Good evening, everyone. We’re back in Daylight Savings Time, except for here in Arizona, land of eternal Standard Time. I know the preferred timing for Readers and Book Lovers diaries is to be separated by two hours minimum. I’ve always posted at 7pm in my Arizona Mountain Standard Time. While everyone is on Standard Time, that meant my diary posted at 9pm on the East Coast, but during DST, it gets pushed back to 10pm, which is a bit late. I’m going to try posting at 6pm instead so Nonfiction Views remains at 9pm in the east. The Tuesday night posts of bookgirl’s Contemporary Fiction Views and my Nonfiction Views seem to go together, so I think keeping them just an hour apart is okay. Let me know if anyone objects.
My Women’s History Month promo at The Literate Lizard continues, with dozens of 20% off selections for adults, teens and kids. I’m also still putting together a Blue Wave Special list of discounted books to help us fight disinformation, Trump and the GOP, and win big in November. Once that promo goes live, it will run through the election. I’ve given it a head start with three books discounted now: Hit 'Em Where It Hurts, by Rachel Bitecofer, Taking Down Trump, by Tristan Snell; and Attack From Within, by Barbara McQuade. More to come!
In book news, as mentioned in bookgirl’s diary, a final novel be Gabriel Garcia Marquez was published today. This publication was not without controversy, as shown in the New York Times article (free link): Gabriel García Márquez Wanted to Destroy His Last Novel. It’s About to Be Published.
THIS WEEK’S NOTABLE NEW NONFICTION
- Demand the Impossible: One Lawyer's Pursuit of Equal Justice for All, by Robert L. Tsai. Stephen Bright emerged on the scene as a cause lawyer in the early decades of mass incarceration, when inflammatory politics and harsh changes to criminal justice policy were crashing down on the most vulnerable members of society. He dedicated his career to unleashing social change by representing clients that society had long ago discarded, and advocated for all to receive a fair trial. For nearly forty years, Bright led the Southern Center for Human Rights, a nonprofit that provided legal aid to incarcerated people and worked to improve conditions within the justice system. He argued four capital cases before the US Supreme Court—and won each one, despite facing an increasingly hostile bench. With each victory, he brought to light how the law itself had become corrupted by the country’s thirst for severe punishment, exposing prosecutorial misconduct, continuing racial inequality, inadequate safeguards for people with intellectual disabilities, and the shameful quality of legal representation for the poor. “As Tsai’s latest deeply moving and sobering book makes so clear, this nation’s moral arc can indeed bend toward justice, but only when we are unfailing in our conviction that it can, and are unflinching in our insistence that it does.” — Heather Ann Thompson
- Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea, by Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor. Solidarity is often invoked, but it is rarely analyzed and poorly understood. Here, two leading activists and thinkers survey the past, present, and future of the concept across borders of nation, identity, and class to ask: how can we build solidarity in an era of staggering inequality, polarization, violence, and ecological catastrophe? Offering a lively and lucid history of the idea—from Ancient Rome through the first European and American socialists and labor organizers, to twenty-first century social movements like Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter—Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor trace the philosophical debates and political struggles that have shaped the modern world. “A window into what is possible when we reject the politics of division, trade individualism for interconnectedness and prioritize coming together for the greater good.”
—Heather McGhee
- Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom, by Grace Blakeley. It’s easy to look at the state of the world around us and feel hopeless. We live in an era marked by war, climate crisis, political polarization, and acute inequality—and yet many of us feel powerless to do anything about these profound issues. We’ve been assured that unfettered capitalism is necessary to ensure our freedom and prosperity, even as we see its corrosive effects proliferating daily. Why, in our age of unchecked corporate power, are most of us living paycheck to paycheck? When the economy falters, why do governments bail out corporations and shareholders but leave everyday people in the dust?
Now, economic and political journalist and progressive star on the rise Grace Blakeley exposes the corrupt system that is failing all around us, pulling back the curtain on the free market mythology we have been sold, and showing how, as corporate interests have taken hold, governments have historically been shifting away from competition and democracy and towards monopoly and oligarchy. “A galvanizing takedown of neoliberalism’s ‘free market’ logic, one rooted as much in history as it is in current events. Blakeley’s argument is well researched, clear, and devastating. Most important of all, she charts a path forward based in hope, democracy, and liberation.” — Naomi Klein
- Dispersals: On Plants, Borders, and Belonging, by Jessica J. Lee. A seed slips beyond a garden wall. A tree is planted on a precarious border. A shrub is stolen from its culture and its land. What happens when these plants leave their original homes and put down roots elsewhere? In fourteen essays, Dispersals explores the entanglements of the plant and human worlds, Each of the plants considered in this collection are somehow perceived as being ‘out of place’—weeds, samples collected through imperial science, crops introduced and transformed by our hand. Combining memoir, history, and scientific research in poetic prose, Jessica J. Lee meditates on the question of how both plants and people come to belong, why both cross borders, and how our futures are more entwined than we might imagine. "Lee does a masterful job of blending personal reflection with natural and political history, and her prose is crystalline . . . This deserves a wide audience." —Publishers Weekly
- Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future, by Daniel Lewis. The world today is undergoing the most rapid environmental transformation in human history—from climate change to deforestation. Scientists, ethnobotanists, indigenous peoples, and collectives of all kinds are closely studying trees and their biology to understand how and why trees function individually and collectively in the ways they do. In Twelve Trees, Daniel Lewis, curator and historian at one of the world’s most renowned research libraries, travels the world to learn about these trees in their habitats. Lewis takes us on a sweeping journey to plant breeding labs, botanical gardens, research facilities, deep inside museum collections, to the tops of tall trees, underwater, and around the Earth, journeying into the deserts of the American west and the deep jungles of Peru, to offer a globe-spanning perspective on the crucial impact trees have on our entire planet. “Twelve Trees is a remarkable adventure that takes us from the heights of the redwood canopy to the craters of Easter Island and the depths of the Congo Basin, using cutting-edge science and personal stories to explain the ways these incredible trees shape our world.” —Eric Rutkow
- If You Can't Take the Heat: Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury, by Geraldine DeRuiter. When celebrity chef Mario Batali sent out an apology letter for the sexual harassment allegations made against him, he had the gall to include a recipe—for cinnamon rolls, of all things. Geraldine DeRuiter decided to make the recipe, and she happened to make food journalism history along with it. Her subsequent essay, with its scathing commentary about the pervasiveness of misogyny in the food world, would be read millions of times, lauded by industry luminaries from Martha Stewart to New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells, and would land DeRuiter in the middle of a media firestorm. She found herself on the receiving end of dozens of threats when all she wanted to do was make something to eat (and, okay fine, maybe take down the patriarchy). Deliciously insightful and bitingly clever, If You Can’t Take the Heat is a fresh look at food and feminism from the award-winning The Everywhereist blog. “Geraldine DeRuiter’s particular genius is using a subject such as food to write—and write exceptionally well—about absolutely everything. Feminism, family, appetites literal and figurative, power dynamics, the search for one’s own voice—it’s all here, and more. The book is hilarious and haunting by turns, and if the last line doesn't make you cry, your heart is a tiny ugly stone and you probably have no taste buds.”—Laura Lippman
- Shakespeare's Sisters: How Women Wrote the Renaissance, by Ramie Targoff. In an innovative and engaging narrative of everyday life in Shakespeare’s England, Ramie Targoff carries us from the sumptuous coronation of Queen Elizabeth in the mid-sixteenth century into the private lives of four women writers working at a time when women were legally the property of men. Some readers may have heard of Mary Sidney, accomplished poet and sister of the famous Sir Philip Sidney, but few will have heard of Aemilia Lanyer, the first woman in the seventeenth century to publish a book of original poetry, which offered a feminist take on the crucifixion, or Elizabeth Cary, who published the first original play by a woman, about the plight of the Jewish princess Mariam. Then there was Anne Clifford, a lifelong diarist who fought for decades against a patriarchy that tried to rob her of her land in one of England’s most infamous inheritance battles. "Targoff, an esteemed scholar of Renaissance literature, restores these women to the starring roles they deserve in this fresh, galivanting, and indispensable history of Renaissance England. Shakespeare’s Sisters challenges and expands our historical memory in sweeping, cinematic prose. Scholarly storytelling at its finest." —Heather Clark
- Candida Royalle and the Sexual Revolution: A History from Below, by Jane Kamensky. Whether in front of the camera or behind it, Candice Vadala understood herself as both an artist and an entrepreneur. As Candida Royalle (1950–2015)—underground actress, porn star, producer of adult movies, and staunch feminist—she made a business of pleasure. She helped crystalize the broader hedonistic turn in American life in the second half of the twentieth century: a period when the rules of sex were rewritten; when the white-hot “sex wars” cleaved feminism and realigned American politics. With full access to Royalle’s remarkable archive, historian Jane Kamensky has spent years examining the intersection of Royalle’s life with the clashes that have defined her era—and ours. Deeply informed by these never-before-studied materials, Kamensky explodes the conventions of biography, with its assumptions about who makes history and how. “Kamensky understands exactly what Royalle gained, and lost, in her bid for sexual freedom and artistic independence. This is more than a biography of one woman who experienced the perils and pleasures of the sexual revolution ‘from below’—it is a brilliant, sweeping, and tragic history of desire, feminism, and sex in postwar America.” — Heather Clark
- Egyptian Made: Women, Work, and the Promise of Liberation, by Leslie T. Chang. What happens to the women who choose to work in a country struggling to reconcile a traditional culture with the demands of globalization? In this sharply drawn portrait of Egyptian society—deepened by two years of immersive reporting—Leslie T. Chang follows three women as they persevere in a country that throws up obstacles to their progress at every step, from dramatic swings in economic policy to conservative marriage expectations and a failing education system. “Chang’s lucid prose, her exacting journalistic standards, and her preference for truth over narrative conventions make Egyptian Made essential reading for anyone who cares about women in the Arab world.”—Nell Freudenberger
- Plentiful Country: The Great Potato Famine and the Making of Irish New York, by Tyler Anbinder. In 1845, a fungus began to destroy Ireland’s potato crop, triggering a famine that would kill one million Irish men, women, and children—and drive over one million more to flee for America. Ten years later, the United States had been transformed by this stupendous migration, nowhere more than New York: by 1855, roughly a third of all adults living in Manhattan were immigrants who had escaped the hunger in Ireland. These so-called “Famine Irish” were the forebears of four U.S. presidents (including Joe Biden) yet when they arrived in America they were consigned to the lowest-paying jobs and subjected to discrimination and ridicule by their new countrymen. Even today, the popular perception of these immigrants is one of destitution and despair. But when we let the Famine Irish narrate their own stories, they paint a far different picture. “Anbinder details the human horrors of the potato famine in unadorned prose that only adds to its emotional impact… [and] weaves together individual immigrants’ stories with more general history to make this a remarkably perceptive and engaging portrait of American immigration history.”—Booklist
- How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly from the Accidental Icon, by Lyn Slater. When Lyn Slater started her fashion blog, Accidental Icon, at age sixty-one, she discovered that followers were flocking to her account for more than just her A-list style. As Lyn flaunted gray hair, wrinkles, and a megadose of self-acceptance, they found in her an alternative model of older life: someone who defied the stereotypes, refused to become invisible, and showed that all women have the opportunity to be relevant and take major risks at any stage of their life. Youth is not the only time we can be experimental. How to Be Old tells the ten-year story of Lyn’s sixties, the sometimes-glamorous, sometimes-turbulent decade of Accidental Icon. This memoir is about the hopeful and future-oriented process of reinvention. “In equal parts inspirational and aspirational, Lyn Slater’s How to Be Old is a rousing, thrilling ride of a book. Being old is a privilege and a gift. Slater’s combination of curiosity, glamour, and activism will make readers of all ages take heart.”—Dani Shapiro
- Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong, by Katie Gee Salisbury. Set against the glittering backdrop of Los Angeles during the gin-soaked Jazz Age and the rise of Hollywood, this debut book celebrates Anna May Wong, the first Asian American movie star, to bring an unsung heroine to light and reclaim her place in cinema history. In her time, Wong was a legendary beauty, witty conversationalist, and fashion icon. Plucked from her family’s laundry business in Los Angeles, Anna May Wong rose to stardom in Douglas Fairbanks’s blockbuster The Thief of Bagdad. Fans and the press clamored to see more of this unlikely actress, but when Hollywood repeatedly cast her in stereotypical roles, she headed abroad in protest. Anna May starred in acclaimed films in Berlin, Paris, and London. She dazzled royalty and heads of state across several nations, leaving trails of suitors in her wake. She returned to challenge Hollywood at its own game by speaking out about the industry’s blatant racism. "Here at last is a biography of a groundbreaking and inspiring woman that is well-researched, thoughtful, enlightening, nuanced, and honest. The access Salisbury had to Anna May Wong’s family and friends places this biography above all others.”—Lisa See Another biography of Wong was published last August: Daughter of the Dragon: Anna May Wong's Rendezvous with American History, by Yunte Huang.
- The Other Fab Four: The Remarkable True Story of the Liverbirds, Britain’s First Female Rock Band, by Mary McGlory and Sylvia Saunders. The idea for Britain’s first female rock band, The Liverbirds, started one evening in 1962, when Mary McGlory, then age 16, saw The Beatles play live at The Cavern Club in Liverpool, the nightclub famously known as the “cradle of British pop music.” Then and there, she decided she was going to be just like them—and be the first girl to do it. Joining ranks in 1963 with three other working-class girls from Liverpool—drummer Sylvia Saunders and guitarists Valerie Gell and Pamela Birch, also self-taught musicians determined to “break the male monopoly of the beat world”—The Liverbirds went on to tour alongside the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, and Chuck Berry, and were on track to hit international stardom—until life intervened, and the group was forced to disband just five years after forming in 1968. Now, Mary and Sylvia, the band’s two surviving members, are ready to tell their stories. “A vivid portrait of the ’60s music scene, full of good stories about themselves and a surprising number of other celebrities of the era. An utterly charming reminiscence by two members of a band that made its own kind of history in the wake of the Beatles.”—Kirkus
- Ian Fleming: The Complete Man, by Nicholas Shakespeare. Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture. What Bond represents about ideas of masculinity, the British national psyche and global politics has shifted over time, as has the interpretation of the life of his author. But Fleming himself was more mysterious and subtle than anything he wrote. Only a thriller writer for his last twelve years, his dramatic personal life and impressive career in Naval Intelligence put him at the heart of critical moments in world history, while also providing rich inspiration for his fiction. Exceptionally well connected, and widely travelled, from the United States and Soviet Russia to his beloved Jamaica, Ian had access to the most powerful political figures at a time of profound change. The author’s unprecedented access to the Fleming archive and his nose for a story make this a fresh and eye-opening picture of the man and his famous creation.
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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