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Nonfiction Views: This week's notable new nonfiction [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-09-16

The Library of Congress isn’t knuckling under to Trump and his anti-DEI threats.

Arthur Sze Named U.S. Poet Laureate

Sze is an emeritus faculty member at the Institute of American Indian Arts, where he taught for 22 years, and he pointed the importance of translating from Indigenous American languages. “I probably worked with students from over 200 tribes across the United States,” Sze said. “And with this idea of a translation anthology, I’m tinkering with lots of ideas. A former student of mine, Orlando White, recently invited me to read my poetry on the Navajo reservation and gave me a copy of his book of one-word Navajo poems.” Sze described an example, White’s poem on the concept of “balance,” that “could be another vehicle for experimenting, playing with language, and translating.”

Because every U.S. poet laureate designs a special focus for their term, Sze plans to explore the art of translation, with the goal of compiling an anthology of translated poems from various languages and time periods….

Barbara Kingsolver on Instagram:

Author Barbara Kingsolver on Instagram: "My home is an island of people committed to kindness, inside a country devoted to violence." Full text of her post is in the alt-text of the second picture. You should read it. #BookSky #endgunviolence

Text of her post:

My home is an island of people committed to kindness, inside a country devoted to violence. No amount of hatred will make us hateful. But that feels lonely right now. Reaching out a hand here to every other household feeling the same.

I’m sad for another day when another child somewhere so easily got his hands on a military-grade weapon for shattering lives, including his own. (Yes, a 22-year-old male can still be a child.)

I’m sad that 390,000 students in my country have witnessed gun violence in their schools, that hundreds have died of it, that guns kill more children and teenagers than any other cause, and their families come home to heartbreak every day. I’m sad that these kids weren’t enough to bring down the flags in my neighborhood. They’re down for a man who rose to fame on his degrading words about women, Black people, immigrants, and gun-violence victims whose lives he declared an acceptable price to pay. I’m sad he didn’t live long enough to mature into greater compassion.

And now on to this week’s books...

THIS WEEK’S NOTABLE NEW NONFICTION

We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution, by Jill Lepore. Published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding—the anniversary, too, of the first state constitutions—We the People offers a wholly new history of the Constitution. “One of the Constitution’s founding purposes was to prevent change,” Lepore writes. “Another was to allow for change without violence.” Relying on the extraordinary database she has assembled at the Amendments Project, Lepore recounts centuries of attempts, mostly by ordinary Americans, to realize the promise of the Constitution. Yet nearly all those efforts have failed. Although nearly twelve thousand amendments have been introduced in Congress since 1789, and thousands more have been proposed outside its doors, only twenty-seven have ever been ratified. More troubling, the Constitution has not been meaningfully amended since 1971. Without recourse to amendment, she argues, the risk of political violence rises. So does the risk of constitutional change by presidential or judicial fiat. "It is impossible to imagine a more instructive text on a more timely subject by a more accomplished historian."— Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny

I Am Not Your Enemy: A Memoir, by Reality Winner. Reality Winner was a twenty-five-year-old translator for the NSA when she read a classified document revealing what she assumed would make headlines during a time of unprecedented leaking: After blatant lies by the Trump administration and public silence by the NSA, there had in fact been foreign interference in the 2016 US election. In a breach of NSA protocol, she impulsively printed it, smuggled it out of the building, and mailed it to The Intercept, which published it and then promptly informed the NSA. For her crime, she received the longest prison sentence ever imposed on a government-affiliated employee convicted of a single count of leaking classified information and spent more than four years in federal prison. Now, for the first time, Winner tells her own story: her unusual childhood in South Texas, with a brilliant but unstable father whose obsession with politics, ancient history, philosophy, and religion sparked her own interests in ancient civilizations and the study of foreign languages, including Latin, Arabic, Farsi, Dari, and Pashto; her patriotism, after 9/11, which led her to enlist in the Air Force and join the NSA, where the work she did in the hope of protecting American security was part of the US campaign in Afghanistan; and, most movingly, her life in the American prison system and how it nearly broke her.

The Double Tax: How Women of Color Are Overcharged and Underpaid, by Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman. The “pink tax” has gained widespread recognition in recent years, but what happens when you look at the costs that define a woman’s entire life, especially across racial lines? In The Double Tax, Harvard researcher Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman summarizes the disparities that women face as they navigate life’s biggest moments. Not only do the numbers reveal that women incur higher costs than men, but also that Black and white women lead vastly different lives, marked by dramatic gaps in job opportunities, salaries, housing costs, childcare access, and generational wealth. She coins this gap as the “double tax,” the compounded cost of racism and sexism. Through rigorous research and interviews with women across the country, Opoku-Agyeman calculates the extra money, time, and effort that women are expected and forced to pay at every stage of their life. “The Double Tax is the kind of book that stops you in your tracks. It confirms, provokes, and inspires. With scorching storytelling, sharp critique, and deep insight, Opoku-Agyeman voices a reality that’s both deeply personal and structurally fundamental.”

—Dr. Uché Blackstock, New York Times bestselling author of Legacy

Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840–1920, by Akhil Reed Amar. The author has been generally a liberal through his career, but he has wobbled a bit in recent years, Wikipedia: “Amar, a self-described liberal, has since engaged in advocacy considered controversial among progressive outlets, bloggers, and professors. He argued in favor of Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court and argued that overturning Roe v. Wade would not affect other privacy rights.” P rizewinning constitutional historian Akhil Reed Amar recounts the dramatic constitutional debates that unfolded across these eight decades, when four glorious amendments abolished slavery, secured Black and female citizenship, and extended suffrage regardless of race or gender. At the heart of this era was the epic and ever-evolving idea that all Americans are created equal. The promise of birth equality sat at the base of the 1776 Declaration of Independence. But in the nineteenth century, remarkable American women and men—especially Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Abraham Lincoln—elaborated a new vision of what this ideal demanded. Their debates played out from Seneca Falls to the halls of Congress, from Bleeding Kansas to Gettysburg, from Ford’s Theater to the White House gates, ultimately transforming the nation and the world. “With deep conviction and engaging narrative flair, Amar weaves a fascinating constitutional history of a nation challenged to fulfill the promise that all were born equal. Amar asks the reader to think with him—perhaps even to argue—about the crucial nineteenth century constitutional struggles over the meaning of America.”— Mary Sarah Bilder, Bancroft Prize–winning author of Madison's Hand

Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights, by Keisha N. Blain. Even before they were recognized as citizens of the United States, Black women understood that the fights for civil and human rights were inseparable. Over the course of two hundred years, they were at the forefront of national and international movements for social change, weaving connections between their own and others’ freedom struggles around the world. Without Fear tells how, during American history, Black women made humans rights theirs: from worldwide travel and public advocacy in the global Black press to their work for the United Nations, they courageously and effectively moved human rights beyond an esoteric concept to an active, organizing principle. Acclaimed historian Keisha N. Blain tells the story of these women—from the well-known, like Ida B. Wells, Madam C. J. Walker, and Lena Horne, to those who are still less known, including Pearl Sherrod, Aretha McKinley, and Marguerite Cartwright. Blain captures human rights thinking and activism from the ground up with Black women at the center, working outside the traditional halls of power. “This is an important, and accessible work that helps to fill in a major void in our shared historical narrative. It’s also an inspiring study of how Black women have continuously carried the torch of justice and made the cause of human rights their own for the uplift of all. — Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author of The Black Box

Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change, by Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva and Daniel Kelly. Changing the world is difficult. One reason is that the most important problems, like climate change, racism, and poverty, are structural. They emerge from our collective practices: laws, economies, history, culture, norms, and built environments. The dilemma is that there is no way to make structural change without individual people making different—more structure-facing—decisions. In Somebody Should Do Something, Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva, and Daniel Kelly show us how we can connect our personal choices to structural change and why individual choices matter, though not in the way people usually think. Organized into three main parts, the book first diagnoses the problem of “either/or” thinking about social change, which stems from the false choice of making better personal choices or changing the system. Then it offers a different way to think about social change, anchored in a new picture of human nature emerging across the social sciences. Finally, the authors explore ways of putting this picture into practice. Neither a how-to manual nor an activist’s guide, Somebody Should Do Something pairs stories with science (plus some jokes) to help readers recognize their own power, turning resignation about climate change and racial injustice into actions that transform the world.

House of Smoke: A Southerner Goes Searching for Home, by John T. Edge. n this unflinching and moving memoir, John T. Edge takes us on a quest for home in a South that has both held him close and pushed him away, as he tries and fails and tries again to rewrite the stories he inherited. Born in a house where a Confederate general took his first breath and the Lost Cause narrative was gospel, troubled by the violence he witnessed as a boy, Edge ran from his past, searching for a newer and better South. As founding director of the Southern Foodways Alliance and a contributor to newspapers and magazines, he told stories that showcased those possibilities. In the process, Edge became one of the most visible and powerful voices in American food...until he found himself denounced by the audience he once guided, faced down the limits of his work, and returned to his origins to find himself once again. “More than a white Southerner’s quest to become fully awake to a past that will never be past, this book is a model for nurturing the new life that can rise out of the deepest ashes.”—Margaret Renkl, author of Graceland, at Last

The Waterbearers: A Memoir of Mothers and Daughters, by Sasha Bonét. The author grew up in 1990s Houston, worlds removed from the Louisiana cotton plantation that raised her grandmother, Betty Jean, and the Texas bayous that shaped Sasha’s mother, Connie. And though each generation did better, materially, than the last, all of them carried the complex legacy of Black American motherhood with its origins in slavery. All of them knew that the hands used to comb and braid hair, shell pecans, and massage weary muscles were the very hands used to whip children into submission. When she had her own daughter, Sofia, Bonét was determined to interrupt this tradition. She brought Sofia to New York and set off on a journey—not only up and down the tributaries of her bloodline but also into the lives of Black women in history and literature—Betty Davis, Recy Taylor, and Iberia Hampton among them—to understand both the love and pain they passed on to their children and to create a way of mothering that honors the legacy but abandons the violence that shaped it. "The Waterbearers is one of the most beautiful and truthful books I’ve ever read. Bonét tells the whole history of this country through the relationships of and between Black mothers and daughters. It is as intimate and tender as it is vast and stormy. Unforgettable." —Imani Perry, National Book Award-winning author of South to America

Leveling the Ice: Confronting Racism in Hockey, by Steven Sandor. While professional sports leagues claim to promote diversity and inclusivity, institutional racism remains apparent in all sports, but especially hockey. In Leveling the Ice, sportswriter Steven Sandor challenges the perception that hockey is open to everyone and the idea that the hockey establishment wants more inclusion and diversity. Featuring interviews with NHL players of color like Darnell Nurse, Matt Dumba, Nazeem Kadri, Zach Whitecloud, Ethan Bear, Jason Robertson, Sandor reveals their stories of exclusion to highlight the deeply ingrained racism in the sport. The players share insights into the racism they faced while they built their careers as well as the racism, they still face today from the hockey establishment From hockey’s racist past to the ongoing reluctance of the hockey establishment to embrace grassroots diversity initiatives, Sandor delves into how members of communities of color (who only make up 5% of the NHL) are being driven away from the sport to more inclusive ones like soccer and basketball, despite the NHL’s expansion to new markets and demographics with billion-dollar TV deals.

Inside the Cartel: How an Undercover FBI Agent Smuggled Cocaine, Laundered Cash, and Dismantled a Colombian Narco-Empire, by Martin Suarez. A tale from before the Trump administration fired a huge number of experienced FBI agents. Martin Suarez, a legend within the FBI who specialized in Colombian drug cartels, holds the record for the longest time spent continuously undercover. As his alter ego Manny, Martin followed the unspoken rules of the cartels: He knew the right lingo to use, the right whiskey to drink, the right watch to wear, the wrong questions to ask. He smuggled over $1 billion worth of cocaine into the United States for the Medellín Cartel and, as his cover deepened, he graduated to become a high-level money launderer for the North Coast Cartel. He helped wash tens of millions of dollars worth of drug money, ensnaring himself in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse while simultaneously exposing the Black Market Peso Exchange, the most insidious money laundering apparatus in the world that involved billionaire bankers, blue-chip American corporations, and even the President of Colombia himself.

The Blood in Winter: England on the Brink of Civil War, 1642, by Jonathan Healey. Why does every book about some historical turmoil seem to have echoes in the era of Trump? In 1641, England exits a plague-ridden and politically unstable summer having reached a semblance of peace: the English and Scottish armies have disbanded, legislation has passed to ensure Parliament will continue to sit, and the people are tentatively optimistic. But King Charles I is not satisfied with peace—he wants revenge.

So begins England’s winter of discontent. As revolutionary sects of London begin to generate new ideas about democracy, as radical new religious groups seek power, and as Ireland explodes into revolt, Charles hatches a plan to restore his absolute rule. On January 4, 1642, he marches on Westminster, seeking to arrest and impeach five Members of Parliament—and so sets in motion a series of events that will lead to bloodshed and war, changing a nation forever.



Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, by Mary Roach. The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what’s available—sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we’re attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How are we doing? Are we there yet?

In Replaceable You, Mary Roach explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings. When and how does a person decide they’d be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb? Can a donated heart be made to beat forever? Can an intestine provide a workable substitute for a vagina? "In her brilliant (and brilliantly funny book) Replaceable You, Mary Roach explores the puzzle of the human body, the way we can assemble and reassemble the very human pieces into different versions of who we are and how we work."

— Deborah Blum, best-selling author of The Poisoner’s Handbook



Bird School: A Beginner in the Wood, by Adam Nicolson. Poets and scientists, saints and naturalists, stalk through these pages. Neighboring cock robins duel almost to the death. Tawny owl widows are seen looking for tawny owl widowers to set up shop with. Blackbirds are found singing phrases from late Beethoven quartets, both in a garden in southern England (where they have been listening to records played through the open window of a drawing room) and in Bonn, where Beethoven himself first heard them and where they are still singing to the same rhythms two hundred fifty years later.

Bird School describes and follows Adam Nicolson’s progress over two or three years in trying to learn about, and eventually to create an environment friendly to, the birds of the farm where he lives in Sussex. “In addition to a wealth of facts about bird behavior, Nicolson has access to an endless fount of lyrical descriptions to make birds come alive on the page . . . An evocative ode to English birds that invites readers to look more closely at the world around them.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)



Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice, by Rachel Kolb. Rachel Kolb was born profoundly deaf the same year that the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, and she grew up as part of the first generation of deaf people with legal rights to accessibility services. Still, from a young age, she contorted herself to expectations set by a world that prioritizes hearing people. So even while she found clarity and meaning in American Sign Language (ASL) and written literature, she learned to speak through speech therapy and to piece together missing sounds through lipreading and an eventual cochlear implant. Now, in Articulate, Kolb blends personal narrative with commentary to explore the different layers of deafness, language, and voice. She tells the story of how, over time, she came to realize that clear or articulate self-expression isn’t just a static pinnacle to reach, a set of words to pronounce correctly, but rather a living and breathing process that happens between individual human beings. In chronicling her own voice and the many ways she’s come to understand it, Kolb illuminates the stakes and complexities of finding mutual and reciprocal forms of communication. “The deaf writer’s deft debut memoir probes the many meanings of language, voice, and communication through the lens of her own attempts to harness speech and be perceived as “articulate.” — The Millions

Dark Squares: How Chess Saved My Life, by Danny Rensch. Born into the Church of Immortal Consciousness, Danny Rensch spent his childhood navigating the isolated confines of a cult. Despite psychological manipulation, physical abuse, and neglect, he persevered. An international chess master and world-class commentator, Rensch’s remarkable journey led him to being the face of Chess.com, one of the largest online gaming platforms in the world. With unflinching honesty, Rensch recounts his life, starting from the moment he discovered chess in the summer of 1995, all the way up to being at the center of the most explosive cheating scandal in chess history. “Chess is not life—even a world champion can admit that. But, as in Rensch’s case, it can certainly save one. With his work at Chess.com and with this beautiful book, he is well on the way to paying back his debt to our beloved game.”—Garry Kasparov, 13th World Chess Champion

Watching Evil Dead: Unearthing the Radiant Artist Within, by Josh Malerman. From the bestselling author of such horror books as Bird Box and Incidents Around the House, an impassioned book about a night that changed the author’s life and put into perspective the writing life—and how you too can be inspired to face the fears that might hold you back from doing your best work One night, Josh Malerman—then just an aspiring writer—watched Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead with his fiancée and two friends. It was a gathering that could’ve gone unnoticed, another date night with a movie, but for Malerman, it became a landmark. It changed the course of his life, and it will inspire you to reflect on your own journey and to discover existing triumphs that are within you already. “A fun, modern take on Stephen King’s On Writing (2001) . . . Malerman’s trustworthy insights and experiences will no doubt offer its readers who are struggling creatively a healthy dose of inspiration.”—Booklist, starred review

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