February is brimming with eclectic essay collections, incisive memoirs, practical tools for self care, and perceptive observations on current events. Check out some of the most anticipated books for the month.
MSNBC’s Joy-Ann Reid traces the lives of civil rights icons Medgar & Myrlie Evers. Katie Rogers considers the transformation of the modern First Lady in
American Woman while Jared Cohen explores what happens when presidents search for purpose beyond the White House in Life After Power. Amitav Ghosh unravels the impact of the opium trade on global history in Smoke and Ashes
and Anna Reid considers the West’s failed intervention into the Russian Civil War in A Nasty Little War. Closer to home, John O’Connor asks why many want to believe in a North American monster in The Secret History of Bigfoot. And novelist Philippa Gregory redefines our understanding of feminist history in Normal Women.
“Today Show” co-host Savannah Guthrie reflects on faith, life and love in Mostly What God Does while WNBA player A’ja Wilson inspires with a call to be true to yourself in Dear Black Girls. Corey Keyes teaches us how to feel alive again in a world that wears us down in Languishing and Emily Ballesteros guides readers to develop better habits, find balance, and reclaim their lives in
The Cure for Burnout. Sue Varma shares the art, science, and practice of exceptional well-being in Practical Optimism while Ramani Durvasula helps people identify and heal from narcissistic people in It’s Not You.
Sloane Crosley pens a touching memoir about the suicide of her best friend and coping in the aftermath in Grief is for People. Shannon Reed celebrates the joy of books, bookworms, librarians and other lovers of literature in Why We Read and Joan Acocella examines the books that reveal and record our world in The Bloodied Nightgown and Other Essays. Bianca Bosker goes on a journey among the artists and obsessive art fiends who taught her how to see in Get the Picture. Sheila Heti thrills with a record of her thoughts over a ten-year period in Alphabetical Diaries and Benjamin Ruha urges us to challenge systems of oppression to create a world in which everyone can thrive in Imagination.
Billy Dee Williams recalls his eight decades as an accomplished actor in What Have We Here? while figure skater Gracie Gold shares how she survived mental illness, eating disorders, and the self-destructive voice inside that she calls Outofshapeworthlessloser. Mary V. Dearborn delivers the first major biography of Carson McCullers, Robert P. Kolker paints an in-depth portrait of groundbreaking filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, and Paul Alexander looks at the heartache and triumph of Billie Holiday’s last year in Bitter Crop. Calvin Trillin shares dispatches from a life in the press with The Lede.
Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez recalls how she was separated from her parents when they were forced back to Mexico in My Side of the River while Rob Henderson recounts growing up in foster care and reckoning with social class in Troubled. Brontez Purnell pens a wrenching, sexy, and exhilaratingly energetic memoir in verse with Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt while Leslie Jamison tells a different kind of love story—one that comes after the end of a marriage—in Splinters. Richard Paul Evans, the “king of Christmas fiction,” reveals lessons from an unlikely life in Sharing Too Much. Shayla Lawson journeyed across the globe in the decolonial memoir How We Live Free in a Dangerous World and Chantha Nguon recounts her life as a Cambodian refugee in Slow Noodles. Deborah Jackson Taffa recalls coming of age on and off the Yuma and Navajo reservations in Whiskey Tender, and Lucy Sante views her life from the transformative lens of her recent transition in the autobiography I Heard Her Call My Name.
Kara Swisher delivers a witty, scathing but fair accounting of the tech industry in Burn Book. Adam Gamal shares his story fighting terrorists as one of America’s most secret military operatives in The Unit while Steve Coll tells the definitive story of the origins of America’s invasion of Iraq in The Achilles Trap. Rachel Bitecofer urges the Democratic Party to save democracy by beating Republicans at their own game in Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts while Hamilton Nolan details the struggle for the soul of American labor in The Hammer. Finally, Alexander Ward chronicles the fight to restore American foreign policy after Trump in The Internationalists; Barbara McQuade explains how disinformation is sabotaging America in Attack From Within; and Eric Klinenberg inventories how the U.S. and other nations responded to the extraordinary challenges of that seminal year, 2020.
Don’t forget this month’s fabulous selection of Peak Picks!
~posted by Frank
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