For Real

This week, Alice and Kim talk about trans women authors.

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Netflix Orders White House Mystery Drama ‘The Residence’ From Shondaland, ‘For the People’ Creator [Variety]

Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation by Erika Krouse

Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times by Azar Nafisi

I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times by Mónica Guzmán

Lady Icarus: Balloonmania and the Brief, Bold Life of Sophie Blanchard by Deborah Haynes

Fairest by Meredith Talusan

How to Fail as a Pop Star: A Play by Vivek Shraya

To My Trans Sisters by Charlie Craggs

Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality by Sarah McBride

KIM: From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy by Scott Meslow

ALICE: The Lincoln Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill America’s 16th President—and Why It Failed by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch

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.

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This week Alice and Kim revisit one of their favorite topics, International Women’s Day, with stories from women around the world. Plus, new nonfiction about Flat Earthers, abolition, and Greek myths.

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West Africans and the history of smallpox inoculation: Q&A with Elise A. Mitchell [Royal Society]

4 lessons from the life of global health visionary Paul Farmer [Vox]

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder

Britney Spears set to pen tell-all book in bombshell $15M deal [Page Six]

Off the Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything by Kelly Weill

The Republic of Violence: The Tormented Rise of Abolition in Andrew Jackson’s America by J. D. Dickey

What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo

Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes

Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsébet Báthory by Kimberly L. Craft

It’s Not About the Burqa: Muslim Women on Faith, Feminism, Sexuality and Race, edited by Mariam Khan

Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen by Linda M. Heywood

Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot by Masha Gessen

To ‘Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors After the Civil War by Tera W. Hunter

White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue … and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation by Lauren Michele Jackson

The Story of You: An Enneagram Journey to Becoming Your True Self by Ian Morgan Cron

The Taking of Jemima Boone: Colonial Settlers, Tribal Nations, and the Kidnap That Shaped America by Matthew Pearl

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This week Alice and Kim talk nonfiction about the first ladies.

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Follow Up

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts

Nonfiction in the News

The Inside Story of the Banning of “Maus.” It’s Dumber Than You Think. [Mother Jones]

How to Fight Books Bans and Challenges [Book Riot]

How to Use FOIA [Book Riot]

Claire Foy To Star in ‘An Ugly Truth’ Adaptation [Kirkus Reviews]

New Nonfiction 

Black American Refugee: Escaping the Narcissism of the American Dream by Tiffanie Drayton

Woodsqueer: Crafting a Sustainable Rural Life by Gretchen Legler 

The Black Agenda: Bold Solutions for a Broken System by Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman

Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American by Laura Gao

Catch the Sparrow: A Search for a Sister and the Truth of Her Murder by Rachel Rear  

Weekly Theme: First Ladies

First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies by Kate Andersen Brower

Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady by Susan Quinn

Meaning of Michelle: 16 Writers on the Iconic First Lady and How Her Journey Inspires Our Own by Veronica Chambers

The Adams Women: Abigail and Louisa Adams, Their Sisters and Daughters by Paul C. Nagel

Reading Now

KIM: No Cure for Being Human: (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) by Kate Bowler

ALICE: Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke

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.

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This week, Kim and Alice share reads for Black History Month, plus new nonfiction about cobalt, China, Vikings, and clothing.

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Nonfiction in the News

2022 Carnegie Medals [American Library Association]

A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib

Get a first look at David Sedaris’ new essay collection [Entertainment Weekly]

Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris

New Nonfiction

Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern by Jing Tsu

Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower by Charlie Angus

Worn: A People’s History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser

River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads by Cat Jarman

Architects of an American Landscape: Henry Hobson Richardson, Frederick Law Olmsted, and the Reimagining of America’s Public and Private Spaces by Hugh Howard

Seven Games: A Human History by Oliver Roeder

Black History Month Reads

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Overground Railroad: The Green Book & Roots of Black Travel in America by Candacy Taylor

White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue … and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation by Lauren Michele Jackson

The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. by Peniel E. Joseph

Reading Now

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

Medicine in the Middle Ages by Juliana Cummings

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This week Alice and Kim talk about nonfiction highlights for 2022.

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Nonfiction We’re Looking Forward To, Part I

Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World by Danielle Friedman

Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama: A Memoir by Bob Odenkirk

Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Evaristo

The Urge: Our History of Addiction by Carl Erik Fisher

South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry

The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze by Laura Shin

There Are No Accidents: The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster—Who Profits and Who Pays the Price by Jessie Singer

Nonfiction We’re Looking Forward To, Part II

Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation by Maud Newton

Murder on the Mountain: Crime, Passion, and Punishment in Gilded Age New Jersey by Peter J. Wosh, Patricia L. Schall 

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain 

Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free by Sarah Weinman 

Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change by Angela Garbes

Reading Now

KIM: Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can’t Live Without Them by Adrienne Raphel

ALICE: A Visitor’s Guide to Victorian England by Michelle Higgs

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 or Spotify so people can find us more easily, and follow us there so you can get our new episodes the minute they come out.

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This week Alice and Kim celebrate recording 100 episodes for For Real by chatting about their podcast origin story, reminiscing about the bookish internet of the 2010s, and revisiting some childhood favorites across genres.

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Episode Links

Episode 1: International Women’s Day

Episode 50: 50 Books for 50 Episodes

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

Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight that Revolutionized Cooking by Linda Civitello

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keen

The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner

The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters (Amelia Peabody Series)

Reading Now

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

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This week Alice and Kim talk about nonfiction highlights of 2021.

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

For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Alice Burton.

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Favorite Nonfiction of 2021

KIM: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water by Kazim Ali

Sensational: The Hidden History of America’s “Girl Stunt Reporters” by Kim Todd

The Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination by Sheera Frankel and Cecilia Kang

Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson

ALICE: The African Lookbook: A Visual History of 100 Years of African Women by Catherine E. McKinley

Confident Women: Swindlers, Grifters, and Shapeshifters of the Feminine Persuasion by Tori Telfer

The Unfit Heiress: The Tragic Life and Scandalous Sterilization of Ann Cooper Hewitt by Audrey Clare Farley

Punch Me Up to the Gods: A Memoir by Brian Broome

Notable Native People: 50 Indigenous Leaders, Dreamers, and Changemakers from Past and Present by Adrienne Keene

Nonfiction We Missed in 2021

Names for Light: A Family History by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint

All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles

The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America by Carol Anderson 

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Heartwarming: How Our Inner Thermostat Made Us Human by Hans Rocha Ijzerman

A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib

Reading Now

KIM: The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson

ALICE: The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

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 so people can find us more easily, and follow us there so you can get our new episodes the minute they come out.

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This week Kim and Alice explore the vast and interesting world of birds and birding with memoirs and illustrated bird guides. Plus, new collections of essays, historical nonfiction, and more!

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Follow Up

Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef

Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala

Nonfiction in the News

Barack Obama May Become A 3-Time Winner (But It’s Not What You Think) by David Moye [HuffPost]

New Nonfiction

We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World, edited by Carolyn Holbrook and David Mura

Dark Tourist: Essays by Hasanthika Sirisena

Sea State: A Memoir by Tabitha Lasley

Deliberate Evil: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Daniel Webster, and the 1830 Murder of a Salem Slave Trader by Edward J. Renehan

Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home by Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Petersen

Birds!

What It’s Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing – What Birds Are Doing, and Why by David Allen Sibley

The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature by J. Drew Lanham

Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder: A Memoir by Julia Zarankin

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

Reading Now

This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life by Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods

The Ancient Guide to Modern Life by Natalie Haynes

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This week Alice and Kim talk about nonfiction picks for holiday gifts.

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Follow Up

The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

Disability Visibility by Alice Wong

Nonfiction in the News

National Book Award Winners Announced

All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles

New Nonfiction 

The Deeper the Roots: A Memoir of Hope and Home by Michael Tubbs

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones

These Precious Days: Essays by Ann Patchett

How the Other Half Eats : The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America by Priya Fielding-Singh

Holiday Gift Guide

Hello Alice and Kim, love the podcast.  Looking for a rec for a book that I loved so much that I read it twice this year.  It’s called Little Heathens and it’s by Mildred Armstrong Kalish and it’s her memoir about growing up in Iowa during the great depression.  Each chapter describes some aspect of her life on the farm and I found her life, seasons, and rituals on the farm to be so idyllic and comforting that I would love to read something else like it!  Hope you have some ideas!  — Tara

The Heart of Things: A Midwestern Almanac by John Hildebrand

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May 

I’d love a book recommendation for myself! I love learning about cults. I’ve read almost every book on Scientology & was wondering if there are books out there like Going Clear but about different cults. – Kirah

The World in Flames: A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult by Jerald Walker

The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple by Jeff Guinn

I’m looking for a recommendation for my father-in-law. He’s a retired scientist who reads regularly, but not voraciously. When he does read he likes to read history, biography, that sort of thing. I’m looking for some suggested authors to give him or some specific books that he’d find interesting or might broaden his perspective a little bit. 

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II by Daniel James Brown

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel WIlkerson

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyou

King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild

Reading Now

KIM: Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke

ALICE: Magna Carta by Dan Jones

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 so people can find us more easily, and follow us there so you can get our new episodes the minute they come out.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This week Alice and Kim dig deep for nonfiction about things you find underground, plus share new nonfiction about sports, food, and history.

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Follow Up

The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA by Jorge L. Contreras

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Nonfiction in the News

2021 Kirkus Prize Winners Announced [Book Riot]

Scottie Pippen Takes Aim at Michael Jordan in New Book [New York Times]

New Nonfiction

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

Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America by Mayukh Sen

Black and Blue: A Memoir of Racism and Resilience by Veronica Gorrie

An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States by Kyle T. Mays

Fell in a Hole

Trapped Under the Sea: One Engineering Marvel, Five Men, and a Disaster Ten Miles Into the Darkness by Neil Swidey

The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City by Jennifer Toth

The Hidden Stories Behind Our Structures by Roma Agrawal

Accidental Archaeologists: True Stories of Unexpected Discoveries by Sarah Albee

Reading Now

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker

Chanel’s Riviera: Glamour, Decadence, and Survival in Peace and War, 1930-1944 by Anne de Courcy

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