For Real

For Real

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For Real episodes

  • The Final Episode

    This week Alice and Kim wrap up 125 episodes of the For Real podcast by discussing their favorite reads of 2022 and reflecting on their favorite podcast episodes.

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    For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester.

    This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

    KIM’S FAVORITES OF 2022

    How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell

    World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

    How to Be Perfect by Michael Schur

    Ancestor Trouble by Maud Newton

    Invisible Child by Andrea Elliot

    The World As It Is by Ben Rhodes 

    In the Shadow of the Mountain by Sylvia Vasquez-Lavado

    Dog Flowers by Danielle Geller

    ALICE’S FAVORITES OF 2022

    A Most Remarkable Creature by Jonathan Meiburg

    Ghosts in the Schoolyard by Eve L. Ewing

    The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú

    Looking for the Good War by Elizabeth D. Samet

    The Lost City of Z by David Grann

    Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? By Roz Chast

    Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

    Trans Mission by Alex Bertie

    FAVORITE PODCAST EPISODES

    Episode 13: Suffragists, Suffragettes, and Winning the Vote

    Episode 23: The Arctic and the Tropics

    Episode 34: Ahoy, We Sail the Sea of Books

    Episode 50: 50 Books for 50 Episodes

    Episode 53: Snake Math!

    Episode 67: After the Final Rose

    Episode 70: YA Nonfiction, aka Nonfiction for Exhausted Adults 

    Episode 91: Library Treasure Hunt

    Episode 92: The One With Mary Roach 

    Episode 96: Fell in a Hole (AKA True Stories Underground)

    Episode 100: Episode 100!!!!

    Episode 123: Nonfiction Holiday Gift Guide

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    51 min
  • New Books By the End of the Year

    This week Alice and Kim talk about new nonfiction out in November and December, including memoirs, cold cases, orchid obsession, and more.

    Gift Tailored Book Recommendations this holiday season!

    Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.

    For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester.

    This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.


    Nonfiction in the News

    New York Times: Best Books of the Year

    Washington Post: Best Books of the Year

    Reader’s Digest: The National Book Foundation Announces 2022 National Book Award Winners


    New Nonfiction

    Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family by Rabia Chaudry

    Disability Pride: Dispatches from a Post-ADA World by Ben Mattlin

    The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder by Edward Humes

    Queen of Snails: A Graphic Memoir by Maureen Burdock

    A Coastline is an Immeasurable Thing: A Memoir Across Three Continents by Mary-Alice Daniel

    The Mexican Witch Lifestyle: Brujeria Spells, Tarot, and Crystal Magic by Valeria Ruelas

    As Gods: A Moral History of the Genetic Age by Matthew Cobb

    Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy by Clarence Lusane

    Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon by Kate Andersen Brower

    Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening by Douglas Brinkley

    Orchid Muse: A History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers by Erica Hannickel

    The Quentin Blake Book by Jenny Uglow


    Reading Now

    Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong

    The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science by Sam Kean

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    49 min
  • Nonfiction Holiday Gift Guide

    This week Alice and Kim make holiday gift guide recommendations.

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    For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester and Kim Ukura.

    For a complete list of books discussed in this episode, visit our website https://bookriot.com/listen/nonfiction-holiday-gift-guide/.

    This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    53 min
  • Books by Indigenous Authors

    This week Alice and Kim talk about books by Indigenous authors to recognize Native American Heritage Month. They also speculate about Prince Harry’s memoir and share exciting new nonfiction picks.

    Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.

    For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester and Kim Ukura.

    This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

    NONFICTION IN THE NEWS

    Prince Harry’s Memoir Is Due in January. How Explosive Will It Be? [New York Times]

    How Julie Powell and her ‘Julie/Julia’ blog changed food writing [Washington Post]

    Keanu Reeves Exits Hulu’s ‘The Devil In The White City’ Limited Series [Deadline]

    NEW NONFICTION

    White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao

    Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America’s Edge by Ted Conover

    The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge

    Among Tigers: Fighting to Bring Back Asia’s Big Cats by K. Ullas Karanth

    NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH

    Heart Berries: A Memoir by Teresa Marie Mailhot

    This Place: 150 Years Retold

    Dog Flowers: A Memoir, An Archive by Danielle Geller

    Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes

    READING NOW

    Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

    A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey by Jonathan Meiburg

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    46 min
  • New Fall Nonfiction

    This week Alice and Kim talk new fall nonfiction.

    Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.

    For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester and Kim Ukura.

    Book Riot’s Reading the Stars Giveaway

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    Fall Books Review, Part I

    The Stolen Year: How COVID Changed Children’s Lives, and Where We Go Now by Anya Kamenetz 

    Inventing Latinos : A New Story of American Racism by Laura E. Gómez

    Stay True: A Memoir by Hua Hsu

    The Surprising Lives of Bark Beetles: Mighty Foresters of the Insect World by Jiri Hulcr, Marc Abrahams

    Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, Goop, and the False Promise of Self-Care by Rina Raphael

    Wolf Hustle: A Black Woman on Wall Street by Cin Fabré


    Fall Books Review, Part II

    Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey

    Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis by Annie Proulx

    Somewhere Sisters: A Story of Adoption, Identity, and the Meaning of Family by Erika Hayasaki

    The United States of Cryptids: A Tour of American Myths and Monsters by J.W. Ocker

    Home Bound: An Uprooted Daughter’s Reflections on Belonging by Vanessa Bee

    American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America’s First Paramedics by Kevin Hazzard


    Reading Now

    KIM: Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao

    ALICE: The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont by Shawn Levy


    CONCLUSION

    You can find us on SOCIAL MEDIA – @itsalicetime and @kimthedork. Amazing Audio Editing for this episode was done by Jen Zink. RATE AND REVIEW on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so people can find us more easily, and follow us there so you can get our new episodes the minute they come out.

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    46 min
  • Witches and Boats

    This week Alice and Kim reflect on visiting Salem, Massachusetts and discuss books about witches and boats.

    Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.

    For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester and Kim Ukura.

    This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.


    Follow Up

    In the Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado

    Giveaway: Reading the Stars by Book Riot


    New Nonfiction

    Savor: A Chef’s Hunger for More by Fatima Ali and Tarajia Morrell

    Black Hollywood: Reimagining Iconic Movie Moments by Carell Augustus

    Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way by Kieran Setiya

    Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland’s Elves Can Save the Earth by Nancy Marie Brown


    Witches and Boats

    The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff

    Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies by Elaine G. Breslaw

    Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky

    Witches: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem by Rosalyn Schanzer


    Reading Now

    Who Is Wellness For?: An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind by Fariha Róisín

    This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust

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    48 min
  • Nonfic for Hispanic Heritage Month

    This week Alice and Kim talk about nonfiction reads for Hispanic Heritage Month.

    Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.

    For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester and Kim Ukura.

    This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

    Nonfiction in the News

    Jung Hae Chae Wins the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize [Graywolf Press]

    2022 National Book Awards Longlist for Nonfiction [National Book Foundation]

    Writer Samantha Irby calls her latest book ‘a devolution!’ [Entertainment Weekly]

    NEW NONFICTION 

    Listen, World!: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman by Julia Scheeres and Allison Gilbert

    Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

    Runaway: Notes on the Myths that Made Me by Erin Keane

    Brown and Gay in LA: The Lives of Immigrant Sons by Anthony Christian Ocampo

    WEEKLY THEME: HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH

    In the Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado

    The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantu

    Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands by Kelly Lytle Hernández

    In the Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero

    READING NOW

    KIM: The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

    ALICE: The Office BFFs by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey


    CONCLUSION

    You can find us on SOCIAL MEDIA – @itsalicetime and @kimthedork. Our amazing Audio Editing for this episode was done by Jen Zink. RATE AND REVIEW on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so people can find us more easily, and follow us there so you can get our new episodes the minute they come out.

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    47 min
  • Women in Sports

    This week Kim and Alice go down a rabbit hole talking about A League of Their Own and talk nonfiction about women in sports.

    Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.

    For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester and Kim Ukura.

    This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.


    Nonfiction in the News

    Barbara Ehrenreich, author who challenged American Dream myths, dies at 81 [Washington Post]

    Recommending Books Based on the Weirdest Facts They Taught Me [Book Riot]


    New Nonfiction

    Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better by Woo-Kyoung Ahn

    Off with Her Head: Three Thousand Years of Demonizing Women in Power by Eleanor Herman

    The Godmother: Murder, Vengeance, and the Bloody Struggle of Mafia Women by Barbie Latza Nadeau

    Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent by Dipo Faloyin

    The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World by Max Fisher

    Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong


    Women in Sports

    Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women’s Football League by Frankie de la Cretaz and Lyndsey D’Arcangelo

    Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team That Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory by Lydia Reeder

    Baseball’s Leading Lady: Effa Manley and the Rise and Fall of the Negro Leagues by Andrea Williams

    Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone the First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League by Martha Ackmann


    Reading Now

    Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon

    I Might Regret This: Essays, Drawings, Vulnerabilities, and Other Stuff by Abbi Jacobson

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    43 min
  • Middle Grade Nonfiction

    This week Alice and Kim talk middle grade nonfiction reads.

    Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.

    For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester and Kim Ukura.

    This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

    NONFICTION IN THE NEWS

    Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese are Creating a Devil in the White City Series for Hulu [Town and Country]

    NEW NONFICTION 

    The Mamas: What I Learned About Kids, Class, and Race from Moms Not Like Me by Helena Andrews-Dyer

    Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis by Beth Macy

    Democracy’s Data: The Hidden Stories in the U.S. Census and How to Read Them by Dan Bouk

    Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America by Psyche A. Williams-Forson (Univ of NC Press)

    Quick Mentions

    Walking in My Joy: In These Streets by Jenifer LewisWEEKLY THEME: MIDDLE GRADE NONFICTION

    Yummy: A History of Desserts by Victoria Grace Elliot

    Free Lunch by Rex Ogle (AOC)

    The Eagle Huntress: The True Story of the Girl Who Soared Beyond Expectations by Aisholpan Nurgaiv with Liz Welch

    All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team by Christina Soontornvat

    Reading Now

    KIM: My Imaginary Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows

    ALICE: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed


    CONCLUSION

    You can find us on SOCIAL MEDIA – @itsalicetime and @kimthedork. Amazing Audio Editing for this episode was done by Jen Zink. RATE AND REVIEW on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so people can find us more easily, and follow us there so you can get our new episodes the minute they come out.

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    43 min
  • Books We Read on Summer Break

    This week Alice and Kim catch up on all the books they read during their summer break. Plus, they share some new memoirs and social history titles.

    Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.

    For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester and Kim Ukura.

    This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.


    Nonfiction In the News

    David McCullough, Best-Selling Explorer of America’s Past, Dies at 89 [New York Times]


    New Books

    Bright: A Memoir by Kiki Petrosino

    A History of Delusions: The Glass King, a Substitute Husband and a Walking Corpse by Victoria Shepherd

    What the Children Told Us: The Untold Story of the Famous “Doll Test” and the Black Psychologists Who Changed the World by Tim Spofford

    A Good Country: My Life in Twelve Towns and the Devastating Battle for a White America by Sofia Ali-Khan


    Books We Read on Summer Break

    The Ugly Cry: A Memoir by Danielle Henderson

    Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi

    Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America by Eliza Griswold

    The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789 by Joseph J. Ellis

    The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House by Ben Rhodes

    The Colony: Faith and Blood in a Promised Land by Sally Denton

    Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner


    Reading Now

    The Scandalous Hamiltons: A Gilded Age Grifter, a Founding Fathers Disgraced Descendant, and a Trial at the Dawn of Tabloid Journalism by Bill Shaffer

    Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side by Eve L. Ewing

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    48 min

About For Real

From the publisher's feed

For Real is a biweekly nonfiction podcast that puts the spotlight on new books and old favorites that tell it like it is, or at least try to.

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