Happiest of Fridays, fellow nonfiction nerds! I have to admit, I don’t really have books on my mind right now – I’m totally fixated on getting to see Avengers: End Game tomorrow night with friends. If you’ve seen it already, no spoilers!
This week’s nonfiction news feels a bit like a buffet and includes an essay about one of my very favorite things about reading nonfiction. Scroll on to find out what!
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The Music Memoir of My Dreams – I’m from Minnesota, so I’m required to love Prince. But even if I wasn’t, I’d be excited about the news that the memoir Prince was working on at the time of his death will be published on October 29. According to Variety, The Beautiful Ones will “combine Prince’s unfinished manuscript with rare photos, scrapbooks and lyrics.”
Special Counsel Reports – I think there’s going to be some interesting stories coming out soon about The Muller Report as a book, both in its impact on publishing and the narrative it shares. I haven’t read any that quite get at that yet, but I did enjoy this piece from the Washington Post looking at “odd American literary genre: reports by special counsels and select congressional committees on presidential wrongdoing.”
Speaking of Musician Memoirs – Singers Tegan and Sara are also coming out with a book! High School, out September 24, “tells their coming-of-age story: growing up in Alberta, Canada, grappling with their sexuality, and facing the pressures of adulthood as the end of adolescence loomed.”
For the Joy of Subtitles – For Real podcast listeners know that I am a sucker for a great book subtitle. I just love them SO SO MUCH. That might be why I enjoyed Mary Laura Philpott’s essay in LitHub titled “Why, Exactly, Do We Have Subtitles In Books?” The idea that subtitle is a book’s middle name made me laugh, and makes me appreciate them all the more. Her new book I Miss You When I Blink: Essays is charming too.
Parenting Hacks from a Cartoonist – I really like reading about how people get things done, so I’ve got all of Lifehacker’s “How I Work” series in my feed reader. This week I learned they also do a “How I Parent” series, which is less applicable to me personally, but one of the recent parents in the series is cartoonist Lucy Knisley (Kid Gloves), and her interview is totally charming.
Top Nonfiction (So Far) – Last week, Goodreads released their list of the top nonfiction of the year so far, based on both anticipation (adds to Want to Read shelves) and buzz (average reader ratings). The top three books on the list are three I haven’t read: Maid by Stephanie Land, Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis, and Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig.
And with that, I wish you well as you slide into your weekend. May it be filled with many books and plenty of time to read them. 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