson Mandela’s years as president, based on the unfinished memoir he began when leaving office but never got to finish.

Breaking Free: How I Escaped Polygamy, the FLDS Cult, and My Father, Warren Jeffs by Rachel Jeffs – An exposé of life in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a radical sect of the Mormon Church, written by the daughter of the founder.

The Wine Lover’s Daughter by Anne Fadiman – The story of author Anne Fadiman’s father, and how his infatuation with wine influenced his life and choices.

Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy by Michael Perry – A Wisconsin writer channels the work of philosophy great as in essays about his small town and farm life.

Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House by Donna Brazile – The former Democratic National Committee chairperson outlines what she discovered after taking over the organization in 2016 following revelations of Russian hacking.

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Liza Mundy – Secret stories of women and math, this time looking at the work of female code-breakers. So good!

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty – A mortician travels the world to find out how other cultures take care of the dead.

The Best of Us: A Memoir by Joyce Maynard – After marrying in her late 50s, Maynard writes about losing her husband to pancreatic cancer and what his fight taught them about being a couple.

A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney – Essays on the friendships of literary ladies, and how those relationships influenced their fiction.

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson – A chunkster biography of a great artist, drawing from his notebooks and new discoveries that help connect his science and his art.

Birding Without Borders: An Obsession, a Quest, and the Biggest Year in the World by Noah Strycker – One man’s quest to see half of the world’s birds in just 365 days.

Endurance: My Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly – The story of the first man to spend a full year aboard the International Space Station.

And that is that! Happy reading as you close out 2018 – next week’s newsletter will be full of favorites!

Happy December, nonfiction lovers! Now that we’re in the last month of the year (how on earth did that even happen?), it finally seems like the right time to start thinking about my favorite books of 2018 to share in an upcoming newsletter.

I’d also like to hear what books you all have loved this year. Send an email to kim@riotnewmedia.com or share your favorite with me on Twitter @kimthedork and I’ll round them all up in the last newsletter of 2018.

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True Story is sponsored by CEO of the Girl Scouts, Sylvia Acevedo’s Path to the Stars, a memoir for middle graders.

A meningitis outbreak in their underprivileged neighborhood left Sylvia Acevedo’s family forever altered. As she struggled in the aftermath of loss, young Sylvia’s life transformed when she joined the Brownies. The Girl Scouts taught her how to take control of her world and nourished her love of numbers and science. With new confidence, Sylvia navigated shifting cultural expectations at school and at home, forging her own trail to become one of the first Latinx to graduate with a master’s in engineering from Stanford University and become a rocket scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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With that, on to some bookish news and new books!

Bookish News!

Goodreads has announced the winners of this year’s Goodreads Choice Awards. The winners in the various nonfiction categories are not particularly surprising, but all good picks (in my humble opinion):

• Nonfiction – I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
• Memoir and Autobiography – Educated by Tara Westover
• HIstory and Biography – The Good Neighbor by Maxwell King
• Science and Technology – The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte

It’s finally official! Michelle Obama’s Becoming is the best-selling book of 2018, selling more than 2 million copies in the first two weeks of publication. The other nonfiction title in the running for that honor was Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward.

The Washington Post’s collection of 50 notable works of 2018 nonfiction is a great list that includes a good mix of serious and not-so-serious titles from the year.

History Today has gathered a list of the best history books of 2018 (chosen by a group of historians). There might be something interesting on the list for you!

Zora Neal Hurston’s recently-discovered book, Barracoon will be adapted as a limited television series by Lionsgate and Freedom Road Production, Common’s company. The book is the story of Cudjo Lewis, the last known survivor of the Middle Passage.

New Books!

Publishing gets pretty quiet through December, but there are still a few new titles that are worth noting this month.

Left to Our Own Devices by Margaret Morris – Books about better living with digital devices are one of my secret loves. I’ve been reading this one for the last week, and so far it’s really surprising. Margaret Morris, a psychologist and app creator, is looking creative ways that technology can help us build connections. But she’s looking beyond just our phones and computers to things like smart lights to augmented reality. It’s an academic book, but interesting so far.

Kitchen Yarns by Ann Hood – Is there a better way to close out the year than with essays on food? I think not. In this collection, author Ann Hood her life-long love of food and how food has played a role throughout her life, from childhood to marriage to divorce to remarriage. This sounds just lovely.

Wright Brothers, Wrong Story by William Hazelgrove – I wouldn’t have expected to be intrigued by a book about the Wright Brothers, but this title deeply amuses me. In this book, William Hazelgrove explores how “two misanthropic brothers who never left home, were high-school dropouts, and made a living and bicycle mechanics” became the first men to fly. The book also argues that the brother we should mostly credit is Wilbur, and how that’s not been the case. It sounds like a good yarn for a cold day.

And with that, let’s roll into the weekend! Don’t forget to send me your favorites of 2018 for a round up later in December. You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@rionewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot!