On Memorial Day, We Read Non-Fiction
It's edition 76, what is time even
Oh, you were expecting beach rewards for the beginning of summer 2022? Beach reads? For summer? How groundbreaking.
No! We will defy the norms! We contain multitudes! We are goddamn cheetahs and Glennon Doyle says we cannot be tamed! Also, if helps, I have actually read some of these books on a literal beach which reminds me of one of my spiciest takes: reading on a beach is actually terrible. Yes, I SAID IT! There’s all that sand. And it’s too bright! Or it’s too hot! Or it’s too cool and windy! You can’t get comfortable. And did I mention all the sand? No, God in their infinite wisdom made couches, cats and weighted blankets for a reason and who am I to flout this infallible rightness?
Anyway, I’m always thrilled to find non-fiction that challenges my thinking and helps me understand systems or societies better, while, and this is key, still being readable. With every passing year, I believe ever more strongly that true expertise makes complexity accessible, and any writing that cloaks itself in fussy academic flourishes or dense in-concepts is trying to convince you of the author’s intelligence more than trying to convey their point. Not every dissertation needs to be published, y’all!
Or, I drank too much Diet Coke in my twenties and my brain is mush. I guess either could be correct.
Here are some non-fiction suggestions that I’ve appreciated for their substance and for their style - and let me know some of your favorites in the comments.
All That She Carried unwinds the story, the history, and the significance of a cotton sack given by an enslaved woman to her enslaved woman who was being sold away from her in 1850’s South Carolina. This is both fascinatingly researched and unpacked around various topics like seeds, writing, historical record, clothing, and hair. It also very pointedly and poignantly gives narrative to the people and ideas who have been lost to the holes in history, who were undervalued, whether that’s pursuits like textiles or clothing, or the very Black women themselves.
In all candor I will admit that sometimes this veers into slightly academic territory at the expense of readability, both through rigidity of structure on one end and the author’s penchant for saying things like “Would it be too much of a reach to suggest that this seed indicates outer space” or something else that’s more fitting for the lecture hall (the answer is usually yes, Tiya, it sure would be.) But it’s a really interesting look at concepts and people who don’t usually take center stage in history.
Do non-fiction books need gentle lamb ratings? Okay, this one’s a 2-lamber due to the unrelenting horrors of slavery and American history that come up, though they are not rendered in any particularly visceral way.
So I actually read The Righteous Mind on a beach, which goes to show you that anything can be a beach read if you try hard enough. Written by a social psychologist, this covers why people cling to irrational thinking, why different groups often think the way they do, and why it’s so hard to change someone’s mind.
This is probably the closest I’ll get to reading or recommending a business book so listen up if that’s your jam! This is, as my boss who recommended it says, “a framework book” but a pretty readable one, with concepts I go back to regularly about how humans form their opinions. Unfortunately it does not really lay out how to heal the political/religious schisms, but you can’t have everything.
Committed, the book Liz Gilbert wrote after Eat, Pray, Love, is a book I really liked but which nobody else seems to have read. It’s a mostly anthropological look at the institution of marriage across cultures and eras, with some memoir sprinkled in.
Listen. If you love Liz Gilbert this won’t have nearly enough memoir in it, and if you are inclined to dislike her, you’ll probably still be annoyed by how much she inserts her tortured grappling with the concept of marriage. (Gee, with a review like that, I wonder why no one read it? What a mystery.) But I actually kind of wish all social science was written as winningly, as humorously, and as personally as this book. I read this probably ten years ago and then I just re-read it last month, because a lot of her conclusions, anecdotes and explorations of being a wife, being a woman, and being a partner continue to resonate.
From the Archive
Far From the Tree - an absolute tour de force exploring group identities ranging from being Deaf to being “gifted” to being the parent of a killer. I loved all of the 976 pages.
Animals in Translation - another book that has truly made an indelible imprint on how I think about the world, and people, and animals. Written by an autistic woman who contends that her worldview is more similar to animals than to neurotypical people, and what we can learn from that.
Just Mercy - perhaps more memoir than true non-fiction but definitely something you should read. It’s the story of an idealistic lawyer who takes on the broken criminal justice system. Screams beach read, amirite? But actually - it’s compellingly written and heartbreaking and inspiring, all at once.
And in parting:
All links go to Bookshop.org, which supports independent bookstores. On this weekend of remembering heroes, I salute Bookshop.org as well.
If you really *are* in search of a beach read, you will absolutely find some easy and excellent options in the archive. Or just read The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden, you’re welcome.
Confession: The “r” key on my computer seems to be sticking and resulting in words with errant double and triple “r”s. I’ve done my best to capture all of these typos but y’all, I’m just one tired middle-aged person. So to paraphrase my iPhone, please excuse errors.
Hey, have I said thanks for reading lately? Truly, thank you. This is a labor of love and I shiver gloriously every time I see that someone has opened, liked, commented or (dare to dream) shared this little ol’ newsletter. I’m grateful.