Sponsored by Oni Lion Forge Publishing Group.
Marguerite’s a shy twentysomething working to keep up appearances. But something’s been off for a while: everyday noise assaults her senses, coworker chatter works her nerves, and her clueless boyfriend makes her feel like she’s imagining it all. After a road trip ends in disaster, Marguerite searches for answers: Why is she sensitive to everything? Why can’t she make small talk? Why does she feel like she isn’t enough? Then, a miraculous thing happens: Marguerite is diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, and starts a three-year journey of acceptance and self-love. Finally she asks the real question: Why doesn’t the world understand autistic people?
We’re starting to get smashed with huge release dates due to all the postponed books from the spring, so consider these but a sprinkling of new nonfiction releases. If you’re interested in a more complete list, check out Book Riot Insiders, but between this newsletter and the podcast For Real, I try to catch what look like some of the best and/or weirdest. Here we go:
The Organ Thieves: The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South by Chip Jones. I cannot summarize this any better than the publisher: “In 1968, Bruce Tucker, a black man, went into Virginia’s top research hospital with a head injury, only to have his heart taken out of his body and put into the chest of a white businessman. Now, in The Organ Thieves, Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist Chip Jones exposes the horrifying inequality surrounding Tucker’s death and how he was used as a human guinea pig without his family’s permission or knowledge.”
Always Young and Restless: My Life On and Off America’s #1 Daytime Drama by Melody Thomas Scott. Yeah, like I’m NOT going to include this book. For those not caught up in the heady days of the ’90s soap opera, The Young and the Restless has been number one in the ratings for 28 years. Scott joined the show in 1979 and she is still on it. Soap operas are amazing, do not fight me. She talks about her forty years on the show, as well as her career as a child actor (she was in Hitchcock’s Marnie!). I was a Days of Our Lives lady, but I stan this book.
Resist: 35 Profiles of Ordinary People Who Rose Up Against Tyranny and Injustice by Veronica Chambers. John Lewis, Lucretia Mott, Rachel Carson, Dolores Huerta, Nelson Mandela, and more are profiled in this YA collection of activists around the world. Each has a resistance lesson and shows “men and women who resisted tyranny, fought the odds, and stood up to bullies that threatened to harm their communities.” Chambers also has a book out about the suffrage movement for younger readers called Finish the Fight.
BACKLIST BUMPS
Making Our Way Home: The Great Migration and the Black American Dream by Blair Imani. This came out back in January, but Morgan Jerkins’s new release Wandering in Strange Lands reminded me of it! It’s an illustrated history of “the Great Migration and its sweeping impact on Black and American culture, from Reconstruction to the rise of hip hop.” It looks at voting rights, domestic terrorism, discrimination, and segregation alongside the flourishing of arts and culture, activism, and civil rights. Check it out!
Girl Decoded: A Scientist’s Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology by Rana el Kaliouby. Love a long subtitle. This also came out closer to the beginning of the year, but tells the story of how el Kaliouby came to work on artificial emotional intelligence (Emotion AI). The purpose of this is to “humanize our technology and how we connect with one another.” Which anyone who’s dealt with a misunderstanding due to the lack of tone in text messages knows is SORELY needed.
That’s it for this week! You can find me on social media @itsalicetime and co-hosting the nonfiction For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time, enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.