Category: True Story

Danielle Geller grew up estranged from her mother, an alcoholic who loved her daughters but lost custody when they were small. In her 20s, Geller receives a phone call that her mother has been admitted to a Florida hospital and may not live much longer. At that moment, they hadn’t spoken in more than six months. Geller heads down to Florida and discovers that her mother’s life can be packed up in just eight suitcases. She finds one filled with diaries, photos, letters, photo negatives, and some sage. She brings this one home, then uses the contents to try and excavate her mother’s life. This book is a memoir of her childhood, and the story of reconnecting with her family and understanding the mistakes they all made. This one is really difficult to read, but it was incredibly beautiful, too. 

This book got on my radar after winning this year’s Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and it’s basically ruined most other nonfiction since I read it. Reporter Andrea Elliott spent eight years chronicling the life of Dasani, a young girl growing up homeless in Brooklyn. Through this reporting, Elliott puts a face and family at the center of the homeless crisis, tracing it back through history and through the institutions that are part of the problem as well as a potential solution. It’s a huge, beautiful, heartbreaking book I could not put down.

Elaine Castillo thinks of “reading” in a lot of different ways. There’s reading books, of course, but there’s also reading people, reading film, or reading art. One can also be read by society. These are just a few of the different kinds of reading that Castillo discusses in her essays. She gives examples of her own reading, analyzing essays, novels, films, and art exhibits. She leads her discussion by example. Her essays are a perfect way to contemplate different ways of viewing literature and other mediums.

Daniel Heath Justice, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and Professor of Critical Indigenous Studies and English Language, writes about Indigenous Literatures. His book introduces readers to the unique qualities that Indigenous Literatures often have in common. When we’re taught to study literature in a more formal setting, professors often approach texts from a Western, colonialist perspective. Justice challenges that approach, asking readers to decolonize their reading of Indigenous Literatures. His writing is personable, up front, and incredibly insightful. And in his discussion, Justice recommends dozens of texts that readers might enjoy. I added so many titles to my TBR after reading Why Indigenous Literatures Matter.

Although more than 1 million Black men and women served the United States during World War II, they were ostracized and separated during their service — then kept out of many of the benefits available through the GI Bill. This book seeks to uncover stories of Black veterans and those who supported them, covering citizens like Thurgood Marshall, Ella Baker, and more. This feels like a particularly important and relevant piece of history to pick up right now.

Women have not typically been allowed to participate in combat missions in the same way, except for some special circumstances like those shared in this book. In 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, an effort to place women alongside Special Operations soldiers in Afghanistan to help connect and build relationships with Afghan women. This book is the story of the first class of CSTs and how they worked to prove “that women are physically and mentally tough enough” to participate in Special Operations teams. The center of this story is Ashley White, a CST who was beloved and effective in her service.

In both her prose and her audiobook performance, Jia Tolentino has an excellent narrative voice. In every essay, I feel like I’m sitting with her in a café listening to her talk to me about her time on a reality show or about how expensive yoga pants represent some key issues with capitalism. While I may not have been interested in these topics if I had heard about them any other way, Tolentino’s writing makes me fascinated in whatever she wants to write about. Her vivid writing makes me committed to learning more about her ideas. I will pick up whatever Tolentino decides to write next.

Admittedly, I haven’t read a lot of Ann Patchett’s work, but I decided to try out her nonfiction and started listening to her perform her essay collection These Precious Days. Reader, I have to tell you that I was smitten. Her warm American accent blends well with the scenes she describes. I’m meeting her three fathers, I’m greeting her dog at her bookstore in Nashville, or I’m bunkered down with her during the pandemic. Her essays are so intimate that I feel like I am her new best friend. All of this is, of course, just in my head, but I think that speaks to how inviting her writing feels to readers (and listeners). I ended up checking two more of her nonfiction audiobooks out from Hoopla, both of which she also performs. I guess I know how I will be spending all of this time packing and unpacking for the move!

Although slavery of Native Americans was illegal in much of the United States, it was still practiced for centuries as an open secret in many states, and was not part of the abolitionist movements that sought to end slavery for Black Americans. In this history, Andrés Reséndez argues that mass slavery, rather than disease epidemics, destroyed Indigenous populations across North America. This is a part of American history I’ve never heard about but am eager to learn.

This book challenges some of our received ideas of Native American history, including that history basically ended in 1890 with the massacre at Wounded Knee. Instead, David Treuer shows that Native people didn’t disappear, and that their work to preserve language, traditions, and culture means that their story is “one of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention.” This is another book that blends memoir and reporting to look at how challenges of each historical era led to new and creative survival mechanisms among native people.

In his thematic follow up to his first book, The Cooking Gene, Michael W. Twitty is back to discuss more about how his identity is connected to the food in his life. Twitty is a Jewish African American man who finds solace in celebrating both parts of his identity, especially how Jewish African cuisine is wholly unique and deeply meaningful to his community. The book is structured in a series of essays that examine Jewish African culture and experiences from several different angles, always returning to food. Koshersoul is a beautiful tribute to Twitty’s faith and culture, all of which are reflected in the food he cooks. Twitty’s writing always provides a unique perspective on the huge role food plays in people’s lives, and challenges readers to rethink how they view the role of food in their own lives.

The last editor of Gourmet Magazine, Ruth Reichl, writes about her time at the magazine, which was an institution of food writing for decades. Reichl describes how she became the editor, the steep learning curve that she found herself on, and the wild ride that was Gourmet’s last years. As a sucker for anything that sits at the intersection of food and publishing, I adored reading about Reichl’s experience.

This book looks at two big eras of American democracy — the liberal era from the passing of the New Deal through the 1970s, and the neoliberal era “of privatization and austerity” from the 1970s forward. Ganesh Sitaraman, a legal scholar and policy expert, argues that as the neoliberal era starts to fall apart, we have the chance to look at what’s next — nationalist oligarchy or “great democracy.” I’m excited to read this one to get a sense of the kinds of things we may need to do to get to the culture we want.

After the 2016 election, scholars Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt began to ask an almost unheard of question — is our democracy in danger? Both have spent more than 20 years studying the breakdown of democracy in Europe and Latin America, and so in this book, turn what they’ve learned to the United States. They argue that democracy, more often than not, ends with a whimper — a slow eroding and weakening of critical institutions and political norms. I appreciate historians who can make connections to today, so this is definitely on my list.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha follows up their incredible book Care Work with The Future Is Disabled. Piepzna-Samarasinha writes about the last two years of surviving COVID-19 as a disabled femme of color in an ableist world that isn’t interested in protecting disabled folks. They also discuss mutual aid and disabled joy in the face of isolation and discrimination.

The pandemic has been incredibly difficult for disabled people who have been asked to “take one for the team” by wider society. Piepzna-Samarasinha writes encouragement to disabled folks, relishing in our community’s creativity in our fight for survival. They also mourn those lost in the pandemic and the care crisis so many of us still face.

Amy Kenny writes a call to the broader Christian community, asking the church to change its mistreatment of disabled people in their midst. She emphasizes that disabled people, and our bodies, are still image bearers of God. But far too often, people ask disabled people what we have done wrong to “deserve” the curse of our body. Or they say we would be healed if we “just prayed enough.” Obviously, these church members are way out of line, and Kenny calls them out on their ridiculous notions.

Heading into this book, I worried that Kenny would hold back, but she did not. Instead, she demands that the church change their behavior and stop harming disabled people with their ableist perspectives. She writes clearly and directly, giving a number of examples, including many from her own life. She also gives readers an introduction to some disability 101 concepts, and recommends further reading. Overall, this is an excellent tool for disabled people to advocate for ourselves and share with others.

Dr. Pamela Munster is one of the top oncologists in the country, treating breast cancer patients who came to the University of California. At 48 years old, Munster learned her mammogram showed “irregularities,” and was diagnosed with breast cancer herself. This book combines her personal experience with the BRCA gene mutation along with her academic research around breast cancer and other inherited cancers. That combination seems particularly powerful for a memoir on this topic.

Robin Roberts is a well-loved anchor for Good Morning America who has experienced many of her most difficult times while being on television. In this memoir, she writes about her breast cancer diagnosis, followed five years later by a diagnosis of a rare blood disorder. She also writes about losing her mother, returning to work after medical leave, and the lessons she has learned along the way. I have to think this one would be excellent as an audiobook. 

For most of his career, Randall Kenan was described as a “writer’s writer,” a writer who isn’t loved by the general public per se, but people in his field really respect and admire his work. Shortly after Kenan died in 2020, his short story collection, If I Had Two Wings, was longlisted for the National Book Award. Its reception introduced Kenan’s work to a whole new audience.

Black Folk Could Fly is a posthumous collection of nonfiction works from throughout his career. In it, he writes about his childhood in rural North Carolina, his move to New York City to work on his writing career, and his travels around the country to interview Black people about their experiences. Kenan was always pondering, what does it mean to be Black in America today? Through his writing, we can see the progression of his thought process as he mulls over this question and reads other Black writers on the topic.

Jeanna Kadlec gives us a peek into her life growing up in conservative Chrstianity. She always felt belittled by the members of her church because she was a woman. Women would take her aside and tell her she needed to dress and behave more modestly. Men wouldn’t take her intellect seriously. And as a woman, she struggled to feel like a full fledged member of the church because the men didn’t want her to speak or pray during services. She always wanted to be the perfect Christian girl. She married a pastor’s son and waited to have sex until she was married. But even doing all of these things didn’t make her happy. She eventually realized that the faith she had been told was the only true way to live was actually very flawed and abusive to her emotionally and spiritually. She filed for divorce, came out as queer, and completly changed the direction of her life.

Like she says in the beginning of the book, she didn’t just leave the church because she’s a lesbian. Long before she realized that she was queer, Kadlec understood that the Christian culture she grew up in was incredibly harmful. From this starting point, Kadlec gives readers a more complex view of her faith experience. She also discusses that healing from religious trauma can take all sorts of different forms, and there is no singular way to come to terms with your faith.