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Way back in 2024, I wrote a post about the best books I've read in the past 10 years. Looking back at my old favorites was interesting because the books I remember most weren't always the ones I chose as favorites. Sometimes a book isn't a top ten all-time favorite, but it still sticks with you.
I'm going to scroll through 10+ years of book reviews and show you the nonfiction books that haunt my brain. I'll do another post for fiction books because there are too many!
Most Memorable Books: Nonfiction Edition
ENDURANCE: SHACKLETON’S INCREDIBLE VOYAGE BY ALFRED LANSING
History
In August 1914, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton boarded the Endurance and became locked in an island of ice. Thus began the legendary ordeal of Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men. When their ship was finally crushed between two ice floes, they attempted a near-impossible journey over 850 miles of the South Atlantic's heaviest seas to the closest outpost of civilization.
In Endurance, the definitive account of Ernest Shackleton's fateful trip, Alfred Lansing brilliantly narrates the harrowing and miraculous voyage that has defined heroism for the modern age.
Why I recommend it: If you enjoy real-life snow survival stories, you need to read this one. It’s a classic, and it’s stunning. Shackleton and his crew were complete badasses. Everything went wrong on their mission, and they mostly just shrugged and rolled with it. I would have panicked and died.
This book was first published in 1959. The author conducted extensive interviews with the surviving members of Shackleton's crew. He also had access to the journals kept by the explorers. It’s interesting to read a detailed firsthand account of events that happened so long ago. Even though I knew Shackleton’s story before I started the book, I was on the edge of my seat. There’s so much tension!
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NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE: NEGOTIATING AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT BY CHRIS VOSS
Psychology
After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. Never Split the Difference takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations and into Voss’s head, revealing the skills that helped him and his colleagues to succeed where it mattered most: saving lives. In this practical guide, he shares the nine effective principles—counter-intuitive tactics and strategies—you too can use to become more persuasive in both your professional and personal life.
Why I recommend it:
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Evicted: Poverty And Profit In The American City By Matthew Desmond
Economics
Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History by Bill Schutt
Nature
For centuries scientists have written off cannibalism as a bizarre phenomenon with little biological significance. Its presence in nature was dismissed as a desperate response to starvation or other life-threatening circumstances, and few spent time studying it. A taboo subject in our culture, the behavior was portrayed mostly through horror movies or tabloids sensationalizing the crimes of real-life flesh-eaters. But the true nature of cannibalism—the role it plays in evolution as well as human history—is even more intriguing (and more normal) than the misconceptions we've come to accept as fact.
In Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History, zoologist Bill Schutt sets the record straight, debunking common myths and investigating our new understanding of cannibalism's role in biology, anthropology, and history in the most fascinating account yet written on this complex topic. Schutt takes readers from Arizona's Chiricahua Mountains, where he wades through ponds full of tadpoles devouring their siblings, to the Sierra Nevadas, where he joins researchers who are shedding new light on what happened to the Donner Party—the most infamous episode of cannibalism in American history. He even meets with an expert on the preparation and consumption of human placenta (and, yes, it goes well with Chianti).
Bringing together the latest cutting-edge science, Schutt answers questions such as why some amphibians consume their mother's skin; why certain insects bite the heads off their partners after sex; why, up until the end of the twentieth century, Europeans regularly ate human body parts as medical curatives; and how cannibalism might be linked to the extinction of the Neanderthals. He takes us into the future as well, investigating whether, as climate change causes famine, disease, and overcrowding, we may see more outbreaks of cannibalism in many more species—including our own.
Why I recommend it: This book gave me nightmares about dying from mad cow disease. Nightmares probably don’t sound like a good thing, but if I’m thinking about a book in my sleep, it must be doing something right. Mad cow disease is especially terrifying because the British government tried to suppress info about it to protect the beef industry. Yeah . . . we’re all screwed.
The writing style is funnier than I expected. My favorite chapters are the ones about Christopher Columbus. I knew about the damage he did to the places he “explored,” but I didn’t know his connection to cannibalism. Queen Isabella decided that only New World cannibals could be enslaved. Selling slaves was big business, so Columbus and his followers slapped the cannibal label on pretty much everybody. I love that the author examines the history of cannibalism and how our (often irrational) fears of it have shaped the modern world. It’s a unique approach to the subject.
UNMASK ALICE: LSD, SATANIC PANIC, AND THE IMPOSTER BEHIND THE WORLD'S MOST NOTORIOUS DIARIES BY RICK EMERSON
Biography
In 1971, Go Ask Alice reinvented the young adult genre with a blistering portrayal of sex, psychosis, and teenage self-destruction. The supposed diary of a middle-class addict, Go Ask Alice terrified adults and cemented LSD's fearsome reputation, fueling support for the War on Drugs. Five million copies later, Go Ask Alice remains a divisive bestseller, outraging censors and earning new fans, all of them drawn by the book's mythic premise: A Real Diary, by Anonymous.
But Alice was only the beginning.
In 1979, another diary rattled the culture, setting the stage for a national meltdown. The posthumous memoir of an alleged teenage Satanist, Jay's Journal merged with a frightening new crisis—adolescent suicide—to create a literal witch hunt, shattering countless lives and poisoning whole communities.
In reality, Go Ask Alice and Jay's Journal came from the same dark place: Beatrice Sparks, a serial con artist who betrayed a grieving family, stole a dead boy's memory, and lied her way to the National Book Awards.
Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries is a true story of contagious deception. It stretches from Hollywood to Quantico, and passes through a tiny patch of Utah nicknamed "the fraud capital of America." It's the story of a doomed romance and a vengeful celebrity. Of a lazy press and a public mob. Of two suicidal teenagers, and their exploitation by a literary vampire.
Unmask Alice . . . where truth is stranger than nonfiction.
Why I recommend it: It's the story of Mormon con artist Beatrice Sparks and how her collection of phony diaries sparked (hahaha) the Satanic Panic in the 1980s.
There's a lot going on in Unmask Alice. It's a mix of biography and history. It examines young adult literature and why it's so compelling. It's also a critique of the publishing industry and how it consistently puts profit ahead of people.
The author of Unmask Alice—Rick Emerson—was clearly inspired by Beatrice Sparks. Just like in Sparks' books, Unmask Alice has breakneck pacing and a plot that goes in a million directions at once. It leaves the reader breathless. You don't want to stop reading to question what's real. Like Sparks, the author inserts his opinions into everything. It's nonfiction, so you're inclined to believe what he's saying, but . . . the whole book is about an author who lied in nonfiction. How "nonfiction" is "nonfiction"? This book makes you question everything you've ever read.
I recommend Unmask Alice to anyone who's interested in 1980s culture or the publishing industry. It's provocative for sure.
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STIFF: THE CURIOUS LIVES OF HUMAN CADAVERS BY MARY ROACH
Science
Mary Roach takes the age-old question, "What happens to us after we die?" quite literally. And in Stiff, she explores the "lives" of human cadavers from the time of the ancient Egyptians all the way up to current campaigns for human composting. Along the way, she recounts with morbidly infectious glee how dead bodies are used for research ranging from car safety and plastic surgery (you'll cancel your next collagen injection after reading this!), to the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin.
Impossible (and irreverent) as it may sound, Roach has written a book about corpses that's both lively and fresh. She traveled around the globe to conduct her forensic investigations, and her findings are wryly intelligent. While the myriad uses for cadavers recounted are often graphic, Roach imbues her subject with a sense of dignity, choosing to emphasize the oddly noble purposes corpses serve, from organ donation to lifesaving medical research.
Readers will come away convinced of the enormous debt that we, the living, owe to the study of the remains of the dead. And while it may not offer the answer to the ancient mystery we were hoping for, Stiff offers a strange sort of comfort in the knowledge that, in a sense, death isn't necessarily the end.
Why I recommend it: It's a modern classic for a reason. I love Mary Roach's nonfiction because she asks the morbid questions that normal people are afraid to ask. This book is about what happens to bodies that are donated to science. It's fast-paced, funny, interesting, and never disrespectful to the corpses. I loved it.
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RANGER CONFIDENTIAL: LIVING, WORKING, AND DYING IN THE NATIONAL PARKS BY ANDREA LANKFORD
Nature Memoir
For twelve years, Andrea Lankford lived in the biggest, most impressive national parks in the world, working a job she loved. She chaperoned baby sea turtles on their journey to sea. She pursued bad guys on her galloping patrol horse. She jumped into rescue helicopters bound for the heart of the Grand Canyon. She won arguments with bears. She slept with a few too many rattlesnakes.
Hell yeah, it was the best job in the world! Fortunately, Andrea survived it.
In this graphic and yet surprisingly funny account of her and others’ extraordinary careers, Lankford unveils a world in which park rangers struggle to maintain their idealism in the face of death, disillusionment, and the loss of a comrade killed while holding that thin green line between protecting the park from the people, the people from the park, and the people from each other. Ranger Confidential is the story behind the scenery of the nation’s crown jewels—Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Great Smokies, Denali. In these iconic landscapes, where nature and humanity constantly collide, scenery can be as cruel as it is redemptive.
Why I recommend it: Since I work at a state park, I thought reading this book would be stressful. It was! I picked it up and put it down so many times. It's a book full of worst-case scenarios. I mean, this quote is in the introduction:
"In the United States, a park ranger is more likely to be assaulted in the line of duty than is any other federal officer."
Fun times. Let's quickly move on before I convince myself to quit my job.
Andrea Lankford spent twelve years as a ranger in various national parks. This book includes all the behind-the-scenes stuff that park visitors don't see. The author writes about the accidents and deaths, the brutal work schedule, and the crappy living conditions for the staff. Her writing style is surprisingly funny. She has the gallows humor that seems to be common among park employees.
If you want to work in parks, I highly recommend this book. It'll give you a realistic view of all the bad things that happen. But, the job isn't all bad. You get to see bizarre and beautiful things that (often) make the pain worth it.
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Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson
Memoir
In Furiously Happy, a humor memoir tinged with just enough tragedy and pathos to make it worthwhile, Jenny Lawson examines her own experience with severe depression and a host of other conditions, and explains how it has led her to live life to the fullest.
Why I recommend it: This book definitely delivers the laughs that the title promises. Jenny Lawson suffers from several illnesses, and each chapter talks about the problems they cause in her life. Some of the chapters are deep and honest, but most of them are just hilarious.
I know what you're thinking: Being sick isn't funny, and you’re horrible for laughing at sick people. Usually, I’d agree, but if you live every day with a disease that can’t be cured, sometimes laughing is all you can do.
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MY FRIEND DAHMER BY DERF BACKDERF
Biography
You only think you know this story. In 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer—the most notorious serial killer since Jack the Ripper—seared himself into the American consciousness. To the public, Dahmer was a monster who committed unthinkable atrocities. To Derf Backderf, “Jeff” was a much more complex figure: a high school friend with whom he had shared classrooms, hallways, and car rides.
In My Friend Dahmer, a haunting and original graphic novel, writer-artist Backderf creates a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a disturbed young man struggling against the morbid urges emanating from the deep recesses of his psyche—a shy kid, a teenage alcoholic, and a goofball who never quite fit in with his classmates. With profound insight, what emerges is a Jeffrey Dahmer that few ever really knew, and one readers will never forget.
Why I recommend it: It does an amazing job of showing Dahmer's troubled teenage years without making him a likeable character. I love how the author contrasts his normal teenage life with Dahmer's extremely abnormal teenage life. There were many times when someone could have stepped in and questioned Dahmer's bizarre behavior, but people are so caught up in their own problems and successes that we don't really pay attention to each other. Hindsight is 20/20, right?
If you're interested in true crime, I highly recommend this graphic novel. It's sad and unsettling, but since the events all occur before Dahmer became a killer, it's not gory.
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DEAD MOUNTAIN: THE UNTOLD TRUE STORY OF THE DYATLOV PASS INCIDENT BY DONNIE EICHAR
Historical Mystery
In February 1959, a group of nine experienced hikers in the Russian Ural Mountains died mysteriously on an elevation known as Dead Mountain. Eerie aspects of the incident—unexplained violent injuries, signs that they cut open and fled the tent without proper clothing or shoes, a strange final photograph taken by one of the hikers, and elevated levels of radiation found on some of their clothes—have led to decades of speculation over what really happened. This gripping work of literary nonfiction delves into the mystery through unprecedented access to the hikers' own journals and photographs, rarely seen government records, dozens of interviews, and the author's retracing of the hikers' fateful journey in the Russian winter.
Why I recommend it: A few years ago, I became obsessed with the Dyatlov Pass incident and read everything I could find on the internet about it. It's a freakin' terrifying mystery!
This book is the author's attempt to solve the mystery. He mixes the hikers' photos and journal entries with police reports and interviews. It's a short book, and it feels very personal. You really start to care about the young hikers. Even though I already knew the theories about what happened to them, I couldn't put the book down. If you like unsolved mysteries or wilderness disaster stories, you need to read this one. I don't want to say anymore because I don't want to spoil the mystery for you.
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The Stranger In The Woods: The Extraordinary Story Of The Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel
Biography
My favorite part of the book is the information about historical hermits. Who knew that antisocial loners were so interesting? The book also explores the psychological reasons why people become hermits.
Dead Mountain lives rent-free in my head, and anything about Shackleton will always continue to amaze me!
ReplyDeleteI was literally just telling my husband about Shackleton for some reason yesterday. This book and that whole expedition are mind-blowing. I've read several of your other choices and some of the rest are on my TBR. I hope you're doing well!
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