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No one writes like Hanif Abdurraqib writes. He has 15 different images and themes he's juggling, and you can follow every one as it flows into the next, and then at the end of a 300 page book, it has all come together, and it has moved you (man had me crying over a LeBron James Nike commercial! I don't even watch men's basketball!)
There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension is about basketball, about how sports hit us in all the most vital places, in basketball's role in Abdurraqib's childhood growing up in the hood in Columbus, Ohio. It is about LeBron James and his rise (he is about the same age as the author), a rise the author witnessed, and his connection to the city, to the state of Ohio. It is about coming of age Black, in a neighborhood that other people have Opinions about, in a neighborhood policed. It's about growing up, about shame and survival, about longing and loss, and about how it is a privilege simply to age, to see the greys grow. It is about being tethered to a place, part of a place, in love with a city, and it is about leaving, and heartbreak, and returning.
And most of all, it's about all of those things jumbled together into one, poetic flow of a book that will move you (and no, you don't need to know anything about the NBA to appreciate a moment of it, though I'm sure reading a lil Wikipedia about James wouldn't hurt if you're unfamiliar). I wish, often, that I could write like Abdurraqib writes. He has a gift unlike anyone else for putting emotion into words. What it feels like to believe in a sports team. What it means to protest knowing that the end isn't you "winning." The feeling that an infinite looping fadeaway end to a song leaves you with. The multitude of ways that heartbreak and hope can live in a person, so often both at once. This book is evocative, moving, and beautiful—and if you're worried I'm hinting that it's dense, please don't be worried. I don't think you'll be able to put it down.
Content warnings for suicidal ideation, police brutality, violence, death/grief.
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Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month: Nonfiction Recommendations
Speak, Okinawa by Elizabeth Miki Brina
Elizabeth's mother was working on U.S.-occupied Okinawa when she met the American soldier who would become her husband. The language barrier and power imbalance defining their early relationship followed them to the predominantly white, upstate New York suburb where they moved to raise their daughter. There, Elizabeth grew up with the trappings of a typical American childhood, while feeling almost no connection to her mother's distant home and out of place among her peers. This account is a heartfelt exploration of identity and what it means to be an American.
Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy
Original and expansive, this volume is a nearly 200-year history of Asian migration, labor, and community formation in the U.S. Reckoning with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the surge in anti-Asian hate and violence, historian Catherine Ceniza Choy presents an urgent social history of the fastest growing group of Americans. The book features the lived experiences and diverse voices of immigrants, refugees, US-born Asian Americans, multiracial Americans, and workers from industries spanning agriculture to healthcare.
Seeing Ghosts by Kat Chow
Born two years after her parents' only son died just hours after his birth, Kat Chow became unusually fixated with death. She worried constantly about her parents dying - especially her mother. Four years later when her mother dies unexpectedly from cancer, Kat, her two older sisters, and their father are plunged into a debilitating, lonely grief. In this memoir, Kat weaves together what is part ghost story and part excavation of her family's history of loss spanning three generations and their immigration from China and Hong Kong to America and Cuba.
Rise by Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, & Philip Wang
In this intimate, eye-opening, and frequently hilarious guided tour through the pop-cultural touchstones and sociopolitical shifts of the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and beyond, authors Yang, Yu, and Wang chronicle how we’ve arrived at today’s unprecedented diversity of Asian American cultural representation through engaging, interactive graphics, charts, graphic essays from major AAPI artists, exclusive roundtables with Asian American cultural icons, and more.
#asian american pacific islander heritage month#AAPI#AAPI authors#nonfiction#nonfiction reads#nonfiction books#Library Books#Book Recommendations#book recs#Reading Recs#reading recommendations#TBR pile#tbr#tbrpile#to read#Want To Read#Booklr#book tumblr#book blog#library blog
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Title: Green Witchcraft
Author: Paige Vanderbeck
Genre: Witchcraft, Nonfiction
Published: February 1, 2020
My Thoughts: This was okay, but I think there are better and more informative books out there
This green witchbook explores the power of natural magic, integrating the wisdom and energy of plants and herbs into witchcraft practices. It breaks down foundational practices into easy-to-follow sections, fostering an approach centered on the natural world.
While this was enjoyable, I don’t think it was for me. It felt repetitive and didn’t have as much research as other books I’ve read.
I think this book has something for some, but not for me. Personally, I would recommend The Green Witch by Arin Murphy-Hiscock before picking this one up.
#green witchcraft#nonfiction#witch book#witchcraft#witchcraft book#paige vanderbeck#nonfiction reads#magical
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Featured Book: The Bezos Blueprint by Carmine Gallo
Featured Book: The Bezos Blueprint by Carmine Gallo
The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman
Release Date: November 15th
The communication and leadership secrets of Jeff Bezos and how to master them, from the bestselling author of Talk Like Ted.Jeff Bezos is a dreamer who turned a bold idea into the world’s most influential company, a brand that likely touches your life every day. As a student of leadership and…
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#felt the need to add the only fanfic option cos i know that so many people would put that as fiction#but for this i am mostly interested in purchasing or finding actual published books.#for the purpsoes of this poll comics/graphic novels count in the 'i dont read fiction or nonfiction books' as id classify them as a type
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The Ocean is terrifying!
Here are some book recommendations to prove it!
#book recommendations#book rec list#booklr#oceangate#the titanic#titanic#maritime disaster#book recs 2023#now that I have all of your undivided attention - read these!#they are a mix of fiction/historical nonfiction#but all still terrifying!
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Alone, But Not Lonely: A Reading List on Being Single
“Someone like me—who remained single for more than a decade in a world devised for couples—is a puzzle to be solved, not a reality to be accepted.”
It may be almost Valentine’s Day, but that doesn’t me we can’t celebrate the singles out there. Clare Egan’s new #longreads reading list is all about the joys of not having a partner. Read it here.
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What does “thinking of you” mean? It means: forgetting “you” (without forgetting, life itself is not possible) and frequently waking out of that forgetfulness.
Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments (translated by Richard Howard)
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I don't post much about nonfiction on here, but considering the strike this week I thought I'd share some of the books I've read on Palestine/Gaza in the last couple months. I got these for free from haymarket books & verso books (or my library). I recommend picking up some if not all of these.
The Hundred Years War on Palestine & The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine go into the last 100 years of Palestine's history and occupation
Ten Myths About Israel gives a bit of an more brief overview centred around Israeli propaganda
A Socialist Revolution and BDS go into history & freedom/rights movements & institutional boycotts, in Palestine and globally
Freedom Is A Constant Struggle connects Palestinian liberation movements with Ferguson and Black liberation in the US
They Called Me A Lioness is about the experiences of Palestinians in the West Bank, and a teen girls' 8 month imprisonment
Light In Gaza is various essays on different elements of oppression, resistance, and life in Gaza
The Palestine Laboratory is about Israel's military tech being developed & tested on Palestinians and how it's used all around the world.
Palestinian Walks: Forays Into a Vanishing Landscape: about how the occupation has changed the land over time and the effects of this
#free palestine#if you find nonfiction hard to read try find an audiobook i find i absorb things much better in audio 👍#I actually only just started the last one but#(I'm not great at summarising things but hopefully these make sense)
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We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.
#polls#incognito polls#anonymous#tumblr polls#tumblr users#questions#reading#bookblr#books#nonfiction#mental voice#polls about interests#polls about brains#submitted nov 7
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The Argentina Reader: History, Culture, Politics edited by Gabriela Nouzeilles and Graciela Montaldo surpassed all my expectations. I had hoped that it would be a great primer into the political and cultural history of Argentina, and it was.
But it was even better than that, bringing a deeply modern outlook to historiography and digging into causes, biases, and storytelling analysis to give nuanced context to every essay, speech, story, and more included. It was alive and rich, and served as a far-reaching way to approach Argentine history that incorporated many modern procedures, including re-centering communities that have traditionally been silenced or disenfranchised, questioning the motives and biases of every author, and taking nothing for granted. By going this hard, the editors make every single piece really count. I feel like I learned an incredible amount in a short period of time. This is the ideal textbook in so many ways—critical but transparent, modern and thoughtful but rooted in primary sources.
I'm glad I found this reader before my trip—it was invaluable to understanding the complex and seemingly contradictory identity of Argentina and of its inner and outer conflicts, its power struggles, its economic turbulences, and its cultural formation.
Content warnings for racism and racist language, use of the g-slur, anti-Semitism, violence, suicide, sexual assault, and torture.
#the argentina reader#argentine history#argentine literature#nonfiction reads#nonfiction books#argentine books#reading while wandering argentina
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Disability Pride Month: Nonfiction Recommendations
A Disability History of the United States by Kim E. Nielsen
Disability is not just the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. Covering the entirety of US history from pre-1492 to the present, A Disability History of the United States is the first book to place the experiences of people with disabilities at the center of the American narrative. In many ways, it’s a familiar telling. In other ways, however, it is a radical repositioning of US history. By doing so, the book casts new light on familiar stories, such as slavery and immigration, while breaking ground about the ties between nativism and oralism in the late nineteenth century and the role of ableism in the development of democracy.
A Disability History of the United States pulls from primary-source documents and social histories to retell American history through the eyes, words, and impressions of the people who lived it. As historian and disability scholar Nielsen argues, to understand disability history isn’t to narrowly focus on a series of individual triumphs but rather to examine mass movements and pivotal daily events through the lens of varied experiences. Throughout the book, Nielsen deftly illustrates how concepts of disability have deeply shaped the American experience—from deciding who was allowed to immigrate to establishing labor laws and justifying slavery and gender discrimination. Included are absorbing—at times horrific—narratives of blinded slaves being thrown overboard and women being involuntarily sterilized, as well as triumphant accounts of disabled miners organizing strikes and disability rights activists picketing Washington.
Demystifying Disability by Emily Ladau
An approachable guide to being a thoughtful, informed ally to disabled people, with actionable steps for what to say and do (and what not to do) and how you can help make the world a more accessible, inclusive place.
Disabled people are the world’s largest minority, an estimated 15 percent of the global population. But many of us–disabled and non-disabled alike–don’t know how to act, what to say, or how to be an ally to the disability community. Demystifying Disability is a friendly handbook on important disability issues you need to know about, including:
• How to appreciate disability history and identity
• How to recognize and avoid ableism (discrimination toward disabled people)
• How to be mindful of good disability etiquette
• How to appropriately think, talk, and ask about disability
• How to ensure accessibility becomes your standard practice, from everyday communication to planning special events
• How to identify and speak up about disability stereotypes in media
Authored by celebrated disability rights advocate, speaker, and writer Emily Ladau, this practical, intersectional guide offers all readers a welcoming place to understand disability as part of the human experience.
Born Extraordinary by Meg Zucker
Meg Zucker was born with one finger on each hand, shortened forearms, and one toe on each misshapen foot, caused by a genetic condition called ectrodactyly. She would eventually pass this condition on to her two sons, and, along with her husband, raise them and their adopted daughter, who has her own invisible differences. Born of the family’s hard-won experiences, this book offers invaluable advice on raising confident, empathetic, and resilient children who succeed, not despite but because of their differences.
Born Extraordinary helps parents of children with differences and disabilities to relinquish their instinctive anxieties, embrace their new normal, and ultimately find joy in watching their children thrive. Often the subjects of unwanted attention—ranging from pitying stares to bullying—Zucker and her sons have learned to ignore what others think and live fearlessly. Also incorporating the stories of other families with visible and invisible differences of all kinds, Born Extraordinary gives parents the tools to meet their children’s emotional needs while supporting the whole family unit. Parents learn how best to empower their children to confront others’ assumptions, grow in confidence, and encourage dialogue—rather than silence, fear, and shame—around difference.
Enabling Acts by Lennard J. Davis
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the widest-ranging and most comprehensive piece of civil rights legislation ever passed in the United States, and it has become the model for disability-based laws around the world. Yet the surprising story behind how the bill came to be is little known.
In this riveting account, acclaimed disability scholar Lennard J. Davis delivers the first on-the-ground narrative of how a band of leftist Berkeley hippies managed to make an alliance with upper-crust, conservative Republicans to bring about a truly bipartisan bill. Based on extensive interviews with all the major players involved including legislators and activists, Davis recreates the dramatic tension of a story that is anything but a dry account of bills and speeches. Rather, it’s filled with one indefatigable character after another, culminating in explosive moments when the hidden army of the disability community stages scenes like the iconic “Capitol Crawl” or an event when students stormed Gallaudet University demanding a “Deaf President Now!”
From inside the offices of newly formed disability groups to secret breakfast meetings surreptitiously held outside the White House grounds, here we meet countless unsung characters, including political heavyweights and disability advocates on the front lines. “You want to fight?” an angered Ted Kennedy would shout in an upstairs room at the Capitol while negotiating the final details of the ADA. Congressman Tony Coelho, whose parents once thought him to be possessed by the devil because of his epilepsy, later became the bill’s primary sponsor. There’s Justin Dart, adorned in disability power buttons and his signature cowboy hat, who took to the road canvassing 50 states, and people like Patrisha Wright, also known as “The General,” Arlene Myerson or “the brains,” “architect” Bob Funk, and visionary Mary Lou Breslin, who left the hippie highlands of the West to pursue equal rights in the marble halls of DC.
#disability pride month#disabilities#social justice#history#nonfiction#nonfiction reads#nonfiction books#Nonfiction Reading#Library Books#Book Recommendations#book recs#Reading Recs#reading recommendations#TBR pile#tbr#tbrpile#to read#Want To Read#Booklr#book tumblr#book blog#library blog
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Copper Kettle sold the best fudge on the Jersey Shore—and after its owner's body was found stuffed in a car, his murder went unsolved for decades. Things change, though.
Atavist issue no. 143, WHO KILLED THE FUDGE KING?, is now available.
But a cohort of Ocean City residents insisted that the answers were right there for anyone who bothered to look. They believed that a toxic brew of prejudice, rage, and power had doomed the Fudge King.
I agreed, and thought that the story might make a great screenplay—a kind of South Jersey noir or David Lynch fantasia, where the flowers are pretty above the surface but gnarly worms lurk just below. Yet, soon I was hooked more deeply by the story of a fellow gay man living a relatively out life in the town where my family had spent our summer vacations. Someone whose reward for trying to yank Ocean City into the future was to become a target of hate and hypocrisy.
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modern au katara reads books “for fun” that are “engaging” and “enjoyable” and sokka (big finnegan’s wake head) is like “weak. i only read books that exacerbate my suicidal tendencies”
#i too only ever want to read books i find enjoyable fwiw but because i find most pop lit unbearable i do sound like sokka to people#who do not understand that reading shakespeare to me is like comfort food#sokkas hobbies much like everything else are filled with self inflicted struggle and anguish#he only wants to read the densest least acceissble literature (fiction & nonfiction) he can get his hands on#if he’s not in pain when ostensibly reading for pleasure then something is WRONG#modern au#katara#sokka#katara&sokka#i do think katara is also a big reader though#she’ll read anything and everything#nonfiction romance sff ‘classics’ etc etc#but then sokka is like ‘well audiobooks are cheating. actually’#and she throws a rock at his head killing him instantly#(he doesn’t even believe that bc he reads aloud to toph constantly he just wanted to provoke her into throwing a rock at his head.)
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32nd Book I Read in 2024
Title: Female Husbands
Author: Jen Manion
Notes: Bought this at Gay's The Word in London during a weekend trip last spring, but didn't get around to reading it until now. Such a great book though! Never knew about this part of trans history before and I am so happy I finally read it.
#Female Husbands#Jen Manion#trans#transgender#lgbtq#nonfiction#queer#queer history#book#books#bookblr#reading#2024#english#engelska
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My top 10 nonfiction reads of 2023 (the asterisked ones are in French with no translation as of yet) :
Belle Greene, Alexandra Lapierre
The Indomitable Marie-Antoinette, Simone Bertière
Reporter: A Memoir, Seymour Hersh
Red Carpet: Hollywood, China and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy, Erich Schwartzel
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, Patrick Keefe
Servir les riches, Alizée Delpierre*
La Comtesse Greffulhe : L’ombre des Guermantes, Laure Hillerin*
Le Courage de la nuance, Jean Birnbaum*
The Book Collectors of Daraya, Delphine Minoui
Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement, Hawon Jung
#book recs#i haven't finished the last one yet but it's been good so far! i really admire these women's resilience and solidarity#some inspiring stories of political activism + insight into aspects of korean history i didn't know about#i wanted to do a half-fiction half-nonfiction list like last year but i've read mostly disappointing fiction this year :(#my favourites were probably kivirähk's the man who spoke snakish & catherynne valente's radiance; though it wasn't as good as orphan tales#i'm reading jacques abeille's les jardins statuaires right now and it's quite frustrating because on the one hand#it's well-written and interesting with original worldbuilding. on the other i'm 300 pages in and there have been#2 female characters. the purpose of both (so far) was to have sex with the male protagonist and only 1 has a name#which makes the read feel less original and more ''same old shit as far as i'm concerned''
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