Non-Fiction

Audiobook: One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

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by Omar El Akkad
Read with the author.
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Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is talk of the genocide in Gaza and abuse by immigration officers. It’s in the Current Events section of the bookstore.

In this short memoir/accounting of the genocide in Gaz, El Akkad talks about how it is to be Muslim in the west, and how the ideas of justice and freedom are so far from what Americans, at least, believe them to be, that it’s laughable. There is heartbreak, despair, and pain and a lack of hope that anything will ever change. Except, in the writing of this, El Akkad bears a witness to the pain and maybe by reading this, there is a small amount of hope that things will become more just and truly free.

I don’t usually say books are important; I don’t really believe that there are books that everyone should read. And yet, as I was listening to this, feeling El Akkad’s pain – feeling the pain of the Palestinians who have been obliterated, feeling the pain of the people who have been unjustly detained – I realized that this is a book that, in order to change, everyone must read. If you read this and come out unchanged, you have a heart of stone.

There is pain out there; pain that must be stopped. And, the very least we can do is be a witness for the people who can’t speak.

Audiobook: The Gales of November

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by John U. Bacon
Read by Johnny Heller
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Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There are some harrowing instances, and talk (of course) of shipwrecks. It’s in the History section of the bookstore.

I honestly didn’t know much about the Edmund Fitzgerald and its wreck in Lake Superior, except the Gordon Lightfoot song (though I have been to the shipwreck museum in Whitefish Bay). That said, I didn’t know everything, and Bacon looks at all the aspects of it. From sailing on the Great Lakes (more dangerous than the ocean, believe it or not) to the importance of shipping, to the history of the ship, to the actual circumstances of the ship sinking. It’s a social history as well as a history of the ship, looking at the sailors’ lives, as well as the shipping industry as a whole.

And it was utterly fascinating. Having grown up in Michigan, I adore the Great Lakes, but I didn’t realize just the scope of the impact the lakes have had over the years. I found myself wanting to stay in the car listening. Heller was a fine narrator, but it really was the story that carried this book.

A remarkable book about a fascinating incident in time.

Inspired

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by Rachel Held Evans
First sentence: “Once upon a time, there lived a girl with a magic book.”
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Content: It’s accessible and not too scholarly. It’s in the Religion and Philosophy section of the bookstore.

In this thoughtful work of scriptural examination, Evans looks at the stories in the Bible and deconstructs them. She asserts that the Bible isn’t an instruction manual, at least not in the way modern Christians have come to think of it, but rather a collection of stories that are meant to instruct, to challenge, and yes, to inspire.

I don’t know what I expected going in, but Evans’s writing is so accessible, so comforting, that even though she’s talking about challenging things, I was willing to take them in and think about them. She makes excellent points about faith and community, and about the dangers of prooftexting and being too absolutist about the Bible. Everything in context, as it should be.

A very good read.

Paper Girl

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by Beth Macy
First sentence: “It was June 2023, and Silas James had just graduated from Urbana High School, forty-one years after I wore that same insignia.”
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Release date: October 7, 2025
Review copy pilfered from the ARC shelves at the bookstore.
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, and mention of sexual abuse. It will be in the Biography section of the bookstore.

When Beth Macy graduated from Urbana High School in 1982, she was able to go to a four-year college on a Pell Grant, since she came from a poor household. She used it as her ticket out, moving first to Georgia and then to Virginia. But, 40 years later, as divisions in her family and between her high school friends grew, she returned to find out why the graduation rate dropped, the addiction rate soared, and it’s harder than ever to get out of the poverty people find themselves in.

It’s a good story, as Macy recounts her troubled childhood with an alcoholic father, interspersing that with the stories of some of the students and people she met over the course of the year and a half she researched this book. She talked to many of the kids she went to school with, trying to understand where they were coming from politically, even as she found them on ever-widening divides. She explores the ways in which poverty makes life challenging and the ways that trauma continues to affect people. She is staunchly anti-Republican, detailing all the ways the Republican party hurts the people it claims to help, but she is not pro-Democrat, faulting them for not reaching out to the poor working class in order to help. It’s a challenging read at times, but it’s a good one: Macy is a good writer, and she has empathy for the people she’s writing about.

It’s an excellent, and important, book.

Audiobook: Wild for Austen

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by Devoney Looser
Read by Marisa Calin
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Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: It’s a bit scholarly, but for the most part, it’s pretty accessible. It’s in the Literary Reference section of the bookstore.

Looser’s thesis is simple: the wider reading world has spent too long defining Austen as “tame” and “safe”, when – according to Looser- she isn’t. Her books (and her life) are not quiet and demure, and instead should be considered “wild” (subversive, maybe? Especially for the time they were written), and Looser sets out to explain why.

On the one hand, I think Looser’s thesis is a bit unnecessary: who considers Austen to be tame? Those who haven’t read it? Maybe. That said, I was fascinated by the way Looser broke down the books, pointing out the ways in which Austen was subverting, poking fun at, and exposing parts of the society she was writing about. After looking at all of Austen’s books (including Lady Susan and her juvenilia), Looser delves into Austen’s life, and then the way her books have continued to be relevant. I’m not sure how much someone who isn’t really familiar with Austen’s works will like this one, but I found it fascinating.

The narrator was excellent as well; she kept the book from being overly scholarly (not sure how much I’d have liked it if I’d read it), and was engaging to listen to.

Definitely recommended.

While the Earth Holds Its Breath

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by Helen Moat
First sentence: “I’m staring into the dark of the lake – tar black and freezing.”
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Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: October 21, 2025.
Content: It’s short and concise, and will be in the Creative Non-fiction section of the bookstore.

Helen Moat dislikes winter. Every year, as the year turns towards the dark, she feels an oncoming dread and anxiety, and every spring, an immense relief. But, in 2020, when everything was in lockdown, Moat made the decision to try and embrace the dark, the cold, the winter.

The book takes place over three winters, as Moat reflects on her experiences in the winter. She travels to Finland to the Arctic Circle, to Japan, to Spain to experience winter in different areas. She befriends a Ukrainian refugee and in that friendship, learns about Ukrainian winters. She ventures out in her Derbyshire countryside to forest bathe and experience what her backyard has to offer.

It’s a quick read, this book, and when I started it I wondered what it has to offer that Wintering doesn’t. There are many similarities, but I think Moat takes a broader look at winter. I liked her travels – May stays pretty close to her native England, if I remember right – and how she valued other traditions and ideas, and brought them home and incorporated them.

The short version: community and communion with nature and each other are what make winter tolerable. Getting outside, being with people in the warmth, and being mindful about noticing the small things are what help winter be less daunting. And I appreciate Moat’s perspective on it.

Replaceable You

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by Mary Roach
First sentence: “The Victorian upper crust excelled at taking apart dinner.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: September 16, 2025
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is some swearing, including a few f-bombs. And there is, at times, some pretty descriptive medical procedures. It will be in the Science section of the bookstore.

The short version: The inimitable Mary Roach explores all the ways humans alter their bodies. From plastic surgery to organ replacements to prosthetic limbs, Roach looks at the history and the future of the science in these areas. There’s a chapter on each area, so she doesn’t go into depth, but she does cover a wide range of topics.

I haven’t read a Mary Roach book in years (Gulp was the last one; I guess I’m only interested in her body science books?), and I had forgotten what a funny writer she is. She’s self-deprecating, but also the snide asides (read the acknowledgments!) kept me laughing. No, this isn’t a life-or-death book (unless you’re a recipient of an organ transplant?), but it’s fascinating. She has a way of taking complex medical and scientific topics and boiling them down into ways that the common person (ie: me) can understand and appreciate.

I tell myself I need to read her books every time one comes out, and I’m super glad I listened this time. Totally and completely worth it.

Audiobook: America’s Best Idea

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The Separation of Church and State
by Randall Balmer
Read by the author
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: It’s a bit wonky at times. It will be in the History section of the bookstore.

This is a short, impassioned history and defense of the First Amendment’s freedom of religion. The idea of not having a state religion, as Balmer asserts, has led to the freedom to have a plethora of religions, a freedom from state-mandated religious requirements, and a true freedom to worship how citizens would like. It’s that, which led to the separation of church and state, that has, in many ways shaped America.

And Balmer passionately asserts that the shift to Christian nationalism, the laws imposing religion on society, are not only unconstitutional, they are anti-American.

While Balmer isn’t a great narrator – his pace was uneven, and it was just odd at times – the subject matter was interesting enough, and it was short enough that it really didn’t matter too much. It’s an important little book, a reminder to those who would say that America is a Christian nation first, that it’s the separation of government and religion that our country was founded upon, and has allowed for so many religions to thrive. And it needs to stay that way.

It Rhymes With Takei

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by George Takei, Harmony Becker, Steven Scott, and Justin Eisinger
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Content: There is homophobia and mention of gay sex. It’s in the Graphic Novel section of the bookstore.

In his previous memoir, They Called Us Enemy, Takei wrote about his time in the internment camps during World War II, but didn’t really elaborate on the rest of his life. In this book, Takei does just that. It picks up when he first realizes that he was gay, when he was about 10 years old, and works his way through the years until the present day. There is a lot about his activism, and the guilt and shame he felt staying in the closet for so long. But, he feared being too different – his family was already put in a camp for being different once – and it was a different time. He was just doing the best he could with what he knew at the time. He made good friends on Star Trek, people who stood beside him later in life, and he eventually became more comfortable with his identity as he got older. The most truly heartbreaking thing was that his brother shunned him when he finally came out to them, but he still has a relationship with his brother’s kids.

It’s a good book – Takei has a good team for this (it’s the same team that did They Called Us Enemy) – one that captures the conflicted and complicated life of one man. It’s perfect for those who are fans of Takei, but it also puts the whole LGBTQ movement in the context of one person’s life.

I really enjoyed it.

The Way Around

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by Nicholas Triolo
First sentence: “In my early twenties, I decided to travel around the world.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher rep.
Release date: July 8, 2025
Content: There is some swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It will be in the Creative Nonfiction section (maybe?) of the Bookstore.

The publisher rep, when he came to talk to staff, pitched this book as a cross between a travel book and an exploration of the idea of meditation through walking in circles. It sounded fascinating, as I love a good travel book, and I am curious about different ways to meditate.

That’s not what I got. This book is broken up into three sections: the first was Triolo walking around Kailash in Tibet; the second was him walking around (or up?) Tamalpais in northern California; and the third was walking around an abandoned copper mine in Butte, Montana. There was elements of travel and elements of the idea that walking in circles is meditative, but elements does not a good book make.

I abandoned this a bit of the way into the third section – I just had no interest in Triolo walking around a pit – it just wasn’t clicking at all. Out of the two sections, I thought the second – the mountain in California – was closest to what I wanted out of the book, but even then, I just wasn’t invested in reading it. I’m sure this book will be for someone, but it wasn’t for me.