A Dozen Nonfiction Titles

December 12th (not even halfway, dear god)

Reader, are you still here? Wow, I was really nice yesterday and I encroached upon the cringiest word an Aquarian can dance around - EARNEST¹. Frankly, I’m a little hungover. But, no regrets!²

Today, I am going to remind you that I Read Books Seriously and talk about nonfiction. I read 24 nonfiction books (not including poetry) in 2024. This is only about 16% of my total books (around 150) read, so I need to keep working on this genre. I desperately need to try and read less memoirs³ because memoirs are abundant and frankly, mostly…not great. You should probably only write a under-50 memoir if you are a celebrity and you are going to drag Justin Timberlake to holy hell⁴. If you have lived a full and complete life with universal truths to share, proceed. Nevertheless, I shall advance with more caution in the memoir genre in 2025.

What I can definitively say is that I read the best new nonfiction release of 2024 and that is Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space⁵ by Adam Higginbotham. I am positive about this. It is the best. Read this book slow (I did a chapter a day) and imagine the research it took to write it. This is as good as it gets. AND IT’S SO FUCKING GOOD⁶.

Unless.

I also read the best book that was adapted to a television show in 2024? And I did. Patrick Radden Keefe is (a) A G.O.A.T. and (b) hot. Ok, fine…extremely talented⁷. Say Nothing is a story of Northern Ireland, and oh yeah, while he was investigating the book, he accidentally SOLVED A MURDER. Watch the show, read the book, but whatever you do, bookmark PRK⁸.

So, that’s #1 and #2.

Here, the other 10 books that made my dirty dozen.

3. Another Word for Love (2024 release, Carvell Wallace): Yes, pretty much a memoir, but told with an eye to universality and a big, big heart. Compelling, propulsive, useful.

4. The Hundred Years War on Palestine (Rashid Khalidi): A measured and accessible history. Critical and timely.

5. Oscar Wars (Michael Schulman): Have you met me?? This book is everything. Old Hollywood, New Hollywood, BTS machinations, film history. Ugh, I loved it⁹.

6. There’s Always This Year (2024 release, Hanif Abdurraqib): This allegory of life and basketball is both figuratively and literally poetic.

7. Didion & Babitz (2024 release, Lili Anolik): This book is not well- written (it’s like if someone printed and bound this Substack). But, for someone obsessed with past LA, writers and gossip? Woo, boy, it was a page-turner.

8. The Message (2024 release, Ta-Nehisi Coates): Not his best piece, but a strong offering of how to grapple with giving your life’s work real meaning.

9. Master Slave Husband Wife (Ilyon Woo): A compelling history of a couple escaping enslavement and the overlooked period of reconstruction.

10. Bluets (Maggie Nelson): Numerous reflections on the color blue, reads like a hot fever dream…but, cool?

11. Holy Land (D.J. Waldie): A detailed account of LA suburbia in the 1950s to 1990s, this one spoke to my niche interests. It’s not for everyone, but it was for me.

12. Have I Told You This Already (Lauren Graham): Listening to Gilmore Girl Lauren on audiobook, describing her showbiz life? The best comfort food.

Tell me your thoughts on nonfiction and how you choose titles. Favorites you read this year?

1. I am a Cancer Moon, so I got that emo devil inside me, lurking.

2. Screaming “NO REGRETS” as you sign off on a Substack is, inherently, regrettable.

3. Unless

Traci Thomas

told me I should read them.

4. The Woman in *US*, Britney.

5. Not a memoir.

6. Here is a link to the Stacks podcast with Adam.

7. But also, HOT.

8. Here is a link to the Stacks podcast with Patrick.

9. Thank you for seeing me, Jessica.