Author: Kim Ukura

Hello again, fellow nonfiction nerds! This week I’ve got a couple of new nonfiction releases, some great writing from a favorite reporter, and news about the writer for an anticipated biographical film that seemed to fall off my radar until now. Let’s dive in!

New Books! Woo!

This week feels like a lighter week for new nonfiction, but there are two books I wanted to call out:

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Sponsored by Blackstone Publishing

A powerful new memoir about growing up with a hard father in a hard land, from the patriarch of Discovery Channel’s Emmy-shortlisted program Alaska: The Last Frontier.

Atz Kilcher’s reckoning with his unusual childhood builds with each chapter of Son of a Midnight Land, offering readers a realistic look at the emotional price he paid for his father’s dream to homestead in Alaska’s remote wilderness.

“Very seldom do we get windows into our parents’ private lives with such honesty…This book…proves anyone can find forgiveness, love, and even change at any age.”

— Jewel, singer and daughter of Atz Kilcher

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The World Only Spins Forward by Isaac Butler and Dan Kois (Feb. 13 from Bloomsbury) – I’m not sure that I knew I wanted an oral history of Angels in America until I hear about this book, but now I am definitely in. This book is timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Broadway premiere.

 

 

Quirky by Melissa Schilling (Feb. 13 from PublicAffairs) – Yay, science! I’m definitely excited about a book that looks at the science behind the “traits and quirks” of creative geniuses, through the stories of eight people – Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Elon Musk, Dean Kamen, Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, and Steve Jobs.

Michael Lewis Goes to the White House

I love a good journalistic long read, so I was excited to see a new Michael Lewis piece in Bloomberg about how Lewis (author of The Big Short, Moneyball, and most recently, The Undoing Project) went “to Washington in search of Trump and ended up watching the State of the Union with Steve Bannon.” I like that Lewis brings his perspective as an outsider to reporting on the White House, and appreciated his pointed-but-factual observations about the people he’s reporting on.

She Persisted Around the World

I don’t usually mention children’s nonfiction, but this book looked too cute to pass up. Chelsea Clinton and her illustrator, Alexandra Boiger, are working on a follow up to She Persisted called She Persisted Around the World. The book will share the true stories of 13 global heroines including “Nobel Prize-winning chemist Marie Curie, globally bestselling author J.K. Rowling, prima ballerina Yuan Yuan Tan.” The illustrations look lovely.

Revisiting The Princess Diarist

I loved this reflection from Grace Lovelace in The Millions on Carrie Fisher’s last memoir, The Princess Diarist, one year after her death and in the fresh context of the #MeToo movement. It’s an interesting, thoughtful piece.

Da Vinci adaptation gets a writer

I missed the news that Leonardo DiCaprio is set to produce and star in a movie adaptation of Walter Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci. The book is being adapted by John Logan, who previously wrote the script for another DiCaprio film, The Aviator (among other writing credits). Fun fact about this adaptation – DiCaprio “got his first name because his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in a museum in Italy when the future star kicked for the first time.”

Before I close out this email, quick heads up to visit our Instagram account to enter to win $500 of Penguin Clothbound classics! Check in with me on Twitter or by email, kim@riotnewmedia.com, and until next week, happy reading! – Kim

I’ve been thinking more this week about diversity in books after reading an article in The Atlantic by journalist Ed Yong about his efforts over the last two years to fix the gender imbalance in his reporting. Yong’s name might be familiar to True Story readers because he’s also the author of I Contain Multitudes, a well-regarded book from 2016 about “the microbes within us and a grander view of life.”

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Sponsored by WaterBrook, an imprint of Penguin Random House

Drawing on extensive research and personal insight, Laura Ingalls Wilder researcher Stephen Hines offers the first extended, in-depth look at the faith of one of America’s most beloved pioneers.

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In the article, Yong writes about how he’s actively worked to bring balance to the sources he cites in his reporting after discovering that fewer than 25 percent of the sources he quoted in 2016 were women and that 35 percent of the stories he wrote had no female voices at all. He writes:

That surprised me. I knew it wasn’t going to be 50 percent, but I didn’t think it would be that low, either. I knew that I care about equality, so I deluded myself into thinking that I wasn’t part of the problem. I assumed that my passive concern would be enough. Passive concern never is.

There’s a lot in the article that interested me, but that passage resonated with me as a reader – passive concern isn’t enough to change the books I read and talk about, it takes active work. It’s not a ton of work, as Yong discovered as he started to shift his reporting practices, but it’s work nonetheless and work worth doing. Anyway, food for thought on this February Friday. Now, on to the books!

New Books!

This week was a big one for new books. Here are six that caught my eye:

The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú (Feb. 6 from Riverhead) – This book, about being a mixed-race border patrol agent who puts a personal narrative to our current debates on immigration, was my most-anticipated book of the month.

Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot (Feb. 6 from Counterpoint) – A memoir about a young woman coming of age on the Seabird Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest.

I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O’Farrell (Feb. 6 from Knopf) – A memoir in essays about all of the near death experiences of the author and her close family.

A False Report by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong (Feb. 6 from Crown) – The true story of a teenager charged with lying about being raped, and what it took for detectives to find the truth.

Text Me When You Get Home by Kayleen Schaefer (Feb. 6 from Dutton) – This subtitle tells it all, “the evolution and triumph of modern female friendship.” Get this one before Galentine’s Day.

Feel Free by Zadie Smith (Feb. 6 from Penguin Press) – Zadie! Smith! Essays! I feel like there isn’t much more to say.

NBCC announces awards finalists

The National Book Critics Circle recent announced its finalists for the 2017 literary awards. The nonfiction finalists are an interesting group, including a couple titles from the National Book Award list and a couple that are new to me:

• Gulf: The Making of an American Sea by Jack Davis
• The Evangelicals by Frances Fitzgerald
• The Future is History by Masha Gessen
• Border by Kapka Kassabova
• A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford

I’m a little less interested in the finalists for biography and criticism, but you can check out those lists at the link above as well. Also of note, author John McPhee will be awarded the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award. His works of creative nonfiction are really lovely to read, so this is an honor I feel is well deserved.

Trevor Noah is back!

Trevor Noah is writing another memoir! His debut memoir, Born a Crime, has gotten rave reviews all over the place. Chatter among the Book Riot contributors is that it’s especially great on audio, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. His second memoir, still untitled, was purchased by an imprint of Penguin Random House and will be published on November 13 and continue where Born a Crime ends.

Cheap Reads!

This week in Amazon deals, some cheap political and social science reads:

• Why Have Kids? by Jessica Valenti for $0.99
• Literary Witches by Taisia Kitaiskaia and Katy Horan for $2.99
• Across that Bridge by Rep. John Lewis for $2.99

That’s the end for this week. Check in with me on Twitter or by email, kim@riotnewmedia.com, and until next week, happy reading! – Kim

Is it just me, or did January feel like the longest month ever? I’m glad we’re into February, although I don’t want to let the first month of the year leave without highlighting a few last excellent new books and sharing a smattering of news about awards, spring nonfiction, and political books that failed.

But before we get going, I want to remind you about the sweet giveaway Book Riot has been going on. Sign up for our new librarian newsletter, Check Your Shelf, and be entered to win your own library cart. Get on that!

New Books on My Radar

It’s an exciting week for new books. Here are four that caught my eye:

Brave by Rose McGowan – A memoir and manifesto from an actress pushing back against the box Hollywood tried to put her in.

This Will Be My Undoing by Morgan Jerkins – A collection of essays on “living at the intersection of black, female, and feminist in (white) America. This one is getting raves.

The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers – A true story about a Yemeni American who wants to bring Yemeni coffee to his hometown of San Francisco, but is derailed by a civil war.

The Spinning Magnet by Alanna Mitchell – A history of the science of electromagnetism and the magnetic field around the Earth.

Our General Wins an Award

Carrie Fisher won a 2018 Grammy for Best Spoken Word album for her memoir The Princess Diarist. The memoir is based on the dairies Fisher kept during the filming of Star Wars in 1977, and includes some details about her affair with co-star Harrison Ford. It’s a wonderfully funny book, and it’s so great Fisher was able to narrate it. She was also nominated for the narration of her 2008 book, Wishful Drinking.

Many Trumps Lose Money

According to an analysis by Forbes, Penguin Random House may have lost as much as $220,000 on Ivanka Trump’s 2017 book Women Who Work. The magazine, consulting with “publishing experts” estimated that the imprint, Portfolio, earned about $566,000 from the total sales after paying out an advance of $787,500 to Trump.

More Spring Nonfiction!

Publishers Weekly has put out their most anticipated books of spring 2018 list, and it has a ton of nonfiction to put on your radar. I love that the nonfiction portion of the list is split out into memoir, literary essays/criticism/biographies, history, politics/current events, music, science, and religion – something for everyone.

True Crime is Coming

Michelle McNamara’s chronicle of her search for the Golden State Killer, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (out Feb. 27 from Harper Collins), is one of the more highly-anticipated true crime books coming out this spring. The New Yorker published an excerpt from the book that has my spine tingling already. McNamara is the late wife of comedian Patton Oswalt, who passed away in April 2016.

 

More White House Books Coming

And speaking of books by White House-adjacent folks, former press secretary Sean Spicer announced he’ll be publishing a book to “set the record straight” about the Trump campaign and life in the White House. The book is tentatively titled The Briefing, and is set to be released in July. So… there’s that.

Cookbooks Galore!

Book Riot has been on a cookbook kick lately. Here are three posts to check out:

• I’m an Accidental Collector of Vintage Cookbooks by Daisy Johnson
• 10 Pop Culture Cookbooks to Tickle Your Tastebuds by Jessica Avery
• Spring 2018 New Releases: Food and Cookbooks by Pierce Alquist
• 5 Cookbooks for Newlyweds by Danielle Bourgon

That’s the end for this week. Check in with me on Twitter or by email, kim@riotnewmedia.com, and until next week, happy reading! – Kim

Now that all the drama over Fire and Fury has started to subside, life in the world of nonfiction seems to be getting back to normal. This week I’ve got a couple of new books – one that I’ve actually read! – along with news about the Best American series and an award going to a very deserving doctor.

But before we jump in, make sure you enter our giveaway for your very own library cart! Enter here!

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Sponsored by Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old by John Leland, published by Sarah Crichton Books – FSG

The New York Times journalist John Leland set out to meet some of the city’s oldest inhabitants for a series on America’s fastest-growing age group: those over eighty-five. He wondered: Is there a threshold at which life is no longer worth living? The six elders Leland interviewed took him in a different direction. Beyond illuminating what it’s like to be old, physically and materially, they provided a life-changing education in resilience and joy. Happiness Is a Choice You Make is a rare, intimate glimpse into the end of life, and the insight that can enhance the years preceding. What he finds is deeply heartening: Even as our faculties decline, we still wield extraordinary influence over the quality of our lives. Happiness is a choice we make.

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New Books, Read and On My Radar

The Milk Lady of Bangalore by Shoba Narayan – Woo, it’s a new book that I’ve read and can officially endorse! After years in New York, Narayan and her husband decide to move back to India to raise their daughters. Soon, Narayan develops a relationship with the woman who sells fresh cow’s milk across the street, Sarala. They become friends, of a sort, and the relationship leads Narayan to explore the role milk and cows play in Indian culture. I thought this book was an engaging and funny cultural history of a subject that I didn’t know I was excited to learn about. I wish Narayan had done a little more to interrogate some of the economic disparities that were part of her neighborhood, but that’s a quibble with an otherwise excellent book.

Swearing Is Good for You by Emma Byrne – I am in for a book of popular science on the benefits of swearing. In the book, Byrne explores recent research on swearing – why we like to do it and what it can tell us about other humans. Swearing, as you may have guessed, has a long history, and a range of possible benefits to from trauma recovery to increased cooperation. Sounds like a damn good read!

Editors for Best American Series announced

I am so psyched that Cheryl Strayed will be guest editing the 2018 edition of Best American Travel Writing from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Theater critic Hilton Als will be overseeing the Essays book, and food critic Ruth Reichl will edit a new edition on Food Writing.

Paul Farmer recognized by National Academy of Sciences

Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, has been awarded the 2018 Public Welfare Medal by the National Academy of Sciences. Farmer’s name may ring a bell if you’ve read Tracy Kidder’s 2003 book Mountains Beyond Mountains. In it, Kidder writes about PIH and the organization’s work fighting tuberculosis in Haiti, Peru and Russia. Farmer also wrote extensively about his work in Haiti and what was needed to help that country following a devastating 2010 natural disaster in the book Haiti: After the Earthquake. Both books are excellent, but Mountains Beyond Mountains is the more narrative of the two, if that’s your reading preference.

Great Bookish Deals

It’s another week of great memoirs in Kindle Deals. A few of my favorites are:

• Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson for $2.99
• Shrill by Lindy West for $2.99
• As You Wish by Cary Elwes for $1.99
• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba for $2.99

That’s all I’ve got for this week. Happy reading everyone! – Kim

Happy third week of January, fellow nonfiction nerds! It’s been another frigid week where I live in Minnesota, with promises of more snow on the way (you know you’re hearing from a Minnesotan when we open with nonsense about the weather).

This week’s newsletter features a couple of new books to look out for, some new headlines about the book that’s derailed the Trump White House, and a few other news stories that will make you cheer and/or cry. It’s a big week!

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Sponsored by Mulholland Books

In 1901, Evelyn Nesbit, a New York society darling, dined with Stanford White in his decadent 24th Street apartment. Evelyn was given champagne, lost consciousness, and woke, nearly naked, in bed next to White. An acclaimed architect and notorious womanizer, White was 47. Evelyn Nesbit was just 16.

Four years later, Evelyn married Harry Thaw, a playboy millionaire rumored to be mentally disturbed. One night in 1906, a vengeful Thaw shot and killed White before hundreds of theatre-goers at Madison Square Garden—a venue designed by Stanford White himself. The murder and ensuing trial were the scandal of the century, perhaps the nation’s first tabloid murder.

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Nonfiction on My Radar

The Stowaway by Laurie Gwen Shapiro – In 1928, a New York City high school student jumped into the Hudson River and climbed aboard a ship headed on an expedition to Antarctica, hoping that he could stowaway long enough to convince the captain to let him come. I think this sounds like so much fun.

 

Stalking God by Anjali Kumar – After the birth of her daughter, “highly spiritual but religiously uncommitted” lawyer Anjali Kumar set out on a quest to find some enlightenment. Her pilgrimage takes her to meet shamans, visit Burning Man, try transcendental meditation, visit witches, and consult a medium.

Fire and Fury Furor Continues

After all of the uproar over Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, publisher Henry Holt announce it had shipped more than 700,000 copies of the book in the first week of publication. As of last week, there were more than 1.4 million copies of the book on order, and they must be getting to stores – I saw a full shelf of the book at my local Barnes and Noble this week.

If you don’t want to read the book, good news – the story has been optioned for television! But no news on a network yet. If you want to hear a little bit about the reporting that went into the book – including the title that Wolff pitched to the White House – then check out this Bloomberg Politics story. I thought it was fascinating.

Another author who is cashing in on the book is Canadian author and historian Randall Hansen. His 2009 book, also called Fire and Fury, has moved onto three best-seller lists, thanks to the duplicate titles. Hansen told MPR News that he feels “extraordinarily lucky” about the coincidence – “He’s got enough money, but I’m tempted to buy Wolff a bottle of champagne.”

Women Writing Awesome Books

Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the New York Times reporters who first broke the story of Harvey Weinstein’s decades of sexual abuse, will be publishing a book on their project. I think it’s great that a solid piece of investigative reporting will be given some space and resources to grow even bigger.

And in other amazing news, Lindy West is writing two more books! The first book will be a “cultural critique that examines how we arrived at this moment in history,” and the second will be a collection of film criticism (date TBD). I’m in for this!

Get Your Kleenex Ready

This story hit me right in the feels… two dying memoirists wrote bestsellers about their final days, then their spouses fell in love. Paul Kalanithi’s widow, Lucy, became friends with Nina Riggs’ husband, John, shortly before Nina died of breast cancer. The two connected through the grief of losing a spouse, became friends, and fell in love. All the feels.

And that’s all for this week. Thanks again for reading, you can find me on Twitter @kimthedork or by email at kim@riotnewmedia.com! – Kim

The last week has brought what may end up being the biggest nonfiction story of 2018 – the publication of Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff, an all-access look inside the dysfunction and chaos of the Trump White House.

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We’re giving away a stack of our 20 favorite books of the year. Click here to enter, or just click the image below.

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Like everything connected to Trump, this story has moved quickly and there are a lot of moving parts, but for the sake of this newsletter I’ve tried to gather the pieces that pertain specifically to book publishing. Here we go!

Embed from Getty Images

January 3: The story began when New York Magazine published a long excerpt from Fire and Fury online. The selection revealed that nearly everyone in the Trump campaign believed he would lose to HIllary Clinton, making them woefully unprepared to step in the White House. My favorite weird tidbit from the excerpt is that Trump likes to eat at McDonald’s because he’s afraid of being poisoned.

January 4: A lawyer representing Trump sent a legal notice to Wolff and his publisher, Henry Holt, demanding that the company “cease and desist” from publishing the book, and threatened the publisher with a libel suit. Henry Holt responded by moving up the publication date of the book to January 5.

January 8: A lawyer representing the publisher then responded to the letter with a resounding no, noting that the publishing would not stop publishing, issue a retraction, or grant an apology. John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan (the company that owns Henry Holt) sent a letter to all employees explaining the decision to move forward with the book. Woo, First Amendment!

All of the attention has resulted in record sales of the book. Sargent told the Washington Post the publisher has orders for more than a million hardcover copies, “making it the fastest-selling nonfiction book in Henry Holt’s 151-year history.” The book is sold out in print basically everywhere, so the ebook and audiobook are doing well.

Whether Fire and Fury is good, rather than just a collection of insider gossip, remains to be seen. A critic I trust, Alyssa Rosenberg, has already given the book a big thumbs down, calling it “a real slog to get through.” But I can’t imagine the quality will affect sales that much anyway. Personally, I’m not all that keen on reading it – I’m hoping an intrepid reporter will just pull out the juiciest bits and publish them online so I can hear the bad news without having to immerse myself in the chaos. I’m curious though, are any of you planning to read Fire and Fury? Anyone have a copy yet?

Other New Books to Watch For

The buzz around Fire and Fury and the news it’s generated has sort of taken over the world, but there are a couple of books out this week I want to bring to your attention.

My Friend Fear by Meera Lee Patel – I feel like I’ve seen Patel’s first book, a journal called Start Where You Are, almost everywhere and always think about buying it. My Friend Fear is a sort of companion, exploring questions about listening to our fears and following them towards a most fulfilling life. The book is a beautiful mix of writing, watercolors, and quotes that I’m looking forward to digging into.

The Unsettlers by Mark Sundeen – The start of the year always makes me want to throw away all of my stuff and start from scratch. In The Unsettlers (now out in paperback), Sundeen profiles people who have made decisions like that, to step away from the rush of modern life for lives of “radical simplicity.” The book is pitched as a work of immersive journalism, so I’m pretty sold.

Cheap Reads

This week, I’ve got some Kindle deals that I hope will help give you some inspiration and guidance to start off the new year on the right foot:

• Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson for $2.99
• Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes for $1.99
• Shrill by Lindy West for $2.99
• Manage Your Day-to-Day, edited by Jocelyn Glei for $1.99

And that’s all for this week! Connect with me on Twitter @kimthedork or by email at kim@riotnewmedia.com. Thanks for reading – Kim

Happy New Year, nonfiction readers! I hope your holidays were filled with books, booze, and exactly the amount of family time that you desired. My family has mostly given up on buying books for me, but I did find one great title under the Christmas tree – The Dragon Behind the Glass by Emily Voigt, a “true story of power, obsession, and the world’s most coveted fish,” the dragon fish. I’m pretty psyched about the topic, and being able to count it as a book of true crime for the 2018 Read Harder Challenge.

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TarcherPerigee, publisher of My Friend Fear by Meera Lee Patel

From the bestselling author of Start Where You Are comes a vibrantly inspiring look at making peace with fear–to become our truest selves.

On the heels of her bestselling journal Start Where You Are, author and illustrator Meera Lee Patel takes us deeper into her artistic vision and emotional journey in this stunning new four-color book. A mix of personal reflections, inspirational quotes, questions for reflection, and breathtaking watercolor visuals, My Friend Fear asserts that having big fear is an opportunity to make big changes and to discover the remarkable potential inside ourselves.

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For this week’s newsletter, I wanted to do another roundup of recent nonfiction favorites now out in paperback, plus share a couple of reading lists to help you with your new year’s resolutions.

Victoria: The Queen by Victoria Baird – This epic biography, one of my favorite books of 2017, looks at Queen Victoria’s life as a young woman, wife, mother, and queen.

Revolution for Dummies by Bassem Youssef – “The Jon Stewart of the Arabic World” writes about his path from heart surgeon to political satirist.

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin – This buzzy biography explores the life and literary influences of one of my favorite dark literary geniuses.

The Girl at the Baggage Claim by Gish Jen (January 16 from Vintage) – A exploration of the cultural differences between the East and West, looking at “independent” and “interdependent” models of selfhood.

Truvine by Beth Macy – The story of two albino slave boys who were kidnapped and forced to join the circus, and their mother’s quest to bring them home.

The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel – “How the ladies of Harvard Observatory took the measure of the stars.” Women and science!

Butter by Elaine Khosrova – The story of the role butter has played historically, politically, economically… and in the kitchen.

Pushout by Monique W. Morris (January 2 from The New Press) – A look at the experiences of black girls in schools and the criminal justice system, and how those institutions are failing them.

Bellevue by David Oshinsky – A history of “medicine and mayhem” at New York’s Bellevue hospital.

I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong (January 6 from Ecco) – An exploration of the world of microbes and bacteria, and the scientists studying them.

Prince Charles by Sally Bedell Smith – A giant biography about a dude who isn’t going to get to be King of England until well past a normal retirement page.

The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson – A detective story and political history revisiting the infamous 1955 lynching and murder of teenager Emmett Till.

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher – A memoir collecting and revisiting the journals Fisher kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie. RIP, Princess Leia.

Dust Bowl Girls by Lydia Reeder – A Depression-era story about a group of Oklahoma farm girls recruited to play college basketball and their improbable run to a national championship.

A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women by Siri Hustvedt – A collection of essays on “art, feminism, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy.”

Reading Your Resolutions

I found two recent book lists with recommendations to help you get a start on your resolutions.

Author Judith Newman suggests books to help you get happy, get empowered, get some, learn how to live, and mind your manners. These all look like worthwhile reads at any time of the year.

And over at Inc., Jessica Stillman suggests 11 books that can help you live a happier and more fulfilled life in the new year. I can personally vouch for two books on the list – Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, and The Power of Meaning by Emily Esfahani Smith.

I’m kicking my self-improvement reading off with Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, a look at being brave and living a creative life. It’s not quite as practical as I was expecting, but there’s something nice about reading a book focused entirely on affirming anyone’s ability and interest in taking on a creative project without regard to outcome.

And that’s it for this week. Thanks again for joining me this year! Let me know what books you’re starting your year off with via email at kim@riotnewmedia.com or on Twitter at @kimthedork. Happy reading! – Kim

P.S. Don’t forget, we’re giving away a stack of Book Riot’s 20 favorite books of the year. Click here to enter!

We’re giving away a stack of our 20 favorite books of the year. Click here to enter, or just click the image below.

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In case you missed it, I’ll share the news again – Book Riot’s Read Harder 2018 Challenge is alive! I was happy to see that a lot of the tasks could be completed with a work of nonfiction, but there are a few that I’m particularly excited about – a book of true crime, a celebrity memoir, a book of social science, and an essay anthology. One of my reading goals for 2018 is to actually finish Read Harder, so expect to hear a bit more about that as the year progresses.

Nonfiction News!

Publisher’s Weekly put together a list of spring 2018 memoirs and biographies. There are several good ones in their top ten including a new book from one of my favorite essayists, Leslie Jamison (Recovering, out April 3 from Little Brown).

This week, Ta-Nehisi Coates did what many of us wish we were strong enough to do – delete his Twitter account. According to Entertainment Weekly, Coates was in the middle of a debate with a fellow intellectual, Cornel West. It does seem like that kind of discussion has a better platform than Twitter.

Electric Literature put out their best nonfiction of the year list, which also looks excellent. A few of the heavy-hitters are on there, there are also a few quirkier books that haven’t popped up on other lists so far. Check it out!

Book Riot Links!

Carina Pereira shares some of the excellent biographies she listened to on audio this year – I’ve got quite a few of them on my list!

Holiday party season is almost over, but this list of seven nonfiction books to make you sound smart at parties by Molly Wetta is worth bookmarking for later.

Rebecca Hussey put together a list of the best genre-bending nonfiction of the year, several of which weren’t on my radar at all.

Kate Scott’s round-up of 24 amazing feminist books coming in 2018 is mostly nonfiction, and all of it sounds incredible.

Ready to make 2018 your year? Raych Krueger suggests self-help audiobooks to help you “untrash” 2018.

Cheap Books!

There are some excellent Kindle deals this month for nonfiction lovers. A few that I’ve read and can wholeheartedly recommend are

• Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly for $2.99
• Yes, Please by Amy Poehler for $3.99
• The Romanov Sisters by Helen Rappaport for $3.99

And don’t forget! Book Riot is giving away 20 of our favorite books of the year, pulled from the votes in our Best Books of 2017 list. Readers of this newsletter will probably be excited about Hunger by Roxane Gay, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul, The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates and You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie. Click here to enter!

And with that, I’m signing off for 2017. Thank you so much for reading and sharing your thoughts this year. I’m looking forward to 2018!

– Kim Ukura, @kimthedork

For whatever reason, I cannot get enough of the year-end best books list. This year, more than usual, it feels like time just flew by so quickly that I can hardly remember all of the great books I was excited about that promptly fell of my radar. This week I have a couple more retrospectives to share, along with some more awards news and some Hollywood memoir news. Here we go!

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Sponsored by LIFE IS LIKE A MUSICAL by Tim Federle

A new self-help guide—with jazz hands!—from bestselling author Tim Federle, Life is Like a Musical features 50 tips learned backstage, onstage, and in between gigs, with chapters such as “Dance Like Everyone’s Watching” and “Save the Drama for the Stage.” This charming and clever guide will appeal to all ages and inspire readers to step into the lead role of their own life, even if they’re not a recovering theater major.

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2017 This Year in Books from Amazon

This week, Amazon released a stellar data visualization for this year in books, based on data gathered from the Kindle and through Audible. It includes the most-read books of the year, the most popular books in each state, and the most frequently-highlighted passages for the year. The top nonfiction book of the year – The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson – surprised me at first, but after I thought more it kind of makes sense. Apparently we all needed to figure out ways to let some of the nonsense of 2017 roll off our backs. It’s a fun page to scroll through if you’ve got a few minutes.

Speaking Of Best Books…

Book Riot’s Best Books of 2017 was also published this week! All of the Book Riot contributors submit nominations, which are then tallied to put together the final list. There are six nonfiction books on the list that have all gotten rave reviews. I was lucky enough to blurb one of my favorites, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul. Check this list out too!

Young Adult Nonfiction Awards

Earlier this month, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) announced the five finalists for the 2018 Excellence in Nonfiction Award. The five titles on the shortlist are:

• Eyes of the World by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos
• #NotYourPrincess by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale
• Vincent and Theo by Deborah Heiligman
• The Whydah by Martin Sandler
• The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater

Performers Getting Book Deals

Actress Sally Field will be publishing a memoir in 2018. According to the New York Times, Field has been working on the book for more than five years. The title is In Pieces.

Actor Kal Penn has also signed a deal to publish an essay collection in 2019. Entertainment Weekly reports that the book will cover numerous topics, “including his ambition as an actor, the challenges of navigating Hollywood, and his unusual sabbatical from actor to White House staffer.”

And finally, we’ve got a big giveaway to share – a stack of our 20 favorite books of the year! Click here to enter. These books are so good! As always, thanks for reading!

– Kim Ukura, @kimthedork, kim@riotnewmedia.com

Happy December, nonfiction readers! This week, I’ve got five new releases you can look for this month, along with some links to peruse while stuffing your face with holiday foods. I can’t be the only one staring down multiple holiday potlucks before Christmas, right?

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Sponsored by No Time to Spare, new essays from Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin has taken readers to imaginary worlds for decades. Now she’s in the last great frontier of life, old age, and exploring new literary territory: the blog, a forum where she shines. The collected best of Ursula’s blog, No Time to Spare presents perfectly crystallized dispatches on what matters to her now, her concerns with the world, and her wonder at it: “How rich we are in knowledge, and in all that lies around us yet to learn. Billionaires, all of us.”

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December New Releases

No Time to Spare by Ursula K. Le Guin (Dec. 5 from HMH) – After basically killing it in the realms of science fiction and fantasy, Le Guin has turned some of her attention to blogging. This book collects together some of the best pieces of her online writing on age, genre, and writing.

 

 

Anesthesia by Kate Cole-Adams (Dec. 5 by Counterpoint) – The development of anesthesia has made surgery a common intervention for maladies of all kinds. But how does our unconscious mind react to being put under anesthesia? Do we really know what happens? In the book, Cole-Adams, shared her personal experiences as a patient along with other accounts of what it’s like beyond consciousness.

Women and Power by Mary Beard (Dec. 12 from Liveright) – I feel like this slim little book would be the perfect gift for the frustrated, political woman in your life. Beard, an English scholar and classicist, explores the origins of misogyny and the ways that strong women have been punished or prohibited from taking power. The book also includes Beard’s own experiences responding to online trolls, which I can only imagine will be fascinating.

The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish (Dec. 5 from Gallery Books) – While I’m sad that I didn’t know who Tiffany Haddish was before she hosted SNL earlier this year (following her lauded performance in Girls Trip), I’m excited I can get to know her better with this book. The Last Black Unicorn is a collection of “(extremely) personal essays” on everything from growing up in South Central Los Angeles to finding her place in comedy.

Why You Eat What You Eat by Rachel Herz (Dec. 26 from W.W. Norton) – I’m only a little ashamed to admit that this book first caught my eye because of the donuts on the cover. But, after digging around a bit I’m really excited to read it. Hertz, a neuroscientist, explores the “sensory, psychological, neuroscientific, and physiological factors that influence our eating habits” and our relationship with food. It’s out in late December, so perfect for setting out on those New Year’s resolutions to eat better.

Nonfiction News You Can Use

The winners in the Goodreads Choice Awards have been announced. The only winner in the nonfiction categories that I’ve read is What Happened by Hillary Clinton… so clearly I’ve got a lot of work to do!

Have dreams of getting your #NaNoWriMo novel published? Or just getting started writing at all? Hachette Books has 15 books recommended for the writing life.

The Los Angeles Times released their selections for the best nonfiction of 2017. There’s a little overlap between some of the other big newspaper lists and books that have won awards already, but on the whole it’s a pretty interesting list with a few new titles I haven’t seen.

And over at Book Riot, we’ve got a collection of must-read science nonfiction in honor of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

Happy reading!

— Kim, @kimthedork, kim@riotnewmedia.com