Here are my picks for notable new nonfiction. Book/movie puns in titles seemed to be popular this week, with A Call to Farms, True Gretch, and Die Hot With a Vengeance.
THIS WEEK’S NOTABLE NEW NONFICTION
- Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics, by Elle Reeve. Award-winning journalist and CNN correspondent Elle Reeve was not surprised by the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. With years of in-depth research and on-the-ground investigative reporting under her belt, Reeve was aware of the preoccupations of the online far right and their journey from the computer to QAnon, militias, and racist groups. With a sharp eye for detail and a dash of dark humor, Reeve explains the origins of this shocking sweep of political violence. Drawing on countless interviews with sources in the white nationalist movement as well as hundreds of as-yet-unseen documents, she takes us on a surreal journey from the darkest corners of the internet to the most significant and chilling scenes of real-world political violence in generations. “A sharp exposé that does much to explain a strange, dangerous underground movement steadily emerging into daylight.” —Kirkus
- The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism, by Joe Conason. From the “professional anti-communists” (whose tactics even J. Edgar Hoover despised) to the “populist” grifters of the Tea Party movement and the religious charlatans of the “prosperity gospel” (who provided a pious front for Trump), the right-wing ripoff has remained remarkably consistent, even as personalities change and new technologies emerge: Stir up anger and resentment, demonize political opponents, promise vengeance, and collect donations from the gullible. It’s a highly lucrative game that any unscrupulous charlatan can play, as many have – and they are named in these pages. In an unsparing and often comic narrative, Joe Conason explores the right’s long, steep descent into a movement whose principal aim is not to protect freedom or defend the Constitution, but merely to line the pockets of pretenders and blowhards whose malevolent tactics now endanger the nation. “From Roy Cohn to Donald Trump, Conason shows that the degradation of democracy isn’t just a shame, it’s a booming business." – Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money
- True Gretch: What I've Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between, by Gretchen Whitmer. From trailblazing Michigan governor and rising Democratic star Gretchen Whitmer comes an unconventionally honest, personal, and funny account of her remarkable life and career, full of insights that guided her through a global pandemic, showdowns with high-profile bullies, and even a kidnapping and assassination plot. “True Gretch is filled with wonderful stories detailing an important public servant’s commitment to doing what is right for the people. This book is both a roadmap for how to get things done and a source of inspiration for engaged citizens in our democracy. It is also funny, bringing much-needed joy to the reader during a time of great solemnity.”— Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives
- Democracy in Retrograde: How to Make Changes Big and Small in Our Country and in Our Lives, by Sami Sage and Emily Amick. In today’s political climate, it’s hard not to get discouraged. Isolated, doom scrolling, lacking a sense of purpose or community...it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the dire state of American democracy and do nothing, because why try when the odds are never in our favor? At this fragile moment in history, Emily Amick, lawyer and former counsel to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, alongside New York Times bestselling author and Betches Media cofounder Sami Sage, want to reframe civic engagement as a form of self-care: an assertion of one’s values and self-respect. This book is not just about voting, but about claiming your singular place in your country and community. “A smart, pop culture–inflected guide to civic engagement… While the tone is geared toward millennial women—there’s more than one Real Housewives reference here—the pragmatic advice applies across the board.”—Publishers Weekly
- Other Rivers: A Chinese Education, by Peter Hessler. More than two decades after teaching English during the early part of China’s economic boom, an experience chronicled in his book River Town, Peter Hessler returned to Sichuan Province to instruct students from the next generation. At the same time, Hessler and his wife enrolled their twin daughters in a local state-run elementary school, where they were the only Westerners. Over the years, Hessler had kept in close contact with many of the people he had taught in the 1990s. By reconnecting with these individuals—members of China’s “Reform generation,” now in their forties—while teaching current undergrads, Hessler gained a unique perspective on China’s incredible transformation. In Peter Hessler’s hands, China’s education system is the perfect vehicle for examining the country’s past, present, and future, and what we can learn from it, for good and ill. "The students whose stories fill Other Rivers are funny but also super-serious, idealistic but also cynical, hopeful but also resigned—and in all ways memorable. They are China’s next generation, and we are fortunate to be able to meet them in this book.” —James Fallows
- The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora, by Wendy Pearlman. In 2011, Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom. Brutal government repression transformed peaceful protests into one of the most devastating conflicts of our times, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing millions. The Home I Worked to Make takes Syria’s refugee outflow as its point of departure. Based on hundreds of interviews conducted across more than a decade, it probes a question as intimate as it is universal: What is home? With gripping immediacy, Syrians now on five continents share stories of leaving, losing, searching, and finding (or not finding) home. “When I opened this book, I expected to learn a lot about Syria; I didn't expect to learn so much about the meaning of home. Individually, these are urgent stories, beautifully crafted in simple, elegant prose. Collectively, they are a powerful reflection on home, on Syria, and on the inner struggles of its diaspora. A must-read for anyone who has ever craved home.”— Dina Nayeri, author of The Ungrateful Refugee and Who Gets Believed?
- Devil's Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain, by Ed Simon. From ancient times to the modern world, the idea of the Faustian bargain—the exchange of one's soul in return for untold riches and power—has exerted a magnetic pull upon our collective imaginations. Scholar Ed Simon takes us on a historical tour of the Faustian bargain, from the Bible to blues, and illustrates how the impulse to sacrifice our principles in exchange for power is present in all kinds of social ills, from colonialism to nuclear warfare, from social media to climate change to AI, and beyond. In doing so, Simon conveys just how much the Faustian bargain shows us about power and evil ... and ourselves. "Simon’s survey of the long history and mysterious psychology of the notion of a deal with the devil is many things—wild, entertaining, absorbing, learned, witty, acute—but it is also, in its final movement, prophetic and charged with an unsettling moral clarity." —David Bentley Hart
- Madoff: The Final Word, by Richard Behar. Some $68 billion evaporated during Bernie Madoff’s epic confidence game. Two people were driven to suicide in the wake of the Ponzi Scheme’s exposure. Others went to prison. But there has never been a satisfying accounting for how Bernie got away with so much, for so long. Until now. Richard Behar’s relationship with Madoff began in 2011 with a simple email request from the inmate. By the time Madoff died in 2021, he had sent Behar more than 300 emails and dozens of handwritten letters, participated in some fifty phone conversations, and sat for three in-person jailhouse interviews—a level of access provided to no other reporter. Behar also established relationships with hundreds of regulators, prosecutors, FBI agents, investors, Wall Street experts, ex-employees of Madoff’s, family members, school classmates, and others. The result is the final word on the criminal behind history’s most enduring fraud—and on those who believed him, covered for him, or locked him up.
- The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within, by Cory Richards. Growing up in the mountains of Utah, Cory Richards was constantly surrounded by the outdoors. His father, a high school teacher and a ski patroller, spent years teaching Richards and his brother how to ski, climb, mountaineer, and survive in the wild. Despite a seemingly idyllic childhood, the Richards home was fraught with violence, grief, and mental illness. After being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and dropping out of high school, Richards subsumed himself in the worlds of photography and climbing, seeking out the farthest reaches of the world to escape the darkness. Then, in the midst of a wildly successful career in adventure photography, a catastrophic avalanche changed everything, forcing Richards to confront the trauma of his past, evaluate his own mental health, and learn to rewrite his story. “Cory Richards tells this hard story with the same ferocious intensity, wit, and elegant keenness by which he has made stunning photographs and climbed killer mountains. The combination of risk and aplomb is amazing.”—David Quammen
- A Call to Farms: Reconnecting to Nature, Food, and Community in a Modern World, by Jennifer Grayson. Within a decade, nearly half of all American farmland will change hands as an older generation of farmers steps aside. In their place, a groundswell of new growers will face numerous challenges, including soil degradation, insufficient income, and investors devouring farmland at a staggering pace. These new farmers are embracing regenerative agriculture—the holistic approach to growing food that restores the soil and biodiversity—in the movement to reclaim our health and the planet’s. But can their efforts help reverse an epidemic of diet-related disease, food inequality, and even climate change? “In this deeply inspiring book, Jennifer Grayson examines the motives, practices, problems, and successes of a diverse collection of young, small-scale farmers growing food sustainably and achieving enormous satisfaction and joy in the process. The farmers provide abundant reasons for hope in the future of food that’s healthier for producers, people, and the planet. If you’re looking for hope, here it is.”— Marion Nestle
- Die Hot with a Vengeance: Essays on Vanity, by Sable Yong. Journalist and former Allure editor Sable Yong debuts with a sharp-toothed and hilarious essay collection about beauty and vanity, examining their stigmatization in the cultural zeitgeist, and how to shift the focus to use both for powerful tools for self-exploration, interpersonal connection, and cultural change. “Throughout Die Hot With A Vengeance, Yong emphasizes the practicalities of beauty, because in the end beauty is not a moral imperative, not a rulebook, not a winner-takes-all competition. It should be whimsical, personal, and never anchored to just one ideal, much like this book itself.” — The Brooklyn Rail
- Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation, by Emily Van Duyne. Sylvia Plath is an object of enduring cultural fascination—the troubled patron saint of confessional poetry, a writer whose genius is buried under the weight of her status as the quintessential literary sad girl. Emily Van Duyne—a superfan and scholar—radically reimagines the last years of Plath’s life, confronts her suicide and the construction of her legacy. Drawing from decades of study on Plath and her husband, Ted Hughes, the chief architect of Plath’s mythology; the life and tragic suicide of Assia Wevill, Hughes’s mistress; newly available archival materials; and a deep understanding of intimate partner violence, Van Duyne seeks to undo the silencing of Sylvia Plath and resuscitate her as the hardworking, brilliant writer she was. “[A] deeply researched analysis of how the popular myth of Plath’s life, one that subordinates her poetry to her depression and her suicide, was constructed by Hughes and maintained by critics from the time of her death in 1963 to the present.”— BookPage
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