All in Non-fiction
Whenever my mom or I review a non-fiction book, we comment on the rarity of the genre appearing on our reading lists. And yet somehow, of the last 11 books I’ve read, seven were non-fiction! Year Of Yes I reviewed in November (read review here). But rather than choosing just two books to share with you this month, I’ve written a rapid-fire round-up and hope to spark more non-fiction interest on your reading list.
Just Kids was a surprise hit for me since I didn't really know that much about Patti Smith. Smith's autobiography focuses mainly on her relationship with Robert Maplethorpe, about whom I also knew very little.
Frazer creates masterful, sweeping surveys of women in history and Warrior Queens is no exception. She starts with Queen Boudicea from 1st century Britain and builds her case from there all the way through to Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher.
This gorgeous, dark, difficult book was well worth the read. With prose-like poetry, Hartman weaves stories of Black women around the turn of the last century who don’t fit the mold or keep their heads down together with stories on how society punishes them.
In this memoir we have another very funny television personality as the author. Shannon had some very difficult moments in her life, which made this book a much tougher read than I anticipated.
Written by the creator of NBC’s The Good Place, this book is both very funny, and taught me the history of moral philosophy. More than that, it gave me a framework of how to approach everyday and extraordinary decisions from a moral point of view.
Samra Habib is an Ahmadi Muslim who spent her early childhood in Pakistan before fleeing persecution with her family and settling in Toronto. As a young teen in Canada, Habib faces huge challenges from bullying to being the sole translator for her parents as they navigate a whole new bureaucracy.
For those who don’t know, Shonda Rhimes is the creator and head writer of several of the most popular TV shows of the last 15 years: Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder. In addition, her production company Shondaland produces many other shows, including the smash hit Bridgerton. On top of that, she’s a Dartmouth grad, and for all of these reasons, I love her.
This collection of essays by Black women authors, poets and activists is about reading, books and how seeing themselves represented by a character or author changed the way they saw themselves. Naturally, many of the contributors cite Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker–all of whom I encountered as a high schooler at the Winsor School. I have now committed to revisiting them as my memory of these classic writers is hazy at best.
Lessons From the Edge provides another perfect example of why I love being in a book club. I would never have read this book on my own. But because it was a selection for my Boston Bates Alumnae Book Club, I read it and found it fascinating.
Invisible Women delivers on the promise of its title and will open your eyes to the millions of tiny (and sometimes enormous) ways in which women are left out of the functional design of our world today. It is a very statistics-heavy book and the ultimate conclusion is right there in the title, but the details are shocking and myriad.
Appearing on many recommended reading lists in the past year, I definitely found that Crying in H Mart lived up to the hype. Although Zauner might not be the most skilled writer, she presents her story so truthfully and vulnerably I found I couldn't help but be drawn in.
Here’s a fact not many people know about me: In addition to studying theater during my undergrad years, I was also a psychology major with a focus in developmental psychology. I often say theater and psychology are two different ways of studying the same thing–how the human brain works and how we interact with other humans. Hidden Valley Road dives deeply into the history, biology and treatment of schizophrenia, but it also has a large helping of drama.
With an absolutely stunning originality, Robin Wall Kimmerer takes her vast knowledge of plants from her scientific viewpoint as a PhD and Professor of Environmental Biology, and combines it with her perspective as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation to offer an alternate view on how we might look at the world and our place in it.
he Book of Joy came out of an amazing one-week meeting in 2015 when Archbishop Tutu traveled to India to celebrate his good friend, the Dalai Lama’s, eightieth birthday. With the author Douglas Abrams as witness and scribe, these two iconic figures reflected on the question: How can we find joy given life’s inevitable suffering?
You may know Michael Lewis from any of his previous successful books: The Big Short; The Blind Side; Moneyball; Liar’s Poker. In each of those books, Lewis took a timely topic, researched it well and wrote a compelling expose type of book. The Premonition fits that model.
This collection of essays is raunchy, self deprecating and hilarious, although definitely not for everyone. Irby’s writing made me laugh out loud as she describes moving in with her wife, her aging body, working as a writer on Shrill and living on the brink of poverty.
Another book where the title says it all. I have reviewed parenting books for L&L before and I wanted to be sure to pass this on to anyone in the toddler phase of parenting.
Not at all what I expected from the title, this book reads almost like a diary of the year following the sudden and unexpected death of Didion’s husband.
The title almost says it all: a very niche theatre book about the director/choreographer of Hello, Dolly! and 42nd Street. A fascinating portrait of an artist who was always looking to create something bigger and better.
