The true story of unreal times, vol. 1, 2018
We still sort out the nonfiction books published in Britain, the United States and China in the past year, including in-depth observation of specific areas, biographies and various forms of reportage, just as we did a year ago, which can be regarded as a New Year gift for nonfiction lovers and publishers, and a reference for reading and selecting books.
American prisons: reporters undercover to see the business opportunities of punishment
American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey Into the Business of Punishment
Author: Shane Bauer
Press: Penguin Press
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
The Best Non-fiction of the Year in the Kirkus Review
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
Shane Bauer, an investigative journalist, recently published his experience as a prison supervisor in a private prison in Louisiana, revealing that the prison industry with billions of assets is full of violence, corruption, corruption and incompetence. The book is thought-provoking to read.
Home and everything: a family and the fragmentation of America
Amity and Prosperity:One Family and the Fracturing of America
Author: Eliza Griswold
Press: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Washington post’s Top 50 Books of the Year
The author describes passionately the tragedy between man and nature caused by government neglect and human greed in a small town in Pennsylvania. The author, a poet and journalist, recorded the crisis of local water resources in a novel style.
Arthur Ashe: All my life.
Arthur Ashe: A Life
Author: Raymond Arsenault
Press: Simon & Schuster
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
The first biography of an American tennis star. He is a legend, a pioneer and the first black tennis player to win the men’s singles Grand Slam. Not only that, he also broke racial discrimination and became a fighter and well-known in the civil rights movement. The author has done amazing research on the tennis champion, including more than 100 interviews, and also put Ashe in the background of the great era, telling how African-American athletes seek equal opportunities and respect.
Scum: Secrets and Lies of Silicon Valley Entrepreneurship
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
Author: John Carreyrou
Press: Knopf
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Time magazine’s best non-fiction of the year
Publishers Weekly is an annual non-fiction.
Washington post’s Top 50 Books of the Year
GoodReads best non-fiction of the year
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
The story of Theranos, a biotech company with billions of assets, is more like a thriller. The reporter who exposed the shady story was threatened by the charming female president and her lawyer, but still resolutely completed all the reports. In 2014, female president Elizabeth Holmes was regarded as a female Jobs. She dropped out of Stanford University and entered the pharmaceutical industry, claiming that she could make a faster and more convenient blood test instrument. She attracted an investment of 900 million dollars, and her value soared to 470 million dollars, but she encountered a problem: this instrument could not do these tests at all. The author not only tells this scam, but also tells the ambition and boldness of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.
City explosion: the legend of Oklahoma City, its chaotic start, deceptive basketball team and dream of becoming a world-class metropolis.
Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of OklahomaCity, its Chaotic Founding… its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream ofBecoming a World-class Metropolis
Author: Sam Anderson
Press: Crown
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Amazon best non-fiction
Washington post’s Top 50 Books of the Year
GoodReads’s best history of the year
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
The city of Oklahoma was founded in chaos. Since then, it has been a place where wild and outsiders seek their dreams. The city is full of bold and ambitious people. Sam Anderson, a former The New York Times writer, came here to write about its history, sports reports, anecdotes, study local planning and many fascinating stories, and also visited many city people, from NBA players to legendary meteorologists and civil rights figures, showing a rich portrait of the city.
Gunmen Brothers: Memoirs of the Syrian War
Brothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War
Authors: Marwan Hisham, Molly Crabapple.
Press: One World
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Syrian Hisham, a young journalist, has captured all kinds of details about his country’s desperate situation, and at the same time, he has deeply thought about the issues of relatives, homeland and freedom. This book is the first-hand information of the Syrian war, and also tells how it led to international disaster and global war. Realism and idealism, violence and restraint. Courage, creativity and hope still exist in the war.
Calypso
Calypso
Author: David Sedaris
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Amazon biography of the year
Washington post’s Top 50 Books of the Year
The Best Non-fiction of the Year in the Kirkus Review
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
The author bought a house on the coast of California and lived like a holiday, but he encountered a problem: you can’t take a holiday. Essays full of cold humor in the book explore heavy topics such as middle-aged crisis and death, which makes people laugh and make people think. When your past is more than your future, how do you deal with it? One of the darkest and warmest works.
Churchill: Walking with Fate
Churchill: Walking With Destiny
Author: Andrew Roberts
Publishing house: Viking
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
The Best Non-fiction of the Year in the Kirkus Review
Guardian of the Year
Spectator magazine’s best of the year
Churchill’s life was full of glory and disaster. Historian Andrew Roberts balanced his flattery and contempt, excavated new historical materials and told the details of the indispensable figures in this world. This is the best one in Churchill’s biography.
The cost of life: an autobiography in progress
The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography
Author: Deborah Levy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
The famous British novelist and poet described his daily life and how he tried to build a happy and meaningful home. She also talked about the pressure of her mother’s death, as well as the daily life of women, young travelers reading in bars, outstanding female students and so on. There is also a kind and heartless 80-year-old book seller who gave the author a place to write at the most difficult moment in his life. This book has the power to comfort people.
The Dark Ages: Christianity Destroys the Classical World
The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World
Author: Catherine Nixey
Press: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
The author exposed many terrorist incidents caused by Christians. Nowadays, most people think that the spread of Christianity is a "great achievement", but behind the success, believers suppressed tradition, which led to the weakness of western culture for thousands of years. Only one percent of Latin literature survived from them, and countless antiques, artworks and ancient traditions disappeared forever.
Dead girl: living American obsession
Dead Girls:Essays on Surviving an American Obsession
Author: Alice Bolin
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
The Best Non-fiction of the Year in the Kirkus Review
The author tells about the racial discrimination he faced in his life in Los Angeles, the troubles he suffered as a teenager, and also studies the story of witches. This book begins with exploring women in many fictional stories, talking about the injustice and pressure women face in modern life, and reshaping their images in the media and culture.
Dinosaur artist: obsessed, betrayed and looking for the ultimate trophy of the earth
The Dinosaur Artist:Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth’s Ultimate Trophy
By Paige Williams
Press: Hachette Books
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Publishers Weekly is an annual non-fiction.
In 2012, the skeleton of Tyrannosaurus rex appeared in new york auction house, which was finally sold for millions of dollars. Now, the dragon with 49,135 fossils is on display in Mongolia, 6,000 miles from Manhattan. Eric Prokopi, who was 38 years old, took the fossils to the auction house. He was fascinated by fossils and made a living by selling them to natural history museums and private collectors like Leonardo DiCaprio.
This book tells about the relationship between human beings and natural history, as well as the conflict between science and business. The story begins in Florida and goes all the way to the Gobi Desert. It depicts the history of finding fossils. It is a deep and sometimes risky business. There are many weirdos and addicts in the circle. Whether they are poachers or hunters, collectors or smugglers, enthusiasts or opportunists is sometimes unclear. This book spans continents, cultures and thousands of years to study those who have the ultimate past of the earth.
Addiction: Drug dealers, doctors and pharmaceutical companies who are addicted to the United States.
Dopesick:Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America
Author: Beth Macy
Press: Little, Brown and Company
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Amazon’s best non-fiction of the year
Washington post’s Top 50 Books of the Year
GoodReads best non-fiction of the year
The Best Non-fiction of the Year in the Kirkus Review
This book completely records the opium crisis in the United States. Beth Macy is a journalist who shows readers the heartland of American addiction for more than twenty years. From remote villages in lapac, to affluent urban suburbs, from desperate urban centers to once-idyllic farms, there is a miserable life brought by opium drugs everywhere. The author described the suffering with deep compassion.
Education: A Memoir
Educated: A Memoir
Author: Tara Westover
Press: Random House
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Amazon biography of the year
Time magazine’s best non-fiction of the year
Publishers Weekly is an annual non-fiction.
Washington post’s Top 50 Books of the Year
GoodReads Best Biography and Memoirs of the Year
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
The author was born in a survivalist family in the mountains of Idaho, and didn’t enter the classroom for the first time until he was 17 years old. Her family is far away from the mainstream society and has no consideration for educating their children. When one of her brothers showed violent tendencies, no one stopped her. The other brother was admitted to the university, and Tara also wanted to find a new life. The thirst for knowledge finally changed her, and she went to Harvard and Cambridge, but after she walked so far and learned so much, she began to consider whether it was possible to go home.
Epiphany: Rationality, Science, Humanism and Progress
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
Author: Steven Pinker
Publishing house: Viking
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
GoodReads best non-fiction of the year
Guardian of the Year
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
If you think the world is coming to an end, please think twice: now people live longer, healthier, more free and happier lives. Although there are great problems, this book also puts forward the possibility of solving them with rationality and science. The author hopes that people will put down the shocking headlines or prophetic doomsday remarks and follow the data analysis. In the past 75 years, everything in the world has been improving-this is not caused by cosmic forces, but the result of rational and scientific promotion of human development.
Fatal Disagreement: The Battle between Erasmus, Luther and Western Values
Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther and the Fight for the Western Mind
Author: Michael Massing
Press: Harper
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Biographies of two great thinkers Erasmus and Martin Luther. Both of them have a great influence on the world trend of thought, and their views are often opposite. The author returned to the 16th century to rethink the life of western intellectuals, and their understanding of philosophy and religion changed. He believed that Europeans accepted Erasmus’s humanitarian thought, while in the New World, people were greatly influenced by Martin Luther’s individualism.
Feel free: essays
Feel Free:Essays
Author: Zadie Smith
Press: Penguin Press
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Zadie Smith, a famous novelist, recently published his own collection of essays, including his first works. She talked about the nature of happiness, books, culture, politics and her own life, as well as freedom in social media and aesthetics. This anthology is full of wise, heartfelt, indignant and sharp views, which is an excellent footnote of this era.
Bloody Battle: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War
The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War
By Joanne B. Freeman
Press: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
A famous historian told a violent incident in the Capitol, which was the unknown fuse of the American Civil War. The author collected detailed historical materials to explain why the civil war originated from this conflict. In fact, history also tells us that legislation is often interrupted by threats of violence, table overturning and hand-to-hand combat, and the same is true of slavery.
aviatrix
Fly Girls
Author: Keith O’Brien
Press: Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Amazon’s best history of the year
GoodReads best biography of the year
One of the most dangerous jobs in the world war is to be a pilot. This book tells the story of five brave American female pilots. One of the most famous and courageous is amelia earhart. Among them are cleaners who dropped out of high school, divorced women, mothers of two children, and children who broke the expectations of their families. Faced with the pressure from male pilots, they broke the secular prejudice, turned the tide in the war and changed history. Their stories are touching and heartbreaking.
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
Author: David W. Blight
Press: Simon & Schuster
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Amazon biography of the year
Time magazine’s best non-fiction of the year
The Best Non-fiction of the Year in the Kirkus Review
A fighter, revolutionary, politician, orator and writer in the 19th century, Douglas was a legend of that era. After he escaped from slave life in Maryland, he became a leader in the abolition of slavery and social reform, and his influence covered the whole United States, fighting for black rights all his life. In his time, people took him as a counterexample of the saying that slaves lacked intelligence and could not become American citizens. He was also the first black man to serve as a diplomatic envoy in the US government. This book uses the latest historical materials and private collections to tell his dramatic life.
Gandhi: the years that changed the world 1914-1948
Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948
Author: Ramachandra Guha
Press: Knopf
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
The Best Non-fiction of the Year in the Kirkus Review
This book begins with Gandhi’s arrival in Mumbai in January, 1915, and leads readers to experience the tangled time in the next 30 years. In the face of British colonial rule, the relationship between Hinduism and Islam, Gandhi shocked the British authorities and religious system with non-violent resistance. It was also during this period that civil disobedience spread all over the world. The author reshaped Gandhi’s life and work, and quoted Gandhi’s notes that had never been made public in the past. This book describes not only Gandhi, but also his family and friends, as well as his relationship with political and social leaders, showing the complexity of his thoughts, motives and actions.
God saves Texas: going deep into the hinterland
God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State
Author: Lawrence Wright
Press: Knopf
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Amazon best non-fiction
GoodReads’s best history of the year
The Best Non-fiction of the Year in the Kirkus Review
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Twin Towers Crisis explores the history, culture and politics of Texas with humorous style. He went deep into the controversial and diverse Texas in the United States, where ethnic minorities became the majority and the state with the largest number of Muslims in the United States. Texas’s oil dominates the local economy, and it has surpassed California to become the place that exports the most scientific and technological products. In many ways, Texas is still the place that the Trump era wants to create. The author not only described here in many aspects, but also speculated on the possible future direction of the United States.
Heavy: Memoirs of America
Heavy: An American Memoir
Author: Kiese Laymon
Publisher: Scribner
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
PublishersWeekly is an annual non-fiction.
Washington post’s Top 50 Books of the Year
GoodReads Best Biography and Memoirs of the Year
Library journal’s best non-fiction of the year
The Best Non-fiction of the Year in the Kirkus Review
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
The author recorded his personal life and put it in the American social environment. He wrote about his experience of abuse, sexual assault, dropping out of college, etc., and also described his complicated relationship with his mother and grandmother. In his article, he also wrote about anorexia, obesity, sex and endless gambling, trying to ask his mother, ethnic group, himself and readers through these taboo topics-how to love and get freedom in such a situation. A fearless anthology.
How to change your mind: What the new discovery of hallucinogens can tell us about consciousness, death, addiction, despair and breakthrough.
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of PsychedelicsTeaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
Author: Michael Pollan
Press: Penguin Press
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
PublishersWeekly is an annual non-fiction.
Washington post’s Top 50 Books of the Year
The author embarked on a long journey when he studied hallucinogens used to treat depression, addiction and other cases. He digs into history, tells the truth about hallucinogens that were well known in the 1960s, and strips them of their mystery. He also embarked on a spiritual journey, personally experienced hallucinogens, and wrote a wonderful work that combined science, memoirs, travel literature, history and medicine. This is also an excellent reading by participatory journalism, which not only explores the puzzles of human consciousness, but also tells the joys and sorrows brought by this world-this is the essence of life.
fragment
In Pieces
Author: Sally Field
Press: Grand Central Publishing
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Amazon biography of the year
GoodReads Best Biography and Memoirs of the Year
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
Sally field, who won the Oscar for Best Actress twice, is also a natural writer. Instead of looking for someone to ghostwrite, she used her sincere and fresh brushwork to review the past, told behind-the-scenes stories that only Hollywood stars knew, and explored various relationships in her life, especially her complicated feelings with her mother. The life of this particularly important actress in the second half of the 20th century is both inspiring and unforgettable.
Deep into the raging sea: 33 sailors, a storm and a sunken ship
Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro
Author: Rachel Slade
Press: Ecco
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
The hurricane on October 1, 2015 trapped the El Faro in the ocean, and the sea quickly swallowed it up, making it the worst shipwreck in the history of American shipping in 35 years. The author conducted hundreds of interviews with sailors’ families and marine experts, together with the sailor’s conversation recorded by the ship’s radio recorder, to uncover the mystery of the sinking of El Faro. Before her, no one could explain why the giant cargo ship with good communication equipment suddenly disappeared from the sea in the face of the storm. She also revealed that the shipping industry’s profits were meager, and the hurricane caused by global warming swept away everything in the industry.
Book of the library
The Library Book
Author: Susan Orlean
Press: Simon & Schuster
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
GoodReads best non-fiction of the year
Washington post’s Top 50 Books of the Year
On April 29th, 1986, a fire engulfed the Los Angeles Library. The fire reached 2,000 degrees and lasted for more than 7 hours, burning 400,000 books and damaging 700,000. The cause of the fire has always been a mystery. If it was arson, who did it? Susan Orlean, an award-winning journalist and writer, investigates this mystery with her love for books. She is full of wisdom, insight and passion to lead readers on the journey of exploring the truth, and also writes about the reasons why public places, especially libraries, are still important places in this electronic age.
Looking for Lorraine: The Bright and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry
Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry
Author: Imani Perry
Press: Beacon Press
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Lorraine Hansbury, an American woman writer who became famous for her book Raisins in the Sun, died at the age of 34. She supported the civil rights movement and black leaders all her life, and was an enemy of the beat poets and hippie villages. Although married, she is actually a lesbian. This book traces the short life of Hans Berry and her tragedy.
99 glances: Princess Margaret
Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret
By Craig Brown
Press: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Washington post’s Top 50 Books of the Year
Spectator magazine’s best of the year
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
Princess Margaret made John Lennon blush, told Princess Diana to shut up, and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Andy Howell took pictures of her, and she was also the object of Picasso’s sexual fantasies. She was once the most desirable woman in the world, but she was never a happy person in the eyes of relatives and friends. She is the opposite story of Cinderella, who hopes to be broken all her life and never gains happiness. Based on interviews, diaries and other materials, the author tells the story of the princess’s folly, dreams and parallel life. She is a bohemian in the upper class. A witty and profound biography.
Fires without ashes: the rite of passage for African-Americans’ freedom
No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America
By darnell lmore
Publishing house: Nation Books
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
When the author was 14 years old, his neighbors tried to burn him to death, and he was bullied on the way after school. People thought he was gay, and he was splashed with gasoline and survived several times. DarnellL Moore, who is now a well-known award-winning author, shares his frightened and humiliated adolescence with readers in this book. He is not only a survivor, but also finds his purpose in life: to love those who love himself and love his hometown. He inspires readers to struggle for freedom, even if they live on the edge of society, they should dream.
There is no turning back: life and death and hope of Syria in wartime
No Turning Back: Life, Loss,and Hope in Wartime Syria
Author: Rania Abouzeid
Press: W. W. Norton & Company
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Reporter Rania Abouzied recorded the tragedy of the Syrian war and told the story of four young people looking for security and freedom in a turbulent country. The author went deep into the battlefield for five years, took readers into Assad prison, watched the secret meeting there and witnessed the formation of ISIS. The dramatic fate of the characters in the book shows that the seeds of hope grow in the darkest land of the 21st century.
Poison rescue team: a persistent chemist’s food safety battle in the 19th-20th century.
The Poison Squad: OneChemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the TwentiethCentury
Author: Deborah Blum
Press: Penguin Press
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, tells the true story of a persistent struggle for food safety in the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. One of the most important figures is chemist Harvey Washington Wiley. At that time, even milk in the United States might not be safe. Wiley tried to legislate on food hygiene, but also experimented on volunteers. The author tells a story full of justice, but there are also some paragraphs that challenge readers’ moral bottom line.
Rise and Murder: The Secret History of Israeli Assassination
Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations
Author: Ronen Bergman
Press: Random House
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Ronen Bergman, a journalist and military researcher, has worked with many current and former Israeli military officials. This book tells the unknown Israeli assassination plans: their success and failure, and the physical and mental costs paid by the men and women involved in these plans. This plan not only challenges the bottom line of human morality, but also may become an efficient means to annihilate terrorists.
She shares her mother’s laughter: genetic strength, conservation and potential.
She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity
By Carl Zimmer
Publisher: Dutton
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Publishers Weekly is an annual non-fiction.
Guardian of the Year
Darwin raised the question of genes but failed to answer it. Today, genetic testing is becoming more and more common, and people find relatives, ancestors and identification through genetic technology. CarlZimmer, a The New York Times science and technology columnist, combines history with contemporary science and technology research, and tells some interesting stories about his own genes inherited by his two daughters, discussing a huge and profound topic: who we really are and what we will leave for future generations.
child
Small Fry
Author: Lisa Brennan-Jobs
Publishing house: Grove Press
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Amazon biography of the year
PublishersWeekly is an annual non-fiction.
GoodReads Best Biography and Memoirs of the Year
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
Jobs’s daughter reviewed her bleak childhood and growing experience. The book is full of fighting spirit, wisdom and lively and interesting. Young LisaBrennan-Jobs is an excellent guide, showing readers the magic of growing up in a unique family. This book not only tells their family story, but also is a love letter written to the fascinating period of 1970-1980s in California.
The soul of the yellow race: anthology
The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays
Author: Wesley Yang
Press: W. W. Norton & Company
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Publishers Weekly is an annual non-fiction.
Washington post’s Top 50 Books of the Year
When the author writes about race, sex and other issues, there are no cliches and routines, and he does not talk about those tiring topics such as politics. He focused on artists, campus shooters, hard-working immigrants, etc., analyzing them layer by layer, and his style was full of sympathy. When he restated Seung-Hui Cho, the main suspect in the campus shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007, he also explored the mentality of Asian Americans.
Entanglement Tree: A New History of Radical Life
The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life
Author: David Quammen
Press: Simon & Schuster
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Publishers Weekly is an annual non-fiction.
In this book, the author explains the new discovery of molecular research, the development of genes on the tree of life, which not only grows regularly along branches, but also may jump from one branch to another. New technology has enabled humans to edit genes. In fact, nature has been editing genes all the time. This book is an excellent and easy-to-understand guide to genes and evolution.
There is no miracle here: memoirs
There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir
Author: Casey Gerald
Press: Riverhead Books
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Amazon biography of the year
The Best Non-fiction of the Year in the Kirkus Review
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
The author described an era of despair. His childhood was very miserable. He began to talk about it on New Year’s Eve in Dallas in 1999. He stayed in his grandfather’s evangelical church to watch their ceremony. His mother always disappeared inexplicably. He also lived in the street with his sister. His home was a cardboard box and he lived on her disability allowance. Later, he became a football player and became famous almost overnight. He saw the world of the rich, and at the same time he saw the oppression of the marginal people by this world. The author puts forward a question that tortures people’s hearts: if living the life you want means losing your heart, then what is the meaning of life?
Those truths: American history
These Truths:A History of the United States
Author: Jill Lepore
Press: W. W. Norton & Company
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Amazon’s best history of the year
Time magazine’s best non-fiction of the year
Washington post’s Top 50 Books of the Year
GoodReads’s best history of the year
The Best Non-fiction of the Year in the Kirkus Review
An ambitious solo book on American history. Jill Lepore, a columnist and historian of The New Yorker, authoritatively recorded the rise, division and success or failure of this country. This book is also a shot in the arm urgently needed in this era, which makes people thoroughly see the beauty and tragedy in American history.
Invisible places: crisis, resistance and hope about American cities
What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City
Author: Mona Hanna-Attisha
Press: One World
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha, researchers, family members, friends and community leaders found that flint river, the source of drinking water in Flint, Michigan, contained a high concentration of neurotoxin lead. They embarked on a long road to expose the truth of government dereliction of duty. In 2016, the governor of Michigan declared Flint in a state of emergency, and residents of Flint could only live on bottled water provided by the state government. This book tells a shameful disaster story and a hopeful story-people in a city unite and fight for a better life for their next generation.
Why comics: from underground to all over the world
Why Comics? : From Underground to Everywhere
Author: Hillary Chute
Press: Harper
The New York Times’s best non-fiction of the year
The author is a scholar who specializes in the history of comics. She has deeply analyzed the various categories from underground comics to popular comic novels, and also recorded the fearless creators and staff behind one comic. She wrote a comic guide, which is not only for readers who want to know about comics, but also for comic fans who want to go deep behind their favorite works.
In my inner eyes: a diary
In My Mind’s Eye: A Thought Diary
Author: Jan Morris
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Financial Times Non-fiction of the Year
Jan morris, a famous travel writer, was praised by The Times as the best writer of this era. The first part of this new book contains her diary published in the Financial Times in 2017.
This vigorous fighter and journalist, who spent half a century traveling around the world, wrote many of his own voices, with a funny, sensitive and moving style. When she was about to turn 90, Morris wrote about the world from cats to cars, from traveling to home, as well as music and writing itself.
The End of the Earth: Anthology
The End of the End of the Earth : Essays
Author: Jonathan Franzen
Press: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Financial Times Non-fiction of the Year
The new anthology of novelist Jonathan Franzen includes the articles he has written in the past five years. He discussed how to live in today’s global climate change, and wrote about his journey to New Zealand, East Africa for bird watching, and to Antarctica for penguin watching. He is a bird lover, and when he writes about birds, he actually writes his own thoughts: they are beautiful and tenacious, and deserve our action to love and protect them. Although the author puts forward a deep question in the book: when the world seems to have come to an end, what is the point of what we do? His answer is full of rational hope, which is a warm reading in this desperate era.
Warm South: How the Mediterranean Sea Shapes the British Imagination
The Warm South: How the Mediterranean Shaped the BritishImagination
Author: Robert Holland
Press: Yale University Press
Financial Times Non-fiction of the Year
Since the 18th century, young people in the upper class in Europe have a tradition of traveling to Europe. British artists, writers and poets have been drawing inspiration from the light, heat and color of the Mediterranean. For travelers, this is a land of magic and dreams. British travelers’ love for the Mediterranean is also reflected in many cultural and artistic works. The author is a world-famous historian who studies the Mediterranean. He wrote Damian Hurst’s installation works from Byron’s poems, showing the inspiration and disillusionment that the Mediterranean has given travelers.
The Life of Saul Bello: Love and Conflict from 1965 to 2005
The Life of Saul Bellow: Love and Strife 1965-2005
Author: Zachary Leader
Press: Knopf
Financial Times Non-fiction of the Year
Saul Bello, an American writer, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976 and Pulitzer Prize winner, devoted his life to writing. This book mainly tells about his private life and unpleasant marriages. His women are all extremely intelligent, full of charm and strong desire. At the age of 85, he gave birth to his fourth child, a girl, with his fifth wife, but there were many contradictions between him and his first three sons.
Dante’s Divine Comedy: An Endless Journey
Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Journey Without End
Author: Ian Thomson
Press: Head of Zeus
Financial Times Non-fiction of the Year
Dante’s Divine Comedy may make people feel far away and it is not easy to finish reading it. In fact, it also echoes our current society: it tells the story that everyone sets out to seek salvation in the world. The author has written a reading guide for the Divine Comedy, to guide readers who are lost in poetry.
Berries of the heart: memoirs
Heart Berries：A Memoir
Author: Terese Marie Mailhot
Publisher: Counterpoint
Library journal’s best non-fiction of the year
National Public Radio (NPR) Best of the Year
Poetically and powerfully tells the growth history of a woman on the northwest coast of Canada. The author suffers from stress disorder and bipolar disorder, but she overcomes mental illness through writing. The achievement of this process is the book. In the book, she recalls the social worker’s mother, her reconciliation with the father of an alcoholic artist, and her father’s mysterious murder. She wrote about love, memories, accepting each other and accepting herself. The control over stories and words is amazing.
Call me American: Memoirs
Call Me American：A Memoir
Author: Abdi Nor Iftin
Press: Knopf
Library journal’s best non-fiction of the year
The Best Non-fiction of the Year in the Kirkus Review
The author from Somalia studied English from American pop music when he was a child. His idol was Schwarzenegger. When he first saw American soldiers in the capital Mogadishu, he felt very excited. His enthusiasm for American culture even made him famous in Mogadishu for a time, but when extremist groups took control of it in 2006, he got into trouble and eventually had to flee to Kenya to become a refugee. With incredible luck, the author got the opportunity to enter the United States, and he recorded this long road. This inspiring memoir vividly shows that western society is still attractive and it can still bring people a better life.
Reporter: memoirs
Reporter: A Memoir
By Seymour Hersh
Press: Knopf
Publishers Weekly is an annual non-fiction.
The Best Non-fiction of the Year in the Kirkus Review
For a long time, Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh has won many brave front pages of newspapers with his fearless reports, and his reports have never been controversial. In this memoir, the reporter tells the driving force that drove him to become such an independent outsider, and tells the stories behind many stories, including how to follow clues, train whistleblowers, challenge authority and win. He also revealed previously undisclosed information in the book, including the massacre in the Vietnam War. This memoir reminds people of the golden age of news, and it also has the power to make people regain their news beliefs.
Pay attention to WeChat official account’s "nonfiction" (ID: Feixugou-nonfiction) and get the latest trends of nonfiction reading at home and abroad.