This month in nonfiction features a bevy of fantastic cookbooks, page-turners that read like fiction, thoughtful (and funny) memoirs and a host of books to help us get through the day a bit more successfully. And don’t forget to check out this month’s Peak Picks in nonfiction.
What’s Cooking?
Chef (and recent transplant to Seattle) J. Kenji Lopez-Alt (Food Lab) returns with his second cookbook, The Wok. Dietician Nisha Melvani shares more than 100 plant-based recipes in Practically Vegan, and Steven Gundry (The Plant Paradox) shows readers how to eat more beneficial foods in Unlocking the Keto Code.
Memoirs, Celebrity and Otherwise.
In Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama, Bob Odenkirk charts his “inexplicable” career from seedy comedy clubs to starring roles in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul while director Sarah Polley tackles the vagaries of memory in Run Towards the Danger. Two books look back at coming of age in the 90s: “Everything Iconic” podcaster Danny Pellegrino revisits his youth as a Midwestern gay kid in How Do I Un-Remember This? while Liz Scheier reflects on her childhood with a mentally ill single parent in Never Simple. Beloved author Amy Bloom shares her struggles as her husband is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in In Love while New York Times columnist Frank Bruni considers hope amidst loss as he partially loses his eyesight in The Beauty of Dusk. Tony Award-winner and gay icon Harvey Fierstein reveals all in his hilarious memoir I Was Better Last Night, while revolutionary queer comic Hannah Gadsby looks at her childhood in Australia and its impact on her comedy in Ten Steps to Nanette. And Marie Yovanovitch, ambassador to Ukraine until she was famously fired by Donald Trump, provides valuable insight into her life and work in Lessons From the Edge.
Narrative Nonfiction & Gripping Histories.
Private investigator Erika Krouse uncovers a culture of sexual assault at a university while reckoning with her own history with sexual violence in Tell Me Everything. Dr. Benjamin Gilmer learns that a former doctor at his clinic – who had the same last name – committed a shocking crime, but finds the pieces don’t add up in The Other Dr. Gilmer. Fintan O’Toole considers Ireland’s transformation in just a generation in We Don’t Know Ourselves while Caroline Elkins assesses the British Empire’s commitment to suppressing unrest among its colonies during the 20th century in Legacy of Violence, and historian Helen Rappaport tells the story of the Russians who took exile in Paris following the Russian Revolution in After the Romanovs.
Books for What Ails Us.
Dr. Daniel G. Amen (Change Your Brain, Change Your Life) reveals the seven secrets of feeling good in You, Happier; meanwhile Emmanuel Acho (Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man) throws conventional wisdom out the window to become a change-maker in Illogical. In The Shame Machine, Cathy O’Neil (Weapons of Math Destruction) uncovers who profits in the new age of humiliation dominated by social media and hyper-partisan politics, while Azar Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Tehran) returns with a guide to the subversive power of literature in troubled times in Read Dangerously. And in the latest from Deepak Chopra, Abundance, he teaches readers how to overcome fear to achieve fulfillment in all aspects of life, while cleaning and decluttering expert Matt Paxton shares a fail-proof approach to downsizing in Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff.
Science & Nature.
Pulitzer Prize winner Jack E. Davis (The Gulf) looks at the improbable journey of America’s bird in The Bald Eagle while Oliver Milman considers the impending collapse of the planet’s tiniest creatures in The Insect Crisis. David Haskell reveals the world’s acoustic diversity, and the threats to it, in Sounds Wild and Broken; and John W. Reid explores the Earth’s five megaforests whose survival is key to the health of the planet in Ever Green.
Last But Not Least…
More than 50 of Margaret Atwood’s essays from 2004 forward are compiled in the funny and curious collection Burning Questions; Ryan North (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl) takes a tounge-in-cheek look at how technology can aid the aspiring supervillain in How to Take Over the World; and Jeff Yang tours Asian American pop history from the 90s to today in Rise.
~posted by Frank B.
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