Bethanne's 2024 Top 10 Nonfiction
As I said in my post last week on fiction of 2024, these aren’t the Best Of. . . how could they be?
And this week, I haven’t even listed the books alphabetically by author, because I’m tired. Gentle and kind readers, I’m so tired after two weeks of holiday prep and celebration, but it’s the good kind of tired. Thank you for your understanding and patience as we get through these weeks of early winter.
Remember, we’re loading all of these titles into our Bookshop shelves.
I Heard Her Call My Name by Lucy Sante
— Sante’s memoir of transition, poignant, painfully honest
Cue the Sun! by Emily Nussbaum
— Nearly two decades of research, lively and funny, true cultural criticism
— Not your mother’s ideas about Handel’s Messiah, history’s hipsters, great goss
No One Gets to Fall Apart by Sarah Labrie
— Mental illness from a BIPOC perspective, deep compassion, a must-read
A Wilder Shore by Camille Peri
— Robert Louis Stevenson had a VERY VERY unconventional marriage!
— #metoo from a woman whose teenaged affair with an older man became marriage
— A superb memoirist on the loss of her adult son and explorations of grief
— The path to fine woodworking from a man who apprenticed to his own father
The Burning Earth by Sunil Amrith
— Acclaimed historian considers past destructions and their lessons to heal our world
The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne
— The actor on his immediate and extended families, smart, tragic, and witty
Look like very good selections!
I JUST finished Consent and thought the first half in particular was filled with some fascinating lessons for a memoir writer. Would love to use it in a class.