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Nonfiction Views: The Library of Congress Book Festival, plus this week's notable new nonfiction [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-07-08
The Library of Congress issued a press release today touting it’s 25th annual Book Festival on Saturday, September 6th. At this point, the lineup looks pretty impressive, but September feels a long way off, and who knows what the Trump administration could do to sabotage it between now and then.
After all, it has only been two months since Trump abruptly, rudely and without cause fired Carla Hayden, the much-honored Librarian of Congress, after conservatives complained that her agenda was too ‘woke.’ As far as I know, the status of the current Librarian of Congress is still unsettled. Trump attempted to install the utterly unqualified Todd Blanche, one of his Deputy Attorney Generals and the lawyer who won Trump his 34 felony convictions as the losing defense attorney. But the Librarian of Congress staff rebelled, and Carla Hayden’s principal deputy Robert Newlen assumed the position. Though Wikipedia lists both as “disputed” holders of the position, it is still Newlen’s name who appears on the Library of Congress’s website as “Acting Librarian of Congress.”
So yes, there is still a lot of sabotage that could be wreaked on the Book Festival in the next couple months, but right now the line-up is impressive. Yes, they do lead off with Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who has a book coming out the week after the Festival (Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.) And there are some conservative historians like Yuval Levin, author of American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again. But other than that, the lineup of authors seems bravely diverse.
You have Jill Lepore, a liberal historian who wrote the excellent These Truths: A History of the United States some years ago, and has a new book, We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution, coming out September 16th (it’s on my 20% Off Preorders We’re Excited About list at The Literate Lizard.) Clay Risen will be there to discuss his recent Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America. Alexander Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow will be there to discuss his new bio of Mark Twain. YA author and pro-vaccine activist John Green will be there to discuss his recent adult nonfiction book Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection.
The three most recent Poet Laureates of the United States—all women-- will be there, featuring Native American Joy Harjo Latina Ada Limón and African-American Tracy K. Smith. Nigerian novelist and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will be there to discuss her recent novel Dream Count. Kashana Cauley, whose novel The Payback, about predatory student loans, comes out next week will be speaking. (I’ve already sold two preorders of this one!) Other novelists in attendance include Susan Choi, Laila Lalami, Nnedi Okorafor, Jess Walter, Chris Whitaker and so many more. Really, the lineup mostly seems like the sort of literary voices who would have the Trump crew foaming at the mouth, calling out the National Guard, and threatening deportation. Fingers crossed that the brave staff of the Library of Congress can hold the line.
You can see the complete list on the Library of Congress Book Festival website. It’s free, and a lot of the events will be livestreamed.
As for fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, she announced yesterday that she has taken new position with Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic supporters of the arts. She will be focused on sharing with the public information about libraries and archives. In a statement, she said:
“For generations, libraries, archives, and cultural institutions have been the guardians of knowledge and the catalysts for human progress. Together, we will work to strengthen the public knowledge ecosystem and ensure that the transformative power of information remains accessible to all.”
THIS WEEK’S NOTABLE NEW NONFICTION
The Roma: A Traveling History, by Madeline Potter . The word Roma conjures images of free-spirited nomads, creative and easy-going people who choose to eschew social conformity for personal independence and a life on the road. Few know these people’s long, tortuous history of being harassed, expelled, deported, demonized, enslaved, and murdered. The Roma is a fascinating history of this people observed from within their world that moves away from stereotypes and the tragedy that has defined them. While Madeline Potter does not overlook the deeply held racism and oppression they have endured, she instead celebrates the Roma’s strength and endurance, their ability to resist and survive. By reflecting on her own experiences as a Romani woman, and the stereotyping, marginalization, and racism she has endured, Potter creates a full-bodied, far-reaching history of a people often maligned and misunderstood, and pays tribute to a culture and its traditions. “…this earnest account will deliver an unsettling education to American readers who are almost certainly unaware that a million Roma live in the country.. . . [Potter brings] Well-deserved attention to a genuinely neglected minority."— Kirkus
The word Roma conjures images of free-spirited nomads, creative and easy-going people who choose to eschew social conformity for personal independence and a life on the road. Few know these people’s long, tortuous history of being harassed, expelled, deported, demonized, enslaved, and murdered. The Roma is a fascinating history of this people observed from within their world that moves away from stereotypes and the tragedy that has defined them. While Madeline Potter does not overlook the deeply held racism and oppression they have endured, she instead celebrates the Roma’s strength and endurance, their ability to resist and survive. By reflecting on her own experiences as a Romani woman, and the stereotyping, marginalization, and racism she has endured, Potter creates a full-bodied, far-reaching history of a people often maligned and misunderstood, and pays tribute to a culture and its traditions. “…this earnest account will deliver an unsettling education to American readers who are almost certainly unaware that a million Roma live in the country.. . . [Potter brings] Well-deserved attention to a genuinely neglected minority."— The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It, by Iain MacGregor . An epic, riveting history based on new interviews and research that recounts the decade-long journey toward this first atomic attack. It charts the race for the bomb during World War II, as the Allies fought the Axis powers, and is told through several key characters: General Leslie Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project alongside Robert Oppenheimer; pioneering Army Air Force pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets Jr.; the mayor of Hiroshima, Senkichi Awaya, who would die alongside eighty thousand fellow citizens; and Pulitzer Prize–winning writer John Hersey, who traveled to Japan for the New Yorker to expose the devastation the bomb inflicted on the city and to describe in unflinching detail the dangers posed by radiation poisoning. "I can think of no more important book for our time. Written with moral clarity, tremendous verve, and the ability of a truly great historian to render the immensity of a moment through the smaller voices as well as being faithful to the facts. I recommend this magisterial, haunting book to all generations." — Fergal Keane, award-winning BBC foreign correspondent and author of Road of Bones
An epic, riveting history based on new interviews and research that recounts the decade-long journey toward this first atomic attack. It charts the race for the bomb during World War II, as the Allies fought the Axis powers, and is told through several key characters: General Leslie Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project alongside Robert Oppenheimer; pioneering Army Air Force pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets Jr.; the mayor of Hiroshima, Senkichi Awaya, who would die alongside eighty thousand fellow citizens; and Pulitzer Prize–winning writer John Hersey, who traveled to Japan for the New Yorker to expose the devastation the bomb inflicted on the city and to describe in unflinching detail the dangers posed by radiation poisoning. The Last Empress of France: The Rebellious Life of Eugénie de Montijo, by Petie Kladstrup and Evelyne Resnick . The dramatic, untold story of Eugénie de Montijo, the woman who created haute couture, fought for women's rights, opened France's schools to girls and ruled the country as its last empress, yet today remains almost unknown. Although a nineteenth-century woman, her almost twenty-first century outlook was key to the creation of modern France. Viewed frequently as a mere "ornament of the throne" of her husband, Emperor Napoléon III, this Spanish-born aristocrat proved to be almost as fiery as her red hair, fighting against institutional limitations, establishing innovations in childcare and women's health, scientific research and education, battling anti-Semitism and "sex prejudice," all the while displaying a political acumen so sharp that her husband gave her sole control of the government during his absences and consulted her daily when he was home. But the triumphs and glamour of her life were coupled with heartbreak and tragedy. This first definitive American biography of Eugénie restores her far-reaching legacy to history. "Before reading this wonderful biography I knew Empress Eugenie only as a rosy face emerging from the sumptuous gowns of Winterhalter portraits. Kladstrup and Resnick have done a marvellous job presenting the full, real life of a remarkable woman, who was so bold and so busy it's incredible she could sit still long enough to have her portrait painted at all. Whether exploring travel, architecture, fashion, finance, education, perfume or power, The Last Empress of France is energetic, intelligent and immensely readable - as smart and vigorous as the Empress herself." -Lucy Adlington, New York Times bestselling author of The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
The dramatic, untold story of Eugénie de Montijo, the woman who created haute couture, fought for women's rights, opened France's schools to girls and ruled the country as its last empress, yet today remains almost unknown. Sonita: My Fight Against Tyranny and My Escape to Freedom, by Sonita Alizada . The first time Sonita was put up for sale in Afghanistan, she was 10 years old and she thought that she was participating in a dress-up game. She quickly realized that, in her culture, a wedding is a kind of funeral for the bride. Sonita says, “It represents the loss of a future. The loss of a voice.” After the marriage fell through, she was placed on sale again. She was expected to form a family, sleep with a man she never met, and then repeat the terrible cycle with her own children. But Sonita wanted more. In Sonita, the Afghan rap artist and activist shares the story of how she fled Afghanistan to pursue her dreams and evolved into a woman who is changing the world. She shares incredible highs, like winning the song writing contest that gave her the opportunity of a lifetime, and unimaginable lows, like when the cruel Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, and how some of her family escaped, and how some were left behind. Sonita also shares photos and access to exclusive music.
The first time Sonita was put up for sale in Afghanistan, she was 10 years old and she thought that she was participating in a dress-up game. She quickly realized that, in her culture, a wedding is a kind of funeral for the bride. Sonita says, “It represents the loss of a future. The loss of a voice.” After the marriage fell through, she was placed on sale again. She was expected to form a family, sleep with a man she never met, and then repeat the terrible cycle with her own children. But Sonita wanted more. In Sonita, the Afghan rap artist and activist shares the story of how she fled Afghanistan to pursue her dreams and evolved into a woman who is changing the world. She shares incredible highs, like winning the song writing contest that gave her the opportunity of a lifetime, and unimaginable lows, like when the cruel Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, and how some of her family escaped, and how some were left behind. Sonita also shares photos and access to exclusive music. Becoming Baba: Fatherhood, Faith, and Finding Meaning in America, by Aymann Ismail . The son of Egyptian immigrants, Aymann Ismail came of age in the shadow of 9/11, tracking the barrage of predatory headlines pervading the media and influencing the popular consciousness about Muslims. After a series of bomb threats were directed at his Islamic school in Teaneck, New Jersey, just a few miles from downtown Manhattan, his parents—anxious that it was no longer safe to be so explicitly Muslim—enrolled him in public school, where he was the only Muslim his new friends had ever met. In the privacy of their home, they turned to their faith for guidance on how to live, adhering to traditional notions about gender roles, and avoiding the putative American dangers of alcohol, sex, and rebellion.
And yet, Aymann is undeniably an American teenager, negotiating his place in multiple worlds while chafing against the structures of his upbringing. He eventually embarks on a career in political journalism, in part to establish his own version of things. “Guaranteed to steal your heart, Becoming Baba is a profound meditation on what it means to build a self and a family in an often unwelcoming land. Ismail has written an American Odyssey .” —Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of This Is How You Lose Her
Becoming Baba Odyssey The Jailhouse Lawyer, by Calvin Duncan and Sophie Cull . Calvin Duncan was nineteen when he was incarcerated for a 1981 New Orleans murder he didn’t commit. The victim of a wildly incompetent public defense system and a badly compromised witness, Duncan was left to rot in the waking nightmare of confinement. Armed with little education, he took matters into his own hands. At twenty-one, he filed his first motion from prison: “Motion for a Law Book,” which launched his highly successful, self-taught legal career. Trapped within this wholly corrupted system, Duncan became a legal advocate for himself and his fellow prisoners as an inmate counsel at the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola. Literature sustained his hope, as he learned the law in its shadow. “The legal system tried to destroy Calvin Duncan. But rather than submit, he used the law to fight back, both for himself and for hundreds of other incarcerated men. This brilliantly told story—at once maddening and miraculous—is among the most powerful indictments of our criminal justice system I’ve ever read.” —James Forman, Jr.
Calvin Duncan was nineteen when he was incarcerated for a 1981 New Orleans murder he didn’t commit. The victim of a wildly incompetent public defense system and a badly compromised witness, Duncan was left to rot in the waking nightmare of confinement. Armed with little education, he took matters into his own hands. No Sense in Wishing: Essays, by Lawrence Burney . There are moments throughout our lives when we discover an artist, an album, a film, or a cultural artifact that leaves a lasting impression, helping inform how we understand the world, and ourselves, moving forward. In No Sense in Wishing, Lawrence Burney explores these profound interactions with incisive and energizing prose, offering us a personal and critical perspective on the people, places, music, and art that transformed him. In a time when music is spearheading Black Americans’ connection with Africans on The Continent, Burney takes trips to cover the bubbling creative scenes in Lagos and Johannesburg that inspire teary-eyed reflections of self and belonging. Seeing his mother perform as the opening act at a Gil Scott-Heron show as a child inspires an essay about parent-child relationships and how personal taste is often inherited. And a Maryland crab feast with family facilitates an assessment of how the Black people in his home state have historically improvised paths for their liberation.
The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them, by Ekow Eshun . In the western imagination, a Black man is always a stranger, outsider, foreigner, intruder, alien; one who remains associated with their origins irrespective of how far they have travelled from them. One who is not an individual in his own right, but the representative of a type. What kind of performance is required for a person to survive this condition? What happens beneath the mask—what is the cost to the mind and body, to one’s relationships and one’s sense of self? Searching for answers, Ekow Eshun channels the voices of five very different individuals. Each man a renowned trailblazer in his field. Each man haunted by a sense of isolation and exile. Each man a stranger in his own world: Ira Aldridge, nineteenth century British actor and playwright; Matthew Henson, the first Black man to reach the North Pole; Frantz Fanon, French-Martinican psychiatrist and political philosopher; Malcolm X, civil rights activist and leader; Justin Fashanu, Britain’s first openly gay professional footballer.
A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck, by Sophie Elmhirst . The electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits. Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He’s a loner, awkward and obsessive; she’s charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream – as we all dream – of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away?
Most of us begin and end with the daydream. But in June 1972, Maurice and Maralyn set sail. For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank beneath the waves.
What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue. Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests. Although they could run away from the world, they can’t run away from themselves. An Indie Next pick. Originally published in Great Britain under the title Maurice and Maralyn. “Such an emotionally vivid portrait of a couple in isolation that I was shocked it wasn’t fiction. How could a writer get so deeply into the minds of two real people in such extraordinary circumstances? … So brilliantly depicted.” – Elle, Best Books of Summer
The electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits. Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He’s a loner, awkward and obsessive; she’s charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream – as we all dream – of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away? Most of us begin and end with the daydream. But in June 1972, Maurice and Maralyn set sail. For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank beneath the waves. What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue. Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests. Although they could run away from the world, they can’t run away from themselves. An Indie Next pick. Originally published in Great Britain under the title Maurice and Maralyn. “Such an emotionally vivid portrait of a couple in isolation that I was shocked it wasn’t fiction. How could a writer get so deeply into the minds of two real people in such extraordinary circumstances? … So brilliantly depicted.” Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home, by Stephen Starring Grant . Steve Grant was laid off in March of 2020. He was fifty and had cancer, so he needed health insurance, fast. Which is how he found himself a rural letter carrier in Appalachia, back in his old hometown. Suddenly, he was the guy with the goods, delivering dog food and respirators and lube and heirloom tomato seeds and Lord of the Rings replica swords. He transported chicken feed to grandmothers living alone in the mountains and forded a creek with a refrigerator on his back. But while he carried the mail, he also carried a whole lot more than just the mail, including a family legacy of rage and the anxiety of having lost his identity along with his corporate job. And yet, slowly, surrounded by a ragtag but devoted band of letter carriers, working this different kind of job, Grant found himself becoming a different kind of person. He became a lifeline for lonely people, providing fleeting moments of human contact and the assurance that our government still cares.
Flashes of Brilliance: The Genius of Early Photography and How It Transformed Art, Science, and History, by Anika Burgess. Today it’s routine to take photos from an airplane window, use a camera underwater, or watch a movie or view an X-ray. But the photographic innovations more than a century ago that made such things possible were experimental, revelatory, and sometimes dangerous—and many of the innovators, entrepreneurs, and inventors behind them were memorable eccentrics. In Flashes of Brilliance, New York Times photo editor Anika Burgess engagingly blends art, science, and social history to reveal the most dramatic developments in photography from its birth in the 1830s to the early twentieth century. Writing with verve and an eye for the compelling detail, she describes how photographers captured the world as never seen before, showing for the first time the bones of humans, the motion of animals, the cells of plants, and the structure of snowflakes. Burgess also delves into the early connections between photography and society that are still with us today: how photo manipulation—the art of “fake images”—was an issue right from the start; how the police used the telephoto lens to surveil suffragists and others; and how leading Black figures like Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass adapted self-portraits to assert their identity and autonomy.
Today it’s routine to take photos from an airplane window, use a camera underwater, or watch a movie or view an X-ray. But the photographic innovations more than a century ago that made such things possible were experimental, revelatory, and sometimes dangerous—and many of the innovators, entrepreneurs, and inventors behind them were memorable eccentrics. In Flashes of Brilliance, New York Times photo editor Anika Burgess engagingly blends art, science, and social history to reveal the most dramatic developments in photography from its birth in the 1830s to the early twentieth century. Dinner with King Tut: How Rogue Archaeologists Are Re-creating the Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Tastes of Lost Civilizations, by Sam Kean. Whether it’s the mighty pyramids of Egypt or the majestic temples of Mexico, we have a good idea of what the past looked like. But what about our other senses: The tang of Roman fish sauce and the springy crust of Egyptian sourdough? The boom of medieval cannons and the clash of Viking swords? The frenzied plays of an Aztec ballgame...and the chilling reality that the losers might also lose their lives?
History often neglects the tastes, textures, sounds, and smells that were an intimate part of our ancestors’ lives, but a new generation of researchers is resurrecting those hidden details, pioneering an exciting new discipline called experimental archaeology. These are scientists gone rogue: They make human mummies. They investigate the unsolved murders of ancient bog bodies. They carve primitive spears and go hunting, then knap their own obsidian blades to skin the game. They build perilous boats and plunge out onto the open sea—all in the name of experiencing history as it was, with all its dangers, disappointments, and unexpected delights.
Beloved author Sam Kean joins these experimental archaeologists on their adventures across the globe, from the Andes to the South Seas.
All book links in this diary are to my online bookstore The Literate Lizard. If you already have a favorite indie bookstore, please keep supporting them, but if you’re able to throw a little business my way, that would be truly appreciated. I would love to be considered ‘The Official Bookstore of Daily Kos.’ Use the coupon code DAILYKOS for 15% off your order, in gratitude for your support (an ever-changing smattering of new releases are already discounted 20% each week). I’m busily adding new content every day, and will have lots more dedicated subject pages and curated booklists as it grows. I want it to be full of book-lined rabbit holes to lose yourself in (and maybe throw some of those books into a shopping cart as well.)
We also partner Libro.fm for audiobooks. Libro.fm is similar to Amazon’s Audible, with a la carte audiobooks, or a $14.99 monthly membership which includes the audiobook of your choice and 20% off subsequent purchases during the month. Note that the DAILYKOS coupon code is only for the bookstore, not for the audiobook affiliate.
I’m adding more books every week to my RESIST! 20% off promotion. The coupon code RESIST gets you 20% off any of the books featured there.
READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE
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