Sponsored by Flatiron Books, publisher of Sigh, Gone by Phuc Tran.
Appealing to fans of coming-of-age memoirs such as Fresh Off the Boat, Running with Scissors, or tales of assimilation like Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Displaced and The Refugees, Sigh, Gone explores one man’s bewildering experiences of abuse, racism, and tragedy and reveals redemption and connection in books and punk rock. Against the hairspray-and-synthesizer backdrop of the ’80s, he finds solace and kinship in the wisdom of classic literature, and in the subculture of punk rock, he finds affirmation and echoes of his disaffection. In his journey for self-discovery Tran ultimately finds refuge and inspiration in the art that shapes—and ultimately saves—him.
I’ve been reading more and more mysteries while stuck in quarantine, so we’re focusing on true crime reads today! Murder gets a lot of space in the true crime genre, but I included a couple non-murder options for those (like my fiancée) who would prefer to spend their free time NOT reading about one of the worst things that can happen.
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold. If you listen to For Real, you might’ve heard us talking this up. If you’re mad about the amount of focus usually given to the perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders, Rubenhold is with you. She tells the stories of the women whose lives were taken away, she rights past injustices done to their narratives, and all around does a great job changing the perspective of this infamous true crime story.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson. Recently made into a film! Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative to defend “the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system.” He meets Walter McMillian, accused of a murder he insists he did not commit. If you’re looking for a story of hope and justice and people fighting for what’s right, then here you go.
The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking by Brendan I. Koerner. You know how specific types of crimes can come in waves? Like people see other people doing it and then THEY do it? Well the ’60s and early ’70s was the age of airplane hijacking. As in they were happening once a week. This book tells the story of a couple that “pulled off the longest-distance hijacking in American history” and what finally ended this weirdly popular crime in 1973.
The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell: A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code, and the FBI’s Hunt for America’s Stolen Secrets by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee. In 2000, the FBI received a package. It was “a series of coded letters from an anonymous sender to the Libyan consulate, offering to sell classified United States intelligence.” What made the code much harder to crack was the sender had dyslexia. This is is billed as a “true-life spy thriller,” which is excellent.
Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga. We do not talk about the high rate of crime perpetrated against Indigenous people enough. Talaga is an Anishinaabe Canadian journalist and here investigates the deaths of seven Indigenous high school students that spanned 2000 – 2011 in Thunder Bay, Ontario. She tells the story of Thunder Bay, how Canada has not supported Indigenous communities, and what Indigenous youth in Canada face today.
Conan Doyle for the Defense: The True Story of a Sensational British Murder, a Quest for Justice, and the World’s Most Famous Detective Writer by Margalit Fox. I love a colorful cover with a long subtitle. In 1908, a wealthy Scottish woman was murdered inside her home. Police blamed a Jewish immigrant and he was convicted and sent to prison. Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame was OUTraged and spent years working to exonerate the convicted man. Another read for fans of JUSTICE.
Stay inside if you can, nonfictionites. Wear a mask, wash your hands, wipe down your phone, and read read read (while also taking a break to prevent eye strain!). As always, you can find me on Twitter @itsalicetime and co-hosting the For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time! Enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.