Booklist

New Nonfiction

by  The Editors of WLT

The cover to When They Tell You to Be Good by Prince ShakurPrince Shakur

When They Tell You to Be Good

Tin House

This debut memoir made many best-of-fall lists and won the Hurston/Wright Crossover Award. Shakur’s memoir charts his political coming of age, compelling readers to take a closer look at the political world of young, Black, queer, and radical millennials today.

 

 

 

 

 

The cover to Home/Land by Rebecca MeadRebecca Mead

Home/Land

Vintage

The author of My Life in Middlemarch returns with the story of her reverse migration: from New York City back to London, her birth city. Both fleeing the political situation in the US and hoping to show her son a wider world, Mead returned to London in 2018. Home/Land is a mix of memoir and reportage that draws on literature and art, recent and ancient history, and her encounters with individuals, environments, and landscapes.

 

 

 

The cover to A Man of Two Faces by Viet Thanh NguyenViet Thanh Nguyen

A Man of Two Faces

Grove Atlantic

Well known for his novels The Sympathizer and The Refugees, Pulitzer Prize–winner Viet Thanh Nguyen here shares his own story while addressing larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America.

 

 

 

 

 

The cover to Schubert by Lorraine Byrne BodleyLorraine Byrne Bodley

Schubert: A Musical Wayfarer

Yale University Press

In this new biography, Lorraine Byrne Bodley draws from extensive archival research in Vienna and the Czech Republic to present a fuller account of the short life of one of the most beloved composers of the nineteenth century.

 

 

 

 

 

The cover to The Crane Wife by C. J. HauserC. J. Hauser

The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays

Anchor

C. J. Hauser called off her wedding, headed to Texas to study the whooping crane, and realized how close they came to living someone else’s life. Hauser dissects pop-culture touchstones, attends a robot convention, and contemplates grief at John Belushi’s gravesite in this memoir that maps the difference between the stories we’re asked to hold versus those we choose to carry. Time and The Guardian named it a best book of the year.

 

 

 

The cover to Thin Skin by Jenn ShaplandJenn Shapland

Thin Skin

Pantheon

Another much-anticipated book, Jenn Shapland’s collection of essays weaves together historical research, interviews, and her everyday life in New Mexico. Shapland’s first book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Lambda Literary Award.

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