Category: True Story

Did you know that in 1969, the Black Panther Party was feeding more children every day than the state of California? And in the early ’60s in Mississippi, a woman named Aylene Quin provided her restaurant to fellow civil rights activists (like members of SNCC) for their necessarily secret meetings. Cope’s book illustrates “how food was used by women as a potent and necessary ideological tool in both the rural south and urban north to create lasting social and political change.” So cool.

The story of Elizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess of Kingston, Countess of Bristol, who in 1776 (yes, that 1776), went on trial for bigamy. The case drew an immense amount of public interest during a time when America was pretty sure it was supposed to be the most popular topic in the UK.

Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei writes about growing up in “Little Siberia,” where his father (acclaimed poet Ai Qing) had been sent in exile by former friend Mao Zedong. Ai went to America to study art, where he met cultural figures of the ’60s like Allen Ginsberg and Andy Warhol. His political activism “has long made him a target of the Chinese authorities, which culminated in months of secret detention without charge in 2011.” Check it out if you’re interested in art, freedom of expression, or activist history.

Bryan Stevenson is a civil rights lawyer who specializes in defending “those most desperate and in need” through the Equal Justice Initiative. This book is a memoir about his time as a young lawyer and closely follows the story of Walter McMillian, a man sentenced to death for a murder he didn’t commit. It’s a fascinating story and a deep look into injustices of the justice system. I love this book so much, and the movie starring Michael B. Jordan is pretty great too!

This memoir is truly a classic of the genre, a look at a family that was both dysfunctional and deeply loving. Walls’ father was charismatic and inspiring while sober, but truly dysfunctional when drunk. Couple that with her mother’s free spirit, and you get a childhood full of love and neglect. This is a difficult book to read, but I absolutely tore through it. Although the 2017 movie adaptation got mixed reviews, I remember enjoying it – Brie Larson is a great addition to any movie cast. 

At this point, I think more people are familiar with the tv series Friday Night Lights (SO GOOD) than the book it’s based on… but I’m here to tell you that the book is a real treat too. Written in 1990, this classic of the sports nonfiction genre follows the 1988 Permian High School Panthers, a team from Odessa, Texas, as they compete for the Texas state championship. I read this one quite a while ago, but I remember it being a great portrait of football, family, and community in a small town.

Alice and I are both on record on our podcast, For Real, as being fans of the nonfiction trend of telling the hidden stories of the women behind the scenes in history. There have been a lot of books like that coming out, but I think Hidden Figures was one of the first. The book tells the story of Black, female mathematicians at NASA – known as “human computers” – who did the math helping get astronauts into space. The movie adaptation is good, but also flattens down the edges of some of this story. I highly recommend the book if you haven’t picked it up!

I am not sure where my nonfiction reading is going to take me this weekend! I’m feeling the pull to memoir, which may lead me to a book I purchased a few months ago, The Ugly Cry by Danielle Henderson. Henderson grew up “Black, weird, and overwhelmingly uncool” in a white neighborhood in New York, raised by her grandparents after being abandoned by her mother. Everything I read about it makes it sound intense and emotional, which I hope means it’ll be unputdownable.

The Women’s Professional Football League existed from 1965-1973, originally conceived as a publicity stunt by a businessman from Cleveland. The story is set “against the backdrop of second-wave feminism and the passage of Title IX, these athletes broke new barriers and showed adoring crowds what women were capable of physically.” Like A League of Their Own! But in the ’60s and with football. Yay.

Howard professor Harrison looks at the role enslaved Black men and women played in creating the United States. Harrison argues for a national memorial to honor “enslaved, Black-bodied people” and discusses those forced to build historic buildings like Jefferson’s home Monticello and Washington’s Mount Vernon. History!

I feel like we’re getting more and more culinary history these days, and I am here for it. I don’t even cook! But, y’know. I eat. So it feels relevant and interesting. Sen covers the 1940s to today, looking at seven immigrant women “who left an indelible mark on the way Americans eat today.” These women include “Mexican-born Elena Zelayeta, a blind chef; Marcella Hazan, the deity of Italian cuisine; and Norma Shirley, a champion of Jamaican dishes.” I love the phrase “the deity of Italian cuisine.” Well done, people.

Jerusalem is so old! And so much has happened there! Also, there are so many things under the ground everywhere that we don’t know about, which is fascinating, and here is a book about the stuff under one particular location. Lawler’s book “takes readers into the tombs, tunnels, and trenches of the Holy City” and “brings to life the indelible characters who have investigated this subterranean landscape.” Super neat.

I get to tell you about an actual nonfiction book I am actually reading right at this very moment! The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA by Jorge L. Contreras is an account of AMP v. Myriad, a case brought to the Supreme Court by the ALCU about the idea of gene patents. Contreras follows the case through the entire process, clearly explaining both complex scientific concepts and intricate legal maneuvering in ways I’ve found very engaging – no small feat! This book is great.

A gift item for you or a loved one! Or for an enemy if you really wanna CONFUSE them. This is a coffee table book with behind-the-scenes info, chit-chat, and illustrations of David’s sweaters and Moira’s wigs I cannot emphasize this enough. So exciting. Wow.

Author Contreras is an authority on human genetics law (again I say — there’s something for everyone). Here he dives into the case where an attorney “discovered that women were being charged exorbitant fees to test for hereditary breast and ovarian cancers, tests they desperately needed—all because Myriad Genetics had patented the famous BRCA genes.” They patented genes! So this attorney (Chris Hansen), the ACLU, and a whole team took the case to the Supreme Court. I do love a book that gets real into one court case.

Okay, so we know about the weirdo Brontës and their graveyard house, but what about their mother! This is a biography of Maria Branwell (yes! Branwell! like their ne’er-do-well brother), who died at 38 (Charlotte was six at this time) and moved from Cornwall to Yorkshire, which was probably pretty tough. What do we know of her? How did she influence her children? True questions we should get into in this bio.

This cover is so spooky! This is cool because we only hear about Salem or sometimes the witch trials in England during the 1640s, but not during the Spanish Inquisition (you probably didn’t expect that) or in Spain’s colonial territories in the Americas. This features ten essay portraits of women, which “study their subjects’ social status, particularize their motivations, determine the characteristics of their prosecution, and deduce the reasons used to justify violence against them.” And again — please look at that spooky cover.

His book explores how musicals are assembled, starting from the overture and concluding with the curtain call. He uses the structure of a musical to explain theater history, musical theory, and how hit-making musicals lead from one to another. I’ve never studied theatre officially, so this book was eye-opening for me. It helped me appreciate and feel more confident dissecting the shows I’ve loved and hated.

You may know Leslie Odom Jr. from a little-known musical called Hamilton. For his portrayal of Aaron Burr, Odom Jr. won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, but that role wasn’t just magical. In this book he shares the story of his hard work as a singer and actor and asks questions about how you can unlock your potential and achieve your goals. His stories are inspirational, motivational, and empowering. I bet this one is great on audio!

This book offers a history of Black performance from the Civil War through the 1960s, when performers like Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, and Sidney Poitier started to find their voice on stage. Lane chronicles the popularity of minstrel shows, Black performers during the Jazz Age, and early musicals of the 1930s that helped push the door open for other performers. We obviously still have a long way to go in helping Broadway reflect the diversity of our country, but this is a good look at some of the early changes.

In this book, Wolf dives deep into the female contributors of Broadway musicals – performers, creators, and characters. She starts during the Cold War and moves through the present, exploring assumptions about gender and sexuality, then moving on to deep dives to find feminist moments in many famous shows (with a special emphasis on Wicked, one of my favorite musicals!).

I’m on a real YA fantasy kick lately (I have thoughts about the Throne of Glass series that I don’t know what to do with), but I’m hoping I can get myself in a nonfiction headspace this weekend. The book that seems like it will do the trick is Code Name Badass: The True Story of Virginia Hall by Heather Demetrios. This YA nonfiction book is a funny and smart look at one of the most dangerous Allied spies of World War II. I can’t wait!

This is for ages 8 – 12! Which is extremely great because, as recently mentioned in this newsletter, it is v v difficult to get non-super-academic African history books in the US, and especially so for kids! This is about ten “real-life kings, queens, inventors, scholars, and visionaries who lived in Africa thousands of years ago and changed the world.” Ugh, so cool. Learn about Mansa Musa and Amanirenas and eight others!

The year is 1743. It’s prime smuggling time. The ship Rising Sun sells a group of enslaved people from Africa to the Dutch colony of Suriname and is sailing away when three of its sailors murder four people on board and mutiny, taking over the schooner. This is about the mutiny and “an international chocolate smuggling ring.” ALSO it’s from NYU Press, so it’s an academic press book!

The federal tipped minimum wage since 1991 (yes, that is thirty years) has been $2.13. Prior to COVID, six million people that we are aware of worked off this system, meaning when the pandemic hit, tons of them lost their jobs and the varied security that came with them. In Jayaraman’s newest book, she “shines a light on these workers, illustrating how the people left out of the fight for a fair minimum wage are society’s most marginalized: people of color, many of them immigrants; women, who form the majority of tipped workers; disabled workers; incarcerated workers; and youth workers.” Jayaraman is the director of the Food Labor Research Center at U-C Berkeley.

In 1799, the Rosetta Stone was discovered in Egypt. Carved in 196 BCE, it uses Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts, and also Ancient Greek. It is how we in the modern era could finally decipher Ancient Egyptian. DID the British steal it from Egypt in 1801 and haul it back to their country? Yes. It has been on display in the British Museum since 1802. Hm. But THIS book is about the translation itself and how two British and French guys decided to make it a big competition. It’s also about the culture of Egypt and I am a sucker for a book that talks about history and objects and dramatic happenings, even if those dramatic happenings were two dudes trying to be James Spader in Stargate.

Members of the Henrietta Lacks family have sued a biotech firm for using her cells for scientific research without permission. If you’re not familiar with the story of Henrietta Lacks, do yourself a favor and go get a copy of Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Read it, and then check out this story, which explains why her estate is suing Thermo Fisher Scientific for commercializing the HeLa line – with hints of more lawsuits on the way. This should be a fascinating story to watch develop.

I am excited that one of the National Book Award shortlisted titles came in for me from my local library this week – All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles. In the book, Miles traces the history of a family heirloom while also exploring “these women’s faint presence in archival records” and the story of slavery and life after in the United States. This one slipped off my radar when it came out earlier this summer, so I’m glad to have a chance at it now! 

Hossain grew up in Bangladesh, and never thought that she would almost die in childbirth in the United States, but she almost did. In this new release, she discusses how this experience “put her on a journey to explore, understand, and share how women—especially women of color—are dismissed to death by systemic sexism in American healthcare.” This is important!

The Howards! Just makes me remember how great Arrested Development is. Ron and his brother Clint’s memoir looks at their childhood on TV, including Andy Griffith and Happy Days. Kim and I were just talking about how dual memoirs can be so good because you get these two perspectives on what was going on and gets you a little closer to a true picture. Exciting.

I’m gonna throw some numbers at you: in the 1920s, American’s consumed 75% of the world’s rubber (primarily by having most of the cars), but America controlled 1% of the rubber supply. So, “to solve its conundrum, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company turned to a tiny West African nation, Liberia, founded in 1847 as a free Black republic” and turned it into America’s rubber empire through exploitation and environmental devastation. This is one of those things you don’t hear about, but which had a huge impact.

Law professor Hessick talks about “he unstoppable march of plea bargaining, which began to take hold during Prohibition and has skyrocketed since 1971, when it was affirmed as constitutional by the Supreme Court.” Read about the case against plea bargaining and how it can be reformed.

The history of Africa “has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity?” Author French is a professor at Columbia and was one of the New York Times‘s first Black correspondents, covering West and Central Africa in the ’90s. I am SUPER psyched for this book; there are not enough African history books published in the US.

I haven’t read Hurston’s nonfiction, so this travelogue written in the 1930s seems like it could be a lot of fun.

I feel like I should rename this section “Weekend Aspirations” because I have been consistently mentioning a book I’m jazzed about and then choosing to read something totally different. But I suppose that infinite choice is just the life of a reader, right? Anyway! This weekend I’m excited to pick up a book that just came out this week, Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef. This memoir is about the trials and triumphs of Diwan, an independent bookstore in Cairo with few peers in the city. The store was opened by three young friends who learned the ins and outs of bookselling to build a successful business “under the law of entropy.” It sounds so good!