Featured books by Cal Flynn, Eyal Weitzman, Michael Cunningham and others
From the world’s wildest places to the origins of American fascism to memoirs of grief and recovery, July’s nonfiction has something for everyone.
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savage landscapeCal Flynn
flynn’s 2021 book, island of abandonmentThere was an amazing, compelling exploration of the planet’s abandoned places, previously human-occupied landscapes – exclusion zones, slag heaps, the DMZ – that, by design or by necessity, were allowed to return to the state of nature. His latest journey involves traveling to the world’s wildest places in an exploration of humanity’s often fraught (and certainly complex) relationship with what we call the wilderness, from the deepest, darkest forests to the most dangerous mountain peaks.
they stole a cityLauren Collins
Over the past several years, it has been gratifying to see such thoroughly researched historical accounts of the 1898 white nationalist coup in Wilmington, North Carolina, especially in the face of ongoing Republican efforts to censor American history. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, the city’s prominent white citizens – most of them Klan members and white supremacists – violently seized power from rightfully elected black citizens and stole property (and lives) from Wilmington’s emerging black middle class. It was arguably the last gasp of Reconstruction and the final expression of the Jim Crow policies of the previous 20 years. Unlike other accounts, Collins delves deeply into Wilmington’s past to create a truly captivating context for the only successful coup in American history, while also exploring its consequences well into the 21st century.
our knives will save usnephi craig
Craig’s compelling and brutally honest memoir tells the story of a White Mountain Apache teen’s struggle with addiction, and the lifeline he finds to the wider world through culinary school. But what Craig soon discovers, as he increasingly moves into specific areas of the restaurant world, is that indigenous food is not even accepted as a legitimate cuisine. When faced with a difficult career choice, coupled with an ongoing struggle with addiction, Craig realized that his true home was working with the food of his ancestors. A necessary corrective to the cultural erasure of First Nations foodways.
to undergroundeyal weitzman
Weitzman is the founder and director of Forensic Architecture, an international monitoring group that investigates military violence as it relates to the destruction of the built environment, particularly as a strategy of ethnic cleansing or genocide. Weitzman has investigated Israel’s deliberate destruction of Gaza and the killing of its civilians over the past five years—to underground (a term used to describe the destruction of an extended area beneath the earth’s surface) is the result of that action.
the biggest liejoseph kelly
The term fascism may have its roots in ancient Rome, and as an ideology saw its greatest expression in the countries of Europe, but was imported into the United States. Kelly argues that this is not the case. Drawing a direct line between the Christian nationalism of the antebellum South to the zealous Nazi mob of 1930s Wisconsin, the biggest lie Reveals the dark origins of America’s homegrown (and still growing?) version of fascism.
unsayableMichael Cunningham
The mark of a great craft book is that you are unable to read it straight through. That is to say, it makes you so eager to write yourself that you just have to keep writing. Unsable has this quality, but it also has the more traditional markers of a beloved book, making it too compelling to set aside. Part memoir, part new classic of the craft, it’s brilliant by any measure.
moving shadowgreg doran
When Greg Doran, former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, lost her husband, actor Antony Sher, to cancer, she launched a quest to track down surviving folios around the world, marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio. This book is many aspects at once: a beautiful tribute to a relationship, told in the diary entries of both men in the months from Sher’s diagnosis to his death; A story of deep sorrow; a history; A travelogue. Doran’s curiosity, humor and honesty tie them all together beautifully.
The gospel according to hobby lobbyMichael Blanding
File this book in the category of stomach-churning and essential. The former is a testament to Blanding’s storytelling ability — the problem is the story itself, about the family that founded and owns Hobby Lobby and its lavishly funded, fundamentalist religious agenda, is deeply disturbing. We currently live in America, which the Green family helped create, so it would be nice for us to read about how they did it.
midstreamkate washington
Kate Washington’s 2021 memoir already toasted There was a history of caregiver burnout in a country with no (or even, negative) safety net. In midstreamWashington faces the fallout from the events of that book, including a divorce, and sets out on a quest to complete 50 swims, in 50 different bodies of water, before she turns 50.
catch the devilPamela Koloff
The crime writing of Pamela Colloff (she writes fascinating, meticulously researched articles texas monthly, ProPublicaAnd The New York Times Magazine) has changed the way I think about forensic evidence. The public value of her work on cases of serious miscarriages of justice has enormous social value, and on top of that, she is truly a great writer. His first book, catch the devil Tells the story of a serial swindler whose testimony helps send a man to death row for a murder he did not commit.
