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Dr. Thomas Neill Cream’s killing spree spanned the United States, Britain, and Canada, with poison as his weapon of choice. Author Dean Jobb transports readers to the late nineteenth century as Dr. Cream’s crimes marked the emergence of a new breed of killer: one who operated without motive or remorse, who “murdered simply for the sake of murder.” For fans of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City or the podcast My Favorite Murder, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream is an unforgettable true crime story.
I’m gonna be honest, I don’t follow book awards usually beyond scanning winner lists to see what nonfiction is on it (have I read it? no — but my For Real podcast co-host Kim probably has). I’m intrigued by the National Book Award though!
It’s given “by writers to writers,” so definitely not the People’s Choice Awards of the bookish world (that would be the Goodreads Awards), and the winners have to be U.S. citizens. It’s been around since 1936, then World War II happened and people said “maybe focus on other things for a minute,” and then it started up again in 1950.
Let’s look at some carefully selected winners, i.e. ones I thought looked interesting:
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (winner: 1939)
Yes, it’s the Little Prince guy! This is one of the rare cases where the English title is more poetic than the French (Terre des hommes? Land of Men? no thank you, please). This primarily contains stories of Saint-Exupéry’s time as an airmail carrier, flying across the Sahara Desert and the Andes Mountains. This includes his crash in the Sahara, which is most definitely included in The Little Prince. I love books from the 1920s/1930s. And I didn’t know this one existed!
The Oysters of Locmariaquer by Eleanor Clark (winner: 1965)
Yeah, like I’m gonna see a book from almost sixty years ago about oysters and not include it in this list. Look at the beginning of the description: “On the northwest coast of France, just around the corner from the English Channel, is the little town of Locmariaquer.” It sounds like a fairytale! But one with oysters! This is not only about the Belon oysters of Locmariaquer, but also about Brittany and its people.
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed (winner: 2008)
It’s a history of the Hemings family! Yes, the family that includes Sally Hemings. And look, I’m not THAT old and I still remember when it was kind of big news that Jefferson exploited/sexually-assaulted-due-to-the-power-imbalance Hemings. Here, Gordon-Reed “traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family’s dispersal after Jefferson’s death in 1826.” Fair warning that this book is over 900 pages long. But probably a lot of that is endnotes! A bonus of nonfiction: it’s usually not as long as you think it is.
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne (winner: 2020)
The most recent winner! It also won the 2021 Pulitzer. Les Payne passed in 2018, but he was a storied journalist who co-founded the National Association of Black Journalists. He spent almost thirty years on this book, which was finished by his daughter Tamara. Payne wanted to “transform what would become over a hundred hours of interviews into an unprecedented portrait of Malcolm X, one that would separate fact from fiction.” Based on the number of awards and laudatory statements this has received, it appears he succeeded.
For more nonfiction reads, check out the For Real podcast which I co-host with the excellent Kim here at Book Riot. If you have any questions/comments/book suggestions, you can find me on social media @itsalicetime. Until next time, enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.