Nonfiction Chat with Tina: January '21

Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu In the tradition of The Glass Castle, this "gorgeous" (The New York Times, Editors' Choice) and deeply felt memoir from Whiting Award winner Nadia Owusu tells the "incredible story" (Malala Yousafzai) about the push and pull of belonging, the seismic emotional toll of family secrets, and the heart it takes to pull through. "In Aftershocks, Nadia Owusu tells the incredible story of her young life. How does a girl--abandoned by her mother at age two and orphaned at thirteen when her beloved father dies--find her place in the world? This memoir is the story of Nadia creating her own solid ground across countries and continents. I know the struggle of rebuilding your life in an unfamiliar place. While some of you might be familiar with that and some might not, I hope you'll take as much inspiration and hope from her story as I did." --MALALA YOUSAFZAI ​ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021 SELECTED BY VULTURE AND TIME MAGAZINE! Young Nadia Owusu followed her father, a United Nations official, from Europe to Africa and back again. Just as she and her family settled into a new home, her father would tell them it was time to say their goodbyes. The instability wrought by Nadia's nomadic childhood was deepened by family secrets and fractures, both lived and inherited. Her Armenian American mother, who abandoned Nadia when she was two, would periodically reappear, only to vanish again. Her father, a Ghanaian, the great hero of her life, died when she was thirteen. After his passing, Nadia's stepmother weighed her down with a revelation that was either a bombshell secret or a lie, rife with shaming innuendo. With these and other ruptures, Nadia arrived in New York as a young woman feeling stateless, motherless, and uncertain about her future, yet eager to find her own identity. What followed, however, were periods of depression in which she struggled to hold herself and her siblings together. "A magnificent, complex assessment of selfhood and why it matters" (Elle), Aftershocks depicts the way she hauled herself from the wreckage of her life's perpetual quaking, the means by which she has finally come to understand that the only ground firm enough to count on is the one written into existence by her own hand. "Full of narrative risk and untrammeled lyricism" (The Washington Post), Aftershocks joins the likes of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight and William Styron's Darkness Visible, and does for race identity what Maggie Nelson does for gender identity in The Argonauts.

Bad Medicine by Charlotte Bismuth "Charlotte Bismuth gives us a bold and cinematic true crime story about her work at the intersection of medicine and greed. Bad Medicine is a gripping memoir that toggles deftly between the personal and prosecutorial." --Beth Macy, New York Times bestselling author of Dopesick "Bismuth has written a brilliant account of prosecuting a doctor who became a drug dealer in a white coat. She is haunted by the voices of the dead and listening closely to the voices of the living." --Nan Goldin, artist, activist, and founder of P.A.I.N. "Bad Medicine is a taut exploration of America's deadly battle with opioid addiction--an unnerving and inspirational firecracker of a book." --Karen Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of The Ghosts of Eden Park For fans of Dopesick and Bad Blood, the shocking story of New York's most infamous pill-pushing doctor, written by the prosecutor who brought him down. In 2010, a brave whistleblower alerted the police to Dr. Stan Li's corrupt pain management clinic in Queens, New York. Li spent years supplying more than seventy patients a day with oxycodone and Xanax, trading prescriptions for cash. Emergency room doctors, psychiatrists, and desperate family members warned him that his patients were at risk of death but he would not stop. In Bad Medicine, former prosecutor Charlotte Bismuth meticulously recounts the jaw dropping details of this criminal case that would span four years, culminating in a landmark trial. As a new assistant district attorney and single mother, Bismuth worked tirelessly with her team to bring Dr. Li to justice. Bad Medicine is a chilling story of corruption and greed and an important look at the role individual doctors play in America's opioid epidemic.

Beginners by Tom Vanderbilt The bestselling author of Traffic and You May Also Like takes us on an insightful, joyful tour of the transformative powers of starting something new, no matter your age. Noticing his daughter's insatiable curiosity about the world, Tom Vanderbilt asked himself why so many of us stop learning new skills as adults. Old dogs can't learn new tricks, or so the saying goes, but Vanderbilt wanted to fight the rut of mid-career competence and decided to embark upon a year of learning purely for the sake of learning. Rapturously singing Spice Girls in an amateur choir, losing chess matches to kids still learning to tie their shoes, and dodging scorpions at a surf camp in Costa Rica, Vanderbilt weaves his own experience with comprehensive, insightful research, and finds that the circuitous path it takes to learn new skills takes us on an unexpected journey of self-discovery and fulfillment. Building on his personal insight from his year of learning dangerously with engaging and instructive studies, Vanderbilt shows how anyone can get better at beginning again--and, more importantly, why we should take those awkward first steps. At its heart, Beginners inspires us to take small acts of reinvention, and rediscover the magic of learning.

The Crown in Crisis by Alexander Larman The thrilling and definitive account of the Abdication Crisis of 1936 On December 10, 1936, King Edward VIII brought a great international drama to a close when he abdicated, renouncing the throne of the United Kingdom for himself and his heirs. The reason he gave when addressing his subjects was that he could not fulfill his duties without the woman he loved--the notorious American divorcee Wallis Simpson--by his side. His actions scandalized the establishment, who were desperate to avoid an international embarrassment at a time when war seemed imminent. That the King was rumored to have Nazi sympathies only strengthened their determination that he should be forced off the throne, by any means necessary. Alexander Larman's The Crown in Crisis will treat readers to a new, thrilling view of this legendary story. Informed by revelatory archival material never-before-seen, as well as by interviews with many of Edward's and Wallis's close friends, Larman creates an hour-by-hour, day-by-day suspenseful narrative that brings readers up to the point where the microphone is turned on and the king speaks to his subjects. As well as focusing on King Edward and Mrs. Simpson, Larman looks closely at the roles played by those that stood against him: Prime minister Stanley Baldwin, his private secretary Alec Hardinge, and the Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang. Larman also takes the full measure of those who supported him: the great politician Winston Churchill, Machiavellian newspaper owner Lord Beaverbrook, and the brilliant lawyer Walter Monckton. For the first time in a book about the abdication, readers will read an in-depth account of the assassination attempt on Edward's life and its consequences, a first-person chronicle of Wallis Simpson's scandalous divorce proceedings, information from the Royal Archives about the government's worries about Edward's relationship with Nazi high-command Ribbentrop and a boots-on-the-ground view of how the British people saw Edward as they watched the drama unfold. You won't be able to put down The Crown in Crisis, a full panorama of the people and the times surrounding Edward and the woman he loved.

The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura Elizabeth Blackwell believed from an early age that she was destined for a mission beyond the scope of "ordinary" womanhood. Though the world at first recoiled at the notion of a woman studying medicine, her intelligence and intensity ultimately won her the acceptance of the male medical establishment. In 1849, she became the first woman in America to receive an M.D. She was soon joined in her iconic achievement by her younger sister, Emily, who was actually the more brilliant physician.Exploring the sisters' allies, enemies, and enduring partnership, Janice P. Nimura presents a story of trial and triumph. Together, the Blackwells founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, the first hospital staffed entirely by women. Both sisters were tenacious and visionary, but their convictions did not always align with the emergence of women's rights--or with each other. From Bristol, Paris, and Edinburgh to the rising cities of antebellum America, this richly researched new biography celebrates two complicated pioneers who exploded the limits of possibility for women in medicine. As Elizabeth herself predicted, "a hundred years hence, women will not be what they are now."

Exercised by Daniel Lieberman If exercise is healthy (so good for you!), why do many people dislike or avoid it? These engaging stories and explanations will revolutionize the way you think about exercising--not to mention sitting, sleeping, sprinting, weight lifting, playing, fighting, walking, jogging, and even dancing. "Strikes a perfect balance of scholarship, wit, and enthusiasm." --Bill Bryson, New York Times best-selling author of The Body *If we are born to walk and run, why do most of us take it easy whenever possible? *Does running ruin your knees? *Should we do weights, cardio, or high-intensity training? *Is sitting really the new smoking? *Can you lose weight by walking? *And how do we make sense of the conflicting, anxiety-inducing information about rest, physical activity, and exercise with which we are bombarded? In this myth-busting book, Daniel Lieberman, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and a pioneering researcher on the evolution of human physical activity, tells the story of how we never evolved to exercise--to do voluntary physical activity for the sake of health. Using his own research and experiences throughout the world, Lieberman recounts without jargon how and why humans evolved to walk, run, dig, and do other necessary and rewarding physical activities while avoiding needless exertion. Exercised is entertaining and enlightening but also constructive. As our increasingly sedentary lifestyles have contributed to skyrocketing rates of obesity and diseases such as diabetes, Lieberman audaciously argues that to become more active we need to do more than medicalize and commodify exercise. Drawing on insights from evolutionary biology and anthropology, Lieberman suggests how we can make exercise more enjoyable, rather than shaming and blaming people for avoiding it. He also tackles the question of whether you can exercise too much, even as he explains why exercise can reduce our vulnerability to the diseases mostly likely to make us sick and kill us.

First Principles by Thomas E. Ricks New York Times Bestseller Editors' Choice --New York Times Book Review "Ricks knocks it out of the park with this jewel of a book. On every page I learned something new. Read it every night if you want to restore your faith in our country." --James Mattis, General, U.S. Marines (ret.) & 26th Secretary of Defense  The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author offers a revelatory new book about the founding fathers, examining their educations and, in particular, their devotion to the ancient Greek and Roman classics--and how that influence would shape their ideals and the new American nation. On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a few questions on his mind: What kind of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or intended by the nation's founders? Trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders' thinking, and the letters they wrote to each other debating these crucial works--among them the Iliad, Plutarch's Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero. For though much attention has been paid the influence of English political philosophers, like John Locke, closer to their own era, the founders were far more immersed in the literature of the ancient world. The first four American presidents came to their classical knowledge differently. Washington absorbed it mainly from the elite culture of his day; Adams from the laws and rhetoric of Rome; Jefferson immersed himself in classical philosophy, especially Epicureanism; and Madison, both a groundbreaking researcher and a deft politician, spent years studying the ancient world like a political scientist. Each of their experiences, and distinctive learning, played an essential role in the formation of the United States. In examining how and what they studied, looking at them in the unusual light of the classical world, Ricks is able to draw arresting and fresh portraits of men we thought we knew. First Principles follows these four members of the Revolutionary generation from their youths to their adult lives, as they grappled with questions of independence, and forming and keeping a new nation. In doing so, Ricks interprets not only the effect of the ancient world on each man, and how that shaped our constitution and government, but offers startling new insights into these legendary leaders.

Fish Out of Water by Eric Metaxas What Happens When One of America's Most Admired Biographers Writes His Own Biography? For Eric Metaxas, the answer is Fish Out of Water: A Search for the Meaning of Life--a poetic and sometimes hilarious memoir of his early years, in which the Queens-born son of Greek and German immigrants struggles to make sense of a world in which he never quite seems to fit. Renowned for his biographies of William Wilberforce, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Martin Luther, Metaxas is the author of five New York Times bestsellers, the witty host of the acclaimed Socrates in the City conversation series, and a nationally syndicated radio personality. But here he reveals a personal story few have heard, taking us from his mostly happy childhood--and riotous triumphs at Yale--to the nightmare of drifting toward a dark abyss of meaninglessness from which he barely escapes. Along the way he introduces us to an unforgettable troupe of picaresque characters who join this quintessentially first-generation American boy in what is both bildungsroman and odyssey--and which underscores just how funny, serious, happy, sad, and ultimately meaningful life can be.

How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell After the American presidental election of 2016, Jenny Odell felt so overstimunated and disoriented by information, misinformation, and the expressions of others, that reality itself seemed to slip away. How To Do Nothing is her action plan for resistance. Drawing on the ethos of tech culture, a background in the arts, and personal storytelling, Jenny Odell makes a powerful argument for refusal: refusal to believe that our lives are instruments to be optimised. She argues that nothing can be quite so radical as doing... nothing.

Icebound by Andrea Pitzer In the bestselling tradition of Hampton Sides's In the Kingdom of Ice, a "gripping adventure tale" (The Boston Globe) recounting Dutch polar explorer William Barents' three harrowing Arctic expeditions--the last of which resulted in a relentlessly challenging year-long fight for survival. The human story has always been one of perseverance--often against remarkable odds. The most astonishing survival tale of all might be that of 16th-century Dutch explorer William Barents and his crew of sixteen, who ventured farther north than any Europeans before and, on their third polar exploration, lost their ship off the frozen coast of Nova Zembla to unforgiving ice. The men would spend the next year fighting off ravenous polar bears, gnawing hunger, and endless winter. In Icebound, Andrea Pitzer masterfully combines a gripping tale of survival with a sweeping history of the great Age of Exploration--a time of hope, adventure, and seemingly unlimited geographic frontiers. At the story's center is William Barents, one of the 16th century's greatest navigators whose larger-than-life ambitions and obsessive quest to chart a path through the deepest, most remote regions of the Arctic ended in both tragedy and glory. Journalist Pitzer did extensive research, learning how to use four-hundred-year-old navigation equipment, setting out on three Arctic expeditions to retrace Barents's steps, and visiting replicas of Barents's ship and cabin. "A resonant meditation on human ingenuity, resilience, and hope" (The New Yorker), Pitzer's reenactment of Barents's ill-fated journey shows us how the human body can function at twenty degrees below, the history of mutiny, the art of celestial navigation, and the intricacies of building shelters. But above all, it gives us a firsthand glimpse into the true nature of courage.

Martha Stewart's Very Good Things by Martha Stewart Hundreds of clever tips, solutions, and easy ways to elevate every day, from America's most trusted lifestyle authority, in one must-have handbook   Inside these pages Martha shares all her best good things--the original life hacks for the home--to make your life easier, more fun, more delicious, and more efficient. These practical tricks cover all areas of Martha's domestic expertise, including decorating, organizing, homekeeping, cooking, entertaining, and celebrating. From clever ways to solve common problems (use file folder dividers to organize cutting boards and sheet pans in your cabinets) to time-saving tricks (keep a pail stocked with cleaning supplies for easy access and portability to stress reducers (color-code kids' bathroom gear to make mornings less hectic), every one of these ideas will make you wonder, "Why didn't I think of that?" Also included are ways to use what you have (a Parmesan cheese rind will add great flavor to soup), streamline your stuff (use certain kitchen tools for many different purposes), or just make life a little more luxurious (add elegance to your table with DIY place cards). Whether functional, delightful, or a little bit of both, these are the details that enliven and inspire every day--that's a good thing!

Niksen: Embracing the Dutch art of doing nothing by Olga Mecking The Dutch people are some of the happiest in the world. Their secret? They are masters of niksen, or the art of doing nothing. Niksen is not a form of meditation, nor is it a state of laziness or boredom. It’s not scrolling through social media, or wondering what you’re going to cook for dinner. Rather, to niks is to make a conscious choice to sit back, let go, and do nothing at all. With this book, learn how to do nothing in the most important areas of your life, such as: AT HOME: Find a comfy nook and sit. No technology or other distractions. AT WORK: Stare at your computer. Take in the view from your office. Close your eyes. IN PUBLIC: Forget waiting for the bus, enjoy some relaxing niksen time. Backed with advice from the world’s leading experts on happiness and productivity, this book examines the underlying science behind niksen and how doing less can often yield so much more. Perfect for anyone who feels overwhelmed, burnt out, or exhausted, NIKSEN does not tell you to work harder. Instead, it shows you how to take a break from all the busyness while giving you sincere, heartfelt permission to do nothing.

Niksen: The Dutch Art of Doing Nothing by Annette Lavrijsen First there was hygge, now there’s niksen – a simple Dutch philosophy for anyone looking to slow down, relax and daydream. 'Time is money. Stop being lazy. Do something.' Everyday we’re told to get up, take action and be productive: if you work hard, you’ll make it. But your body is desperate for you to stop, your frantic mind craves a timeout, and your friends and family are finding you more moody and stressed than ever. It’s time for some Dutch wisdom: find out when, how and why to do nothing with niksen, the Dutch ‘be idle’ philosophy that is taking the world by storm. Niksen literally means to do nothing, but it's not the same thing as boredom or laziness. Niksen helps to free you from the daily grind of work, family demands and social pressure, to destress and just… stop. In this book, Dutch mindfulness expert Annette Lavrijsen shows you how, through daily practice, and by following the exercises within, you will grow comfortable with yourself, with silence and will reap niksen’s countless rewards. Using this book to cultivate niksen you can: Find new ways to relax, slow down and combat burnout Bust I’m-too-busy, nothingness-is-laziness myths Honestly communicate boundaries and reset your priorities Create a zen sanctuary that’s all yours Master the work-life balance Boost your creativity, mood and even productivity Raise a happy family and be a better friend Niksen is about the enjoyment of life’s little pauses. It's not the easiest thing to commit to at first; we are used to having our attention and diaries consumed, and doing nothing doesn't come to us naturally. But with some sensible scheduling and a smart mindset it’s easy to fit into your day, and soon will become your essential daily pick-me-up. Stop worrying about you have to do next or over analysing every thought. Instead, use your timeout to let your mind recuperate and take a moment to yourself. Turn to this niksen manual whenever you want to declutter your mind.

The Price You Pay for College by Ron Lieber The hugely popular New York Times "Your Money" columnist and author of the bestselling The Opposite of Spoiled offers a deeply reported and emotionally honest approach to the biggest financial decision families will ever make: what to pay for college.  Sending a teenager to a flagship state university for four years of on-campus living costs more than $100,000 in many parts of the United States. Meanwhile, many families of freshmen attending selective private colleges will spend triple--over $300,000. With the same passion, smarts, and humor that infuse his personal finance column, Ron Lieber offers a much-needed roadmap to help families navigate this difficult and often confusing journey.  Lieber begins by explaining who pays what and why and how the financial aid system got so complicated. He also pulls the curtain back on merit aid, an entirely new form of discounting that most colleges now use to compete with peers. While price is essential, value is paramount. So what is worth paying extra for, and how do you know when it exists in abundance at any particular school? Is a small college better than a big one? Who actually does the teaching? Given that every college claims to have reinvented its career center, who should we actually believe? He asks the tough questions of college presidents and financial aid gatekeepers that parents don't know (or are afraid) to ask and summarizes the research about what matters and what doesn't. Finally, Lieber calmly walks families through the process of setting financial goals, explaining the system to their children and figuring out the right ways to save, borrow, and bargain for a better deal.  The Price You Pay for College gives parents the clarity they need to make informed choices and helps restore the joy and wonder the college experience is supposed to represent.

Saving Justice by James Comey James Comey, former FBI Director andNew York Times bestselling author ofA Higher Loyalty, uses his long career in federal law enforcement to explore issues of justice and fairness in the US justice system. James Comey might best be known as the FBI director that Donald Trump fired in 2017, but he's had a long, varied career in the law and justice system. He knows better than most just what a force for good the US justice system can be, and how far afield it has strayed during the Trump Presidency. In his much-anticipated follow-up toA Higher Loyalty, Comey uses anecdotes and lessons from his career to show how the federal justice system works. From prosecuting mobsters as an Assistant US Attorney in the Southern District of New York in the 1980s to grappling with the legalities of anti-terrorism work as the Deputy Attorney General in the early 2000s to, of course, his tumultuous stint as FBI director beginning in 2013, Comey shows just how essential it is to pursue the primacy of truth for federal law enforcement. Saving Justice is gracefully written and honestly told, a clarion call for a return to fairness and equity in the law.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves--and our world today. "One of the most accurate and beautiful depictions of what it is like to be inside the mind of a writer that I've ever read."--Parul Sehgal, The New York Times For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it's more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. In his introduction, Saunders writes, "We're going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn't fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art--namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?" He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.