Nonfiction November

Or rather, Nonfiction December at this point

Dec 11, 2020

Occasionally I will meet someone who hears I’m a librarian and announces, “I hate reading!” Upon further discussion, I find out that they, invariably, “only read nonfiction” by which they mean they only read horrible books that feel like homework.

Reading doesn’t have to be like this! Nonfiction is great!

As evidence, I present to you my favorite nonfiction reads of 2020.

A Rolling Stone reporter dives into a beloved TV show

The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s by Andy Greene

I read this book in snippets, shortly after Daisy was born. The chapters are short and focus on popular episodes, individual actors, and analysis of each season. It was similar to watching the show—funny, comforting, like spending time with good friends.

YA Graphic Novel Memoirs

Dancing at the Pity Party by Tyler Feder

A wise, heartfelt, and often hysterical memoir about cancer, grief, and life without a mom. Would you look at these illustrations?!

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang

The greatest endorsement I can give this book is that I gifted it to my father, who had never read a graphic novel and is a rather harsh book critic, and he gave it five stars.

A combination of memoir, the history of basketball, and a single season of a high school basketball team’s championship hopes. Just brilliant.

(You should also read Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel American Born Chinese.)

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei

George Takei’s account of being imprisoned in an American concentration camp during WWII. A necessary, astonishing work.

A middle grade novel in verse

On the Horizon by Lois Lowry

Lois Lowry! Of The Giver! This novel in verse starts with Lois’s childhood in Hawaii at the beginning of WWII. She focuses on the attack at Pearl Harbor and the bombing of Hiroshima, weaving in stories of specific lives involved in both events. It’s a lesson in how we are all connected. I read it twice.

Essays!

Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby

I do not know how Samantha Irby turns her snack consumption and daily dramas into glorious, screamingly funny essays beloved by the literary elite, but I do know that I won’t be able to adequately capture her voice. She’ll have to do it:

You don’t have to cry for me, but listen: trying to make new friends as an adult is the hardest thing I have ever attempted. Harder than multiple colonoscopies? Yes. Harder than listening to the dentist pry my tooth bone away from my jawbone while I lie there wide awake? Also yes!

PS: The audiobook version of this is FANTASTIC.

Spiritually self-helpy?

The Power of Ritual by Casper Ter Kuile

Casper is the co-host of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, one of my all-time favorite podcasts. In his first book he looks at how we connect to each other and yes…the power of ritual in our lives. I loved it so much I bought it. I loved it so much I started a ritual of writing weekly letters to Daisy on Sunday mornings entitled “Dear Daisy.”

Where to Begin by Cleo Wade

A slim collection of poetry and ideas that hit me at just the right time. (You may recognize Cleo from her wildly popular Instagram account.)

Bringing up Bebé by Pamela Druckerman

Less parenting manual, more gossipy chat with your best friend. You know it’s a fun read when they are adapting it into a film starring Anne Hathaway. What??

Memoirs

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb

A gorgeous account of three generations of women and the intricacies of their relationships. I sent a copy to my mom right away.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Wow!

Somehow at once the tale of an abusive relationship, a study in queer theory, and a horror novel? Carmen Maria Machado is a master at work.

So many cells in my body have died and regenerated since the days of the Dream House. My blood and taste buds and skin have long since recreated themselves. My fat still remembers, but just barely—within a few years it will have turned itself over completely. My bones too.

But my nervous system remembers. The lenses of my eyes. My cerebral cortex, with its memory and language and consciousness. They will last forever, or at least as long as I do. They can still climb onto the witness stand. My memory has something to say about the way trauma has altered my body’s DNA, like an ancient virus.

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

The book I’ve thought about most this year. Chanel was known as “Emily Doe” in the Brock Turner case. In this memoir you’ll come to know her as a writer, an artist, and a brilliant thinker. (You should also follow her on Instagram.)

Mothers have martyred themselves in their children’s names since the beginning of time. We have lived as if she who disappears the most, loves the most. We have been conditioned to prove our love by slowly ceasing to exist.

What a terrible burden for children to bear—to know that they are the reason their mother stopped living. What a terrible burden for our daughters to bear—to know that if they choose to become mothers, this will be their fate, too. Because if we show them that being a martyr is the highest form of love, that is what they will become. They will feel obligated to love as well as their mothers loved, after all. They will believe they have permission to live only as fully as their mothers allowed themselves to live.

If we keep passing down the legacy of martyrdom to our daughters, with whom does it end? Which woman ever gets to live? And when does the death sentence begin? At the wedding altar? In the delivery room? Whose delivery room—our children’s or our own? When we call martyrdom love we teach our children that when love begins, life ends. This is why Jung suggested: There is no greater burden on a child than the unlived life of a parent.