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Raised in what he affectionately calls “our little honesty cult,” Michael Leviton was ingrained with his parents’ core philosophy: you do not tell any lies; you do not withhold the truth; and you speak your mind always, regardless of how offensive or hurtful your opinions may be. For young Michael, this freedom to be yourself. This memoir about a man who grew up being honest is a quirky, tender, and wry story of a man discovering what it means and how it feels to lie in one’s daily life.
There’s obviously a lot going on, but in the realm of this newsletter/the tie-in podcast For Real, we had a real silver lining event when Ibram X. Kendi gave us a shoutout on Twitter for rec’ing his and Keisha N. Blain’s upcoming book, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 on the pod. This was Kim’s pick, which adds to her stellar track record of picking A+ reads. GREAT JOB, KIM. I have literally never had so many book nerds messaging me with so much excitement. Pre-order that book to-DAY.
I have finished one (1) book this year and it’s already halfway through January. In that spirit, I decided to highlight some under-200-page nonfiction reads in case you too are finding it difficult to concentrate with everything happening right now, but you still want to keep those reading stats chugging along. Note: you can 100% consider January a lost month and just pick up in February, BUT IF you want something easy that’ll help you feel accomplished, here we go:
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
I continue to be very into the James Baldwin Renaissance we all seem to be living through. Originally written in 1963, a year that I think we can relate to in this upside-down time, it contains two essays: “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation” and “Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind.” It’s a modern classic and at 130 pages, one you can fit into your reading sched.
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel
I really admire when someone can tell a story in the number of pages it should be told. This story’s really neat! But I don’t need a padded-out 350 page book about it. We just straight-up didn’t have longitude at sea figured out for most of human history. You could figure out your position based on the stars (hey there, Polynesian wayfinding), but if you were trying to calculate longitude, couldn’t do it. UNTIL THIS GUY. He invented a way to figure out where you were at sea, which meant you had less of a chance of being completely lost/shipwrecked. This is the story of how he did it.
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This book! So short! So good! Such an iconic cover. I read this over my lunch break at a women’s history museum, because they sold it in the gift shop. It’s adapted from Adichie’s TEDx Talk, which was given in 2012. Remember in 2014 when Emma Watson gave a speech in the U.N. and people were like, “Emma Watson said she’s a feminist!!” Because that word was still associated with the scorn that people had been piling on it for years? Adichie saying “We should all be feminists” was pushing all that baggage off it and saying something unusual and extremely impactful. It’s an important read!
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
When Murakami was training for the New York City marathon, he decided to keep a journal. This resulting book is about “his intertwined obsessions with running and writing, full of vivid recollections and insights, including the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer.” I’m not a runner in the slightest, but this is getting bumped way up in my TBR pile.
The Origin of Others by Toni Morrison
What motivates the human tendency to construct Others? Why does the presence of Others make us so afraid? Toni Morrison is here to get into those and other Giant Questions, but in a limited number of pages, because she doesn’t need a lot of fluff and nonsense to make herself understood. This clocks in around 136 pages and seems like an excellent read for 2021.
Can someone make a giant list of nonfiction this short? I’m very into the idea. Sometimes you just wanna knock out a bunch of quick reads. IN the mean time, I hope you’re taking care of yourself, drinking water, getting sleep, eating protein, ETC. If you have any questions/comments/book suggestions, you can find me on social media @itsalicetime. Until next time, enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.