Greetings, everyone. Another modest Nonfiction Views this week with just the list of the top new nonfiction. Next week I’ll have a full-fledged review...I promise!
I’m once again one of the judges in the annual Reading the West awards sponsored by the Mountain and Plains Independent Book Association. Two years ago I was a judge in the History category. This year I’m a judge in the Biography and Memoir category, and the book entries from publishers are piling up by my desk. The longlist, shortlist and winners will be announced over the course of the Spring.
THIS WEEK’S NEW NONFICTION
- Find Me the Votes: A Hard-Charging Georgia Prosecutor, a Rogue President, and the Plot to Steal an American Election, by Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman. Two years of immersive reporting by Isikoff and Klaidman has produced the most authoritative and dramatic account yet of a defeated president’s conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and how a local Georgia prosecutor—a daughter of the civil rights movement—decided to indict him and his allies for his desperate attempt to hold on to power. From the beginning, Fani Willis saw Donald Trump’s crimes as a voting rights case, and an attempt by the former president to deprive the citizens of Georgia of the franchise, a right for which her forebears had bled.
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Taking Down Trump: 12 Rules for Prosecuting Donald Trump by Someone Who Did It Successfully, by Tristan Snell. UPDATE! GLITCH FIXED! Link now leads to The Literate Lizard. At the moment, there is some weird glitch that is preventing this book from showing up on indie bookstore websites like mine running on the American Bookseller Association eCommerce platform. It comes up on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but I’ve tried several indie sites and the same thing happens. I’ve contacted the ABA and hope it wil be resolved soon. Snell—a former assistant attorney general for New York State who took on and beat Trump in a court of law—argues that Donald Trump can indeed be defeated, and shares his secrets for how to beat him. Snell led New York State’s prosecution of Donald Trump for defrauding hundreds of Trump University students, resulting in Trump having to shell out $25 million to his victims —Trump’s first and only major legal loss to date.
- One Nation Under Guns: How Gun Culture Distorts Our History and Threatens Our Democracy, by Dominic Erdozain. Historian Dominic Erdozain argues that we have wrongly ceded the big-picture argument on guns: As we parse legislation on background checks and automatic-weapons bans, we fail to ask what place guns should have in a functioning democracy. Taking readers on a brilliant historical journey, Erdozain shows how the founders feared the tyranny of individuals as much as the tyranny of kings—the idea that any person had a right to walk around armed was anathema to their notion of freedom and the peaceful republic they hoped to build. They wrote these ideas into the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, ideas that were subsequently affirmed by two centuries of jurisprudence. And yet the twin scourges of racism and nationalism would combine to create a darker American vision—a rogue and reckless freedom based on birth and blood. It was this freedom, not the liberty promised by the Constitution, that generated our modern gun culture, with its mystic conceptions of good guys and bad guys, innocence and guilt.
- What We've Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms, by Jonathan M. Metzl. In What We’ve Become, Metzl reckons both with the long history of distrust of public health and the larger forces—social, ideological, historical, racial, and political—that allow mass shootings to occur on a near daily basis in America. Looking closely at the cycle in which mass shootings lead to shock, horror, calls for action, and, ultimately, political gridlock, he explores what happens to the soul of a nation—and the meanings of safety and community—when we normalize violence as an acceptable trade-off for freedom. Mass shootings and our inability to stop them have become more than horrific crimes: they are an American national autobiography.
- School Moms: Parent Activism, Partisan Politics, and the Battle for Public Education, by Laura Pappano. An on-the-ground look at the rise of parent activism in response to the far-right attacks on public school education. For well over a century, public schools have been a non-partisan gathering place and vital center of civic life in America--but something has changed. In School Moms, journalist Laura Pappano explores the on-the-ground story of how public schools across the country have become ground zero in a cultural and political war as the far-right have made efforts to seek power over school boards. “Pappano strips away the mask of right-wing ‘parents’ and ‘moms’ cabals to reveal their political strategy: a fear-driven assault on public schools. But she presents hope too—in teachers, principals, librarians, and, yes, caring moms and parents who fight for their communities.”
—Maurice T. Cunningham
- The Secret Lives of Numbers: A Hidden History of Math's Unsung Trailblazers, by Kate Kitagawa and Timothy Revell. A new history of mathematics focusing on the marginalized voices who propelled the discipline, spanning six continents and thousands of years of untold stories. Our story takes us from Hypatia, the first great female mathematician, whose ideas revolutionized geometry and who was killed for them—to Karen Uhlenbeck, the first woman to win the Abel Prize, “math’s Nobel.” Along the way we travel the globe to meet the brilliant Arabic scholars of the “House of Wisdom,” a math temple whose destruction in the Siege of Baghdad in the thirteenth century was a loss arguably on par with that of the Library of Alexandria; Madhava of Sangamagrama, the fourteenth-century Indian genius who uncovered the central tenets of calculus 300 years before Isaac Newton was born; and the Black mathematicians of the Civil Rights era, who played a significant role in dismantling early data-based methods of racial discrimination.
- The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives, by Ernest Scheyder. A new economic war for critical minerals has begun, and The War Below is an urgent dispatch from its front lines. To build electric vehicles, solar panels, cell phones, and millions of other devices means the world must dig more mines to extract lithium, copper, and other vital building blocks. But mines are deeply unpopular, even as they have a role to play in fighting climate change and powering crucial technologies. These tensions have sparked a worldwide reckoning over the sourcing of necessary materials, and no one understands the complexities of these issues better than Ernest Scheyder, whose exclusive access to sites around the globe has allowed him to gain unparalleled insights into a future without fossil fuels. A book I reviewed here a couple weeks ago, covers similar territory: Nonfiction Views: Pitfall:The Race to Mine the World's Most Vulnerable Places, by Christopher Pollon
- The Grift: The Downward Spiral of Black Republicans from the Party of Lincoln to the Cult of Trump, by Clay Cane. After the Civil War, the pillars of Black Republicanism were a balanced critique of both political parties, civil rights for all Americans, reinventing an economy based on exploitation, and, most importantly, building thriving Black communities. How did Black Republicanism devolve from revolutionaries like Frederick Douglass to the puppets in the Trump era? Whether it's radical conservatives like South Carolina Senator Tim Scott or Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, they are consistently viral news and continuously upholding egregious laws at the expense of their Black brethren. Black faces in high places providing cover for explicit bigotry is one of the greatest threats to the liberation of Black and brown people. By studying these figures and their tactics, Cane exposes the grift and lays out a plan to emancipate our future. "I've long maintained that the easiest way to make a fast buck in 2023 is to go on a GOP-MAGA grift. Clay lays out in a clear and concise manner how morally bankrupt these people are." -- Roland Martin
- Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis, by Jonathan Blitzer. An epic, heartbreaking, and deeply reported history of the disastrous humanitarian crisis at the southern border told through the lives of the migrants forced to risk everything and the policymakers who determine their fate, by New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer. This vast and unremitting crisis did not spring up overnight. Indeed, as Blitzer dramatizes with forensic, unprecedented reporting, it is the result of decades of misguided
- policy and sweeping corruption. Brilliantly weaving the stories of Central Americans whose lives have been devastated by chronic political conflict and violence with those of American activists, government officials, and the politicians responsible for the country’s tragically tangled immigration policy, Blitzer reveals the full, layered picture for the first time.
- Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti, by Jake Johnston. The author, a researcher and writer at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, reveals how long-standing US and European capitalist goals ensnared and re-enslaved Haiti under the guise of helping it. To the global West, Haiti has always been a place where labor is cheap, politicians are compliant, and profits are to be made. Over the course of nearly 100 years, the US has sought to control Haiti and its people with occupying police, military, and euphemistically-called peacekeeping forces, as well as hand-picked leaders meant to quell uprisings and protect corporate interests. Earthquakes and hurricanes only further devastated a state already decimated by the aid industrial complex. “With precision, empathy, and an engaging narrative style, Johnston shines a light on the relentless battle for and against Haiti, challenging readers to confront the injustices inflicted upon a nation that continues to resist against all odds." - Edwidge Danticat
- Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World—and How You Can, Too, by Ijeoma Oluo. In her So You Want To Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo offered a vital guide for how to talk about important issues of race and racism in society. In Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, she discussed the ways in which white male supremacy has had an impact on our systems, our culture, and our lives throughout American history. But now that we better understand these systems of oppression, the question is this: What can we do about them? Oluo aims to show how people across America are working to create real positive change in our structures. Looking at many of our most powerful systems—like education, media, labor, health, housing, policing, and more—she highlights what people are doing to create change for intersectional racial equity. She also illustrates various ways in which the reader can find entryways into change in these same areas, or can bring some of this important work being done elsewhere to where they live.
- Becoming Gandhi: My Experiment Living the Mahatma's 6 Moral Truths in Immoral Times, by Perry Garfinkel. Veteran journalist and author Perry Garfinkel sets out on a three-year quest to examine how Gandhi’s ideals have held up in a world beset by troubling trends. “As I saw myself and society moving further away from a moral point of view,” Garfinkel states, “I wanted to see if an ordinary person living in the 21st century could, like Gandhi, follow a morally driven game plan.” While tracing Gandhi’s legacy through India, England, South Africa, and even American communities where his spirit endures, Garfinkel attempts to follow six of the key principles that guided the Mahatma’s life. To many, Gandhi was a beacon of hope; to others, a lightning rod for controversy. As Perry Garfinkel found, walking (and even stumbling) in Gandhi’s footsteps can reveal how we each have a role to play in creating a more compassionate, peaceful world.
- A Short History of Trans Misogyny, by Jules Gill-Peterson. Award-winning historian Jules Gill-Peterson takes us from the bustling port cities of New York and New Orleans to the streets of London and Paris in search of the emergence of modern trans misogyny. She connects the colonial and military districts of the British Raj, the Philippines, and Hawai’i to the lively travesti communities of Latin America, where state violence has stamped a trans label on vastly different ways of life. Weaving together the stories of historical figures in a richly detailed narrative, the book shows how trans femininity emerged under colonial governments, the sex work industry, the policing of urban public spaces, and the area between the formal and informal economy.
- Dear Sister: A Memoir of Secrets, Survival, and Unbreakable Bonds, by Michelle Horton. In September 2017, a knock on the door from police upends Michelle Horton’s life forever: her sister had just shot her partner and was now in jail. Everything Michelle thought she knew about her family unraveled in that moment. During the investigation that follows, Michelle learns that Nikki had been hiding horrific abuse for years. In this exquisite memoir, Michelle retraces the sisters’ childhood and explores how so many people, including herself, could have been blind to the abuse. An intimate look at a family surviving trauma, Dear Sister is a deeply personal story about what it takes to be believed and the danger of keeping truths hidden.
- Errand into the Maze: The Life and Works of Martha Graham, by Deborah Jowitt. In the pantheon of American modernists, few figures loom larger than Martha Graham. One of the greatest choreographers ever to live, Graham pioneered a revolutionary dance technique—primal, dynamic, and rooted in the emotional life of the body—that upended traditional vocabulary and shaped generations of dancers and choreographers across the globe. And along the way, she engaged with the major debates, events, and ideas of the twentieth century, creating works that cut to the core of the human experience. Jowitt draws on more than a decade of firsthand research to deliver the definitive portrait of this titan.
- The 100 Trillion Dollar Wealth Transfer: How the Handover from Boomers to Gen Z Will Revolutionize Capitalism, by Ken Costa. An insider's look into how Generation Z's focus on ethics, climate change and purpose will change capitalism forever. In the next ten years there will be an unprecedented wealth transfer from the so-called 'baby boomer' generation to the young. Costa works with this new generation and shows how environmental concerns and anxiety about equality and diversity are more than mere slogans; instead they are driving the future of the markets. So many issues stem from the reality of the financial gap between age groups - from cancel culture and fears about wokeness, to generation rent, protest movements and re-evaluations of history around subjects such as empire. Costa also shows how we can build a more inclusive, purposeful capitalism, which shifts focus away from the individual and more towards collaboration, compassion and community.
All book links in this diary are to my online bookstore The Literate Lizard. If you already have a favorite indie bookstore, please keep supporting them, but If you’re able to throw a little business my way, that would be truly appreciated. I would love to be considered ‘The Official Bookstore of Daily Kos.’ Use the coupon code DAILYKOS for 15% off your order, in gratitude for your support (an ever-changing smattering of new releases are already discounted 20% each week). I’m busily adding new content every day, and will have lots more dedicated subject pages and curated booklists as it grows. I want it to be full of book-lined rabbit holes to lose yourself in (and maybe throw some of those books into a shopping cart as well.)
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