For Real

This week Kim and Alice talk about books by Arab women writers, plus new nonfiction about gene patents, colonialism in the 1860s, and medieval manuscripts.

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Nonfiction in the News

Instagram: Ijeoma Oluo’s new newsletter

Instagram: Bachelor Nation Publishes

New Nonfiction

The Gilded Page: The Secret Lives of Medieval Manuscripts by Mary Wellesley

The Last Emperor of Mexico: The Dramatic Story of the Habsburg Archduke Who Created a Kingdom in the New World by Edward Shawcross

Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes by Albert Samaha

Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: The Story of Schitt’s Creek by Daniel Levy, Eugene Levy

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

Arab Women Writers

Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World, edited by Zahra Hankir

A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics and Religion in Saudi Arabia by Madawi Al-Rasheed

Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution by Mona Eltahawy

Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman’s Awakening by Manal Al-Sharif

Reading Now

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century by Alice Wong

She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

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This week Alice and Kim talk about creepy, spooky, and scary nonfiction for the Halloween season.

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Follow Up

Our holiday gift guide episode coming up November 23 — send us your requests at [email protected] by November 15!

It’s Book Riot’s birthday and there’s special merch.

Nonfiction in the News

2021 National Book Awards Finalists Announced [National Book Awards]

Estate of Henrietta Lacks sues biotechnical company for nonconsensual use of her cells [CNN]

New Nonfiction 

I’m Possible: A Story of Survival, a Tuba, and the Small Miracle of a Big Dream by Richard Antoine White

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

Smile: The Story of a Face by Sarah Ruhl

On Animals by Susan Orlean

Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre by Brandy Colbert 

Weekly Theme: Spooky Nonfiction

The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained by Colin Dickey

The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror by David J. Skal

White Magic: Essays by Elissa Washuta

Yurei Attack!: The Japanese Ghost Survival Guide by Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt

Reading Now

KIM: Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef

ALICE: The Phantom Prince by Elizabeth Kendall

CONCLUSION

ALICE: You can find us on SOCIAL MEDIA – @itsalicetime and @kimthedork. Amazing Audio Editing for this episode was done by Jen Zink

KIM: 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 Alice and Kim highlight nonfiction books by Hispanic and Latinx authors.

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Nonfiction in the News

Historian of Race in America Gets an Unusual Four-Book Deal [New York Times] 

2021 National Book Award Longlists [NPR] 

New Nonfiction 

America Calling: A Foreign Student in a Country of Possibility by Rajika Bhandari

Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes: Essays by Phoebe Robinson – Tiny Reparations Books

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

True Raiders: The Untold Story of the 1909 Expedition to Find the Legendary Ark of the Covenant by Brad Ricca

Weekly Theme: Hispanic Heritage Month

National Hispanic American Heritage Month 2021 

Who is Hispanic? [Pew Research Center]

Hispanic Or Latino? A Guide For The U.S. Presidential Campaign [NPR]

Once Upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA by Julia Alvarez

My Sister: How One Sibling’s Transition Changed Us Both by Selenis and Marizol Leyva

The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border by Francisco Cantú

From Coveralls to Zoot Suits : The Lives of Mexican American Women on the World War II Home Front by Elizabeth Rachel Escobedo

Quick Mentions

Reading Now

KIM: Harlem Shuffle: A Novel by Colson Whitehead  

ALICE: My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham 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.

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This week Kim and Alice interview nonfiction powerhouse Mary Roach about renegade animals, tiger penises, and her amazing use of footnotes. Plus, new nonfiction about Chicago, online shopping, and segregation.

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Follow Up

The Quiet Zone: Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence by Stephen Kurczy

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

New Nonfiction

Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood by Dawn Turner

Arriving Today: From Factory Floor to Front Door – Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy by Christopher Mims

Code Name Badass: The True Story of Virginia Hall by Heather Demetrios

White Space, Black Hood: Opportunity Hoarding and Segregation in the Age of Inequality by Sheryll Cashin

Beautiful Country: A Memoir by Qian Julie Wang

We Are Not Broken by George M. Johnson

Chasing the Truth: A Young Journalist’s Guide to Investigative Reporting by Ruby Shamir, Jodi Kantor, and Megan Twohey

Interview with Mary Roach

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

Reading Now

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang

We Sold Our Souls: A Novel by Grady Hendrix

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This week Alice and Kim browse the library and find some surprising nonfiction reads.

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Nonfiction in the News

Blood, labs and fraud: Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes is about to go on trial [Washington Post]

New Nonfiction 

Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir by Kat Chow

Doctoring the Black Death: Medieval Europe’s Medical Response to Plague by John Aberth 

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

The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics by Mae Ngai 

Weekly Theme: Library Treasure Hunt

Futureface: A Family Mystery, An Epic Quest, and the Secret of Belonging by Alex Wagner

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

Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder by Reshma Saujani

Crazy Brave: A Memoir by Joy Harjo

Wild Life: Dispatches from a Childhood of Baboons and Button-Downs by Keena Roberts

The Ways of My Grandmothers by Beverly Hungry Wolf (1998)

Reading Now

KIM: The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson

ALICE: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobez du Mez

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 battle through the “Delta Grumpies” to discuss stories they’d like to see adapted for television and film, plus cover new nonfiction from August.

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Nonfiction in the News

John Lithgow Joins Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ [Variety]

New Nonfiction

Belly of the Beast : The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da’Shaun L. Harrison

On Compromise: Art, Politics, and the Fate of an American Ideal by Rachel Greenwald Smith

The Arbornaut: A Life Discovering the Eighth Continent in the Trees Above Us by Meg Lowman

The Last Nomad: Coming of Age in the Somali Desert by Shugri Said Salh

True Stories to Adapt

The Yellow House: A Memoir by Sarah Broom

American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse

Hudson Bay Bound: Two Women, One Dog, Two Thousand Miles to the Arctic by Natalie Warren

Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung

Reading Now

Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking by Jon Acuff

American Sherlock by Kate Winkler Dawson

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This week Alice and Kim talk Disney reads!

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Nonfiction in the News

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Reportedly Working on a Book About “Leadership and Philanthropy” [Vanity Fair]

Molly Shannon Writes Memoir [People]

New Nonfiction 

The Quiet Zone: Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence by Stephen Kurczy

The Viking Heart: How Scandinavians Conquered the World by Arthur Herman 

Lifelines: A Doctor’s Journey in the Fight for Public Health by Dr. Leana Wen

WASPS: The Splendors and Miseries of an American Aristocracy by Michael Knox Beran

Swan Dive: The Making of a Rogue Ballerina by Georgina Pazcoguin

Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California’s Wildfires by Jaime Lowe

Learning in Public: Lessons for a Racially Divided America from My Daughter’s School by Courtney E. Martin

Violent Order: Essays on the Nature of Police by David Correia, Tyler Wall 

Weekly Theme: Disney

Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park that Changed the World by Richard Snow

The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History by Nathalia Holt

Project Future: The Inside Story Behind the Creation of Disney World by Chad Denver Emerson

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: The Search for the Lost Disney Cartoons by David A. Bossert, David Gerstein

Reading Now

KIM: An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang

ALICE: My Name’s Yours, What’s Alaska by Alaska

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 chat about why heists are so much fun to read about, Barack Obama’s summer nonfiction picks, and more upcoming new books.

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Nonfiction in the News

Barack Obama’s Summer Reading List [Book Riot]

Two Iconic American Writers Join Howard to Create a Center to Help Educate the Next Generation of Black Journalists [Howard University]

Tenure Struggle Ends with Hannah-Jones Charting New Course [Associated Press]

New Nonfiction

Easy Crafts for the Insane: A Mostly Funny Memoir of Mental Illness and Making Things by Kelly Williams Brown

The Passion of Anne Hutchinson: An Extraordinary Woman, the Puritan Patriarchs, and the World They Made and Lost by Marilyn Westerkamp

Better to Have Gone: Love, Death, and the Quest for Utopia in Auroville by Akash Kapur

The Brilliant Abyss: Exploring the Majestic Hidden Life of the Deep Ocean and the Looming Threat that Imperils It by Helen Scales

After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort by Eric Dean Wilson

Surviving Mexico: Resistance and Resilience Among Journalists in the Twenty-first Century by Celeste González de Bustamante and Jeannine E. Relly

Heists!

Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History by Scott Andrew Selby and Greg Campbell

The Great Pearl Heist: London’s Greatest Thief and Scotland Yard’s Hunt for the World’s Most Valuable Necklace by Molly Caldwell Crosby

Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World’s Most Notorious Jewel Thief by Doris Payne (with Zelda Lockhart)

Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa by R.A. Scotti

Reading Now

Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga

The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East (1978-1984) by Riad Sattouf

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This week, Alice and Kim talk about new nonfiction releases for the rest of 2021.

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Favorites of the Year So Far

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad

Nowhere Girl: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood by Cheryl Diamond

You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism by Amber Ruffin, Lacey Lamar

Follow the Flock: How Sheep Shaped Human Civilization by Sally Coulthard

Anticipated Nonfiction

Swan Dive: The Making of a Rogue Ballerina by Georgina Pazcoguin

Horse Girls: Recovering, Aspiring, and Devoted Riders Redefine the Iconic Bond by Halimah Marcus

Hard Landings: Looking Into the Future for a Child With Autism by Cammie McGovern

Maiden Voyages: Magnificent Ocean Liners and the Women Who Traveled and Worked Aboard Them by Siân Evans

Beautiful Country: A Memoir by Qian Julie Wang Chen

Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America by Eyal Press

We Are Not Broken by George M. Johnson

Castaway Mountain: Love and Loss Among the Wastepickers of Mumbai by Saumya Roy

Personal Effects: What Recovering the Dead Teaches Me About Caring for the Living by Robert A. Jensen 

White Space, Black Hood: Opportunity Hoarding and Segregation in the Age of Inequality by Sheryll Cashin

She Kills Me: The True Stories of History’s Deadliest Women by Jennifer Wright

Praying to the West: How Muslims Shaped the Americas by Omar Mouallem

Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef

Empire of Rubber: Firestone’s Scramble for Land and Power in Liberia by Greg Mitman 

These Precious Days: Essays by Ann Patchett

This Will All Be Over Soon: A Memoir by Cecily Strong

Reading Now

KIM: People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

ALICE: Square Haunting by Francesca Wade

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 do some armchair traveling by discussing books about road trips and share new nonfiction about yoga, cults, and cons.

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

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Nonfiction in the News

2021 Pulitzer Prizes [Pulitzer.org]

Nonfiction Book by Margaret Atwood Coming in 2022 [Kirkus]

It’s Everything Change [Matter]

Janet Malcolm, elegant and incisive writer for the New Yorker, dies at 86 [The Washington Post]

New Nonfiction

Nowhere Girl: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood by Cheryl Diamond

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance by Jessamyn Stanley

Republic of Detours: How the New Deal Paid Broke Writers to Rediscover America by Scott Borchert

Blue: In Search of Nature’s Rarest Color by Kai Kupferschmidt

Thanks for Waiting: The Joy (& Weirdness) of Being a Late Bloomer by Doree Shafrir

The Afrominimalist’s Guide to Living with Less by Christine Platt

Road Trips

Quakeland: On the Road to America’s Next Devastating Earthquake by Kathryn Miles

Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell

My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem

Don’t Make Me Pull Over!: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip by Richard Ratay

Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity by Paola Ramos

Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States by Samantha Allen

Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots by Morgan Jerkins

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad

Reading Now

The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice by Scott Ellsworth

The Girls by Emma Cline

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