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Nonfiction Views: News from the publishing world, plus the week's notable new nonfiction [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-27
Good evening, everyone. Just a bit of news from the book world, and then on to this week’s notable new nonfiction, with descriptions mainly based on the publishers’ descriptions and review excerpts.
Macmillan CEO Jon Yaged: Censorship ‘Puts Us On a Path to Mediocrity’
“Today the concepts of censorship and free expression have been co-opted by people that want anything but the free exchange of ideas and the freedom to read,” Yaged said. “Their message is clear and overt: do what we want or else. Or else we will boycott you, delete your post, encourage others to dox you, or worse—instigate physical violence against you and threaten you with incarceration. Their message is do what we want or we will take your funding away, threaten your livelihood, tax your endowment, close your library or investigate you for nameless crimes. All of this has a chilling effect and encourages self-censorship. People don’t know what they can do, so they stop saying or doing anything. Stop out of fear of criminal prosecution or financial ruin.”
At this year’s PEN America Literary Gala, held on May 15 at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, Macmillan Publishers CEO Jon Yaged was honored with the free expression nonprofit’s annual 2025 Business Visionary Award, recognizing “transformative contributions to the world of literature and storytelling.” In his acceptance speech, Yaged took aim at the efforts to censor free expression that have increasingly defined American culture—and federal policy—over the past several years, and since the January inauguration of President Donald Trump in particular.
Publishers Join Growing AI Protest Movement Across Europe
"Fake AI transparency as currently proposed by the European Commission will enable AI companies to keep stealing millions of books in full impunity," Bameule said. "The book market is already flooded with fake books that not only threaten the biggest European cultural sector but can also endanger consumers. The European legislator clearly said 'no more'; it's time for the Commission to do what the law says."
The event, hosted by Italian MEP Brando Benifei and Irish MEP Michael McNamara, included statements from two members of the Federation of European Publishers: Anne-Sylvie Bameule, managing director of French publishing house Actes Sud; and Jesús Badenes del Río, CEO of Planeta Books from Spain.
Strand Bookstore to Take Over Last Shakespeare & Co. Location in NYC
Shakespeare & Co. will transfer ownership of its last New York storefront, located on the Upper West Side, to Strand Book Store on June 1, marking the end of an era for the beloved bookseller. The Strand aims to reopen the space in early July as the Strand at Lincoln Center, which will be their third brick-and-mortar storefront and second on the Upper West Side. All Shakespeare & Co. employees, including cafe workers, will retain employment with the Strand, according to a press release.
Back in my Philly years (that’s 1976-2016), I would go to The Strand on almost every trip up to New York and have a strong love for the place. I visited Shakespeare & Co. on occasion but never developed a strong attachment to it. My peak Strand years were in the late 1980s to the mid1990s, when I was going up to New York every week for continuing education classes at the New School and NYU. The Strand was a bit funkier back then, stacks of books in the aisles, but I would always come home with treasures from the cheap book bins on the sidewalks or the half-price review copies in the basement. It is still a great store, but they’ve cleaned it up a bit and now sell a lot of gift items as well.
On this day in 1897, Bram Stoker's Dracula was first published. Think of all the bloodsucking fiends that have been inspired by this book. #BookSky
On this fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, a reposting our review of the Pulitzer Prize-winning His Name is George Floyd, by @newsbysamuels.bsky.social and Toluse Olorunnipa, originally published on @dailykos.com in 2022. #BookSky Link to buy: theliteratelizard.com/book/9780593...
Pretty much all of my novels are in these data sets, and I certainly wouldn't mind getting several million in damages. I even have a charitable foundation I could put that money into.
I don’t know, Nick, but I hope someone breaks into your house when you’re on vacation and steals your shit. Too much work to ask you first. Anyway, if it dies, you know precisely in which cavity I’m gonna suggest you shove its carcass.
At the PEN America Literary Gala, event co-chair @jodipicoult.bsky.social — author of Nineteen Minutes, the most frequently banned book in our 2023-2024 report — spoke about the acceleration of book bannings in the US and the need for writers, artists, publishers and booksellers to stand together.
This excerpt from a speech has led some to think I am erasing Octavia Butler’s genius: Butler was on point in her predictions and was a phenomenal writer. Atwood was mentioned in my 3 minute speech at PEN not to denigrate other authors but because she has been honored at that specific gala. ❤️
THIS WEEK’S NOTABLE NEW NONFICTION
Dreaming of Home: How We Turn Fear into Pride, Power, and Real Change, by Cristina Jiménez. Cristina Jiménez’s family fought to stay afloat as Ecuador fell into a political and economic crisis. When she was thirteen, her family came to the US seeking a better life, landing in an overcrowded one-bedroom apartment in Queens, New York. She lived in fear of deportation and ashamed of being undocumented, but eventually, Cristina discovered she was not alone. She made it into college when students and advocates won a change in the law, allowing undocumented students to access higher education. She was proud to be the first one in her family to go to college, but she felt out of place until she met professors and student activists who opened a new world where she found her calling within a community of social justice organizers. Today, s he is Co-Founder and former Executive Director of United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the country, and a Distinguished Lecturer at the City University of New York. “Cristina Jiménez is documenting her life journey as an immigrant and in doing so, recording the journey of those who haven’t been acknowledged. We don’t count, we aren’t history unless we tell our own stories. In these turbulent times, Cristina’s voice is not only essential, it is heroic, a tongue of fire blazing in the night.”
— Sandra Cisneros, poet, writer, and author of The House on Mango Street
Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump, by Molly Worthen. Everyone feels it. Cultural and political life in America has become unrecognizable and strange. Firebrands and would-be sages have taken the place of reasonable and responsible leaders. Nuanced debates have given way to the smug confidence of yard signs. How did we get here?
In Spellbound, historian Molly Worthen argues that we will understand our present moment if we learn the story of charisma in America. From the Puritans and Andrew Jackson to Black nationalists and Donald Trump, the saga of American charisma, Worthen argues, stars figures who possess a dangerous and alluring power to move crowds. They invite followers into a cosmic drama where hopes are fulfilled and grievances are put right—and these charismatic leaders insist that they alone plot the way. The story of charisma in America reveals that when traditional religious institutions fail to deliver on their promise of a meaningful life, people will get their spiritual needs met in a warped cultural and political landscape dominated by those who appear to have the power to bring order and meaning out of chaos. “Finally—someone with something new to say about Donald Trump! Molly Worthen’s training as a historian of religion allows her to see what others have missed: Trump is the latest variation in a long, fascinating, and often weird history of American charismatic leaders. With her usual wit and energetic prose, Worthen connects the dots so we can see the full picture.” —Beverly Gage, professor of history at Yale University and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century
1861: The Lost Peace, by Jay Winik. A gripping, fly-on-the-wall account of the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln's decision to go to war against the Confederacy. Through Jay Winik’s singular reporting and storytelling, readers will learn about the extraordinary Washington Peace Conference at the Willard Hotel to avert cataclysmic war. They will observe the irascible and farsighted Senator JJ Crittenden, the tireless moderate seeking a middle way to peace. Lincoln himself called Crittenden “a great man” even as Lincoln jousted with him. Readers will glimpse inside Lincoln’s cabinet—the finest in history—which rivaled the executive in its authority, a fact too often forgotten, and witness a parade of statesmen frenetically grasping for peace rather than the spectacle of a young nation slowly choking itself to death. A perfect read for history buffs, with timely overtones to our current political climate. "Winik presents a vivid, tragic narrative of a nation coming to pieces...Along the way, he weaves in evocative profiles of leading figures and their drift toward extremism. The result is a dramatic and insightful retelling of a fateful turn in America’s saga."— Publishers Weekly
Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie, by Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty. The North American prairie is an ecological marvel, a lush carpet of grass that stretches to the horizon, and home to some of the nation’s most iconic creatures—bison, elk, wolves, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and bald eagles. Plants, microbes, and animals together made the grasslands one of the richest ecosystems on Earth and a massive carbon sink, but the constant expansion of agriculture threatens what remains.
When European settlers encountered the prairie nearly two hundred years ago, rather than a natural wonder they saw an alien and forbidding place. But with the steel plow, artificial drainage, and fertilizers, they converted the prairie into some of the world’s most productive farmland—a transformation unprecedented in human history. American farmers fed the industrial revolution and made North America a global breadbasket, but at a terrible cost: the forced dislocation of Indigenous peoples, pollution of great rivers, and catastrophic loss of wildlife. Today, industrial agriculture continues its assault on the prairie, plowing up one million acres of grassland a year. “Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty chronicle an environmental crisis most Americans are unaware of: the ongoing destruction of the country's great prairies. Sea of Grass is eloquent both on the complexity of this amazing ecosystem and its fragility.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Under a White Sky
When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World, by Jordan Thomas. Eighteen of California’s largest wildfires on record have burned in the past two decades. Scientists recently invented the term “megafire” to describe wildfires that behave in ways that would have been nearly impossible just a generation ago, burning through winter, exploding in the night, and devastating landscapes historically impervious to incendiary destruction.
In When It All Burns, wildland firefighter and anthropologist Jordan Thomas recounts a single, brutal six-month fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots—the special forces of America’s firefighters. Being a hotshot is among the most difficult jobs on earth. Thomas viscerally renders his crew’s attempts to battle flames that are often too destructive to contain. He uncovers the hidden cultural history of megafires, revealing how humanity’s symbiotic relationship with wildfire became a war—and what can be done to change it back.
Those Who Should Be Seized Should Be Seized: China's Relentless Persecution of Uyghurs and Other Ethnic Minorities, by John Beck. Award-winning journalist John Beck recounts China's persecution of the predominantly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang and its relentless pursuit of the few who escaped beyond its borders. Through intertwined literary narratives combined with snippets of original source material, including official directives and speeches, he pieces together the individual stories of what consecutive American administrations have described as genocide. Beck follows 4 characters: a Kazakh writer and an Uyghur nurse who survived re-education camps before ultimately escaping abroad, a human rights advocate involved in securing their release, and an inadvertent exile spied on by Chinese authorities as his family back home was used as leverage against him.
Through their stories, the book explores identity, dehumanization, and censorship, the force of literature in dark times, and an all-pervasive apparatus of repression able to exist within miles of the White House.
Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950, by Eli Erlick. Highlighting influential individuals from 1850-1950 who are all but unknown today, Eli Erlick shares 30 remarkable stories from romance to rebellion and mystery to murder. These narratives chronicle the grit, joy, and survival of trans people long before gender became an everyday term. Organized into 4 parts paralleling today’s controversies over gender identity (kids, activists, workers, and athletes), Before Gender introduces figures whose forgotten stories transform the discussion. “Not only have trans people always existed; we have always sought ways to live fuller and more authentic lives. Before Gender chronicles trans people from 1850 to 1950 growing up, working, falling in love, getting in trouble, playing sports, and building community as we’ve always done and always will do.” —Maia Kobabe, author of Gender Queer
Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line, by Elizabeth Lovatt. An author creates a narrative blend of history, cultural criticism, and memoir in celebration of everyday queer women, based on a lesbian helpline that existed in North London in the nineties. With warmth and humor, Elizabeth Lovatt reimagines the women who called and volunteered for the Lesbian Line in the 1990s, whilst also tracing her own journey from accidentally coming out to disastrous dates to finding her chosen family. With callers and agents alike dealing with first crushes and break-ups, sex and marriage, loneliness and illness, this is a celebration of the ordinary lives of queer women.
Through these revelations of the complexities, difficulties and revelries of everyday life, Lovatt investigates the ethics of writing about queer 'sheros' and the role living-history plays in the way we live today. What do we owe to our lesbian forebears? What can we learn from them when facing racism, transphobia and ableism in the community today? “Elizabeth Lovatt uncovers an unbeatably cool archive. Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line is a fun, informative, heartfelt and passionate book of lesbian history that shows how across generations, lesbians have found their way to one another.” —BookPage
Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde--Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop, by J Hoberman. Like Paris in the 1920s, New York City in the 1960s was a cauldron of avant-garde ferment and artistic innovation. Boundaries were transgressed and new forms created. Drawing on interviews, memoirs, and the alternative press, Everything Is Now chronicles this collective drama as it was played out in coffeehouses, bars, lofts, storefront theaters, and, ultimately, the streets. "The dish, plus the mentions of virtually every downtown address where people lived and worked, gives a vivid sense of the ’60s avant-garde as a physically and personally close-knit group and the art they created as a collective enterprise. Minutely detailed descriptions of movies, plays, concerts, and “happenings,” from underground classics (the Living Theatre’s Paradise Now) to the truly obscure (Barbara Rubin’s multimedia event, Caterpillar Changes), also make palpable the period’s anything-goes ethos." —Kirkus Reviews
The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s, by Paul Elie. Circa 1980, tradition and authority are in the ascendant, both in Catholicism (via Pope John Paul II) and in American civic life (through the Moral Majority and the so-called televangelists). But the public is deeply divided on issues of body and soul, devotion and desire. Enter the figures Paul Elie calls “cryptoreligious.” Here is Leonard Cohen writing “Hallelujah” on his knees in a Times Square hotel room; Andy Warhol adapting Leonardo’s The Last Supper in response to the AIDS pandemic; Prince making the cross and altar into “signs o’ the times.” Through Toni Morrison, spirits speak from the grave; Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen deepen the tent-revival intensity of their work; Wim Wenders offers an angel’s-eye view of Berlin; U2, the Neville Brothers, and Sinéad O’Connor reckon with their Christian roots in music of mystic yearning. And Martin Scorsese overcomes fundamentalist ire to make The Last Temptation of Christ—a struggle that anticipates Salman Rushdie’s struggle with Islam in The Satanic Verses. “Elie seeks to understand the ways in which religious ideals find expression in literature, arts, music, and culture . . . Readers may not always agree with Elie’s contentions in this fascinating, well-written book, but they will never be bored.” —Library Journal
Peace Is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O'Brien, by Alex Vernon. Featuring over one hundred interviews with family, friends, peers, and others—not to mention countless exchanges with Tim O'Brien himself—Peace is a Shy Thing provides a nearly day-by-day, gripping account of O'Brien's thirteen months as an infantryman in Vietnam and gives equal diligence to reconstructing O'Brien's writing process. This meticulously researched biography explores the life and journey that turned O’Brien into a literary icon and a household name. It includes an unpublished short story about O'Brien from a college girlfriend, documentation of his comical involvement with the Washington Post's coverage of Watergate, and a 1989 attic exchange between American and Vietnamese writers on the eve of the publication of O'Brien's most beloved book, The Things They Carried, years before the two countries normalized relations. "Alex Vernon has written a revelatory, insightful, and deeply moving biography of one of the most important authors of our time. Vernon beautifully illuminates the exquisite artistry and imaginative power of Tim O'Brien's work, the discipline of his craft, and the urgent moral questions he reckons with. In these pages, O'Brien—a fascinating, complicated human being and artist—comes vividly to life." —Lynn Novick and Ken Burns, filmmakers of The Vietnam War
Talk of the Devil: The Collected Writings of Ian Fleming, by Ian Fleming. Ian Fleming was best known for bringing to life the legendary character of James Bond, one of the most beloved and enduring icons of our time, but he was perhaps even more interesting than his creation. His career in Naval Intelligence and extensive travels around the world gave Fleming a keen eye and the authority to write on a wide range of topics beyond Bond’s adventures. This collection contains a selection of journalism and other writings by Fleming, covering his wartime experiences, reflections on crime and espionage, and the process of writing his novels, among other topics. Readers will feel like they are right beside Fleming, immersed in his world as he works to meet the deadline for his next Bond novel, or participates in a mortifying golf tournament, or befriends an octopus in his beloved Jamaica. A black-and-white photo insert gives dimension to the man behind the myth, bringing life to his words and providing a unique glimpse into Fleming’s world.
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