What We Loved in 2024: NonfictionLike this list

33 items

• Soundtrack of Silence

  Love, Loss, and a Playlist for Life

  Hay, Matt, 1973-

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  Gail's pick.

• Say Nothing

  a True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

  Keefe, Patrick Radden, 1976-

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  The waitlist might be a bit long given the recent Hulu adaptation. - Kathryn

• Unwell Women

  Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-made World

  Cleghorn, Elinor

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  Kathryn's pick.

• Over My Dead Body

  Unearthing the Hidden History of America's Cemeteries

  Melville, Greg

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  This was one of my favorite reads this past year! The author takes the reader on a tour through the history of US cemeteries that explores how, where, and why we bury our dead and where our values as a country truly lay. - Mallory

• Grief Is Love

  Living With Loss

  Lee, Marisa Renee

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  One of the best books I have read about grief, its nonlinear fashion, and the different ways it shows up. - Gail

• Crude Capitalism

  Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market

  Hanieh, Adam, 1972-

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  Patrick's pick.

• Mind Games

  Lennon, John, 1940-1980

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  A gorgeous, well documented dive into the world of John and Yoko, during the making of Lennon's Mind Games album. Quality through and through with the book's layout and production. - Kurt

• Begin Again

  James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own

  Glaude, Eddie S., Jr., 1968-

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  I haven't quite finished it yet, but I'm also loving Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own, which uses Baldwin's work (especially his later work) to understand the first election of Donald Trump, and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Selfish, Shallow, and Self-absorbed

  Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids

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  Super affirming and wide-ranging collection of essays from folks on their own decision not to have children -really appreciated this one! - Anna

• A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

  Murder in Ancient Rome

  Southon, Emma

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  Kathryn's pick.

• Frontières

  the Food of France's Borderlands

  Jackson, Alex

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  Patrick's pick.

• A Flat Place

  Moving Through Empty Landscapes, Naming Complex Trauma

  Masud, Noreen, 1989-

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  A book that is hard to explain, deep to feel, and mesmerizing in its connection of c-ptsd and landscape. - Gail

• Trail of the Lost

  the Relentless Search to Bring Home the Missing Hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail

  Lankford, Andrea

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  The author, a former park ranger who conducted many searches and rescues, dives into the case of 3 hikers who went missing on the Pacific Crest Trail one year after another. The author has a writing style that hooks, and I kept wanting to…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• America the Beautiful?

  One Woman in a Borrowed Prius on the Road Most Traveled

  Roberson, Blythe

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  A great book about the beauty of the nature we live in while examining the barriers and challenges for everyone to access it and reasons we maybe shouldn't enjoy that nature at all. - Gail

• On the Trail of the Jackalope

  How a Legend Captured the World's Imagination and Helped Us Cure Cancer

  Branch, Michael P.

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  The "mythical" Jackalope is explored in depth in this microhistory of exactly what is a jackalope. The folklore around the Jackalope spread like wildfire and is embedded into the landscape of the US. But there is real and scientific…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Caste

  the Origins of Our Discontents

  Wilkerson, Isabel

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  A favorite of mine I read this year. - Kassian

• What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

  Bukowski, Charles

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  I’ve loved Bukowski’s writing for over three decades, but his posthumous poems are even more real and relevant to me as I get older. - Dan

• Airplane Mode

  An Irreverent History of Travel

  Habib, Shahnaz

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  Anne's pick.

• Good Inside

  a Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

  Kennedy, Rebecca (Psychologist)

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  Dana's pick.

• The Walls Have Eyes

  Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

  Molnár, Petra

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  Patrick's pick.