With the gifting season upon us, our Flatpage team is thinking about the brilliant yet difficult-to-shop-for friends and family in our lives. No one needs another pair of socks, but what everyone needs is the chance to sink into a book that changes the way they look at the world.
Below, our staff shares a curated list of nine nonfiction titles to expand, sharpen, and challenge perspectives on a variety of topics. Our selections range from incisive historical surveys to poignant love letters to the natural world. What each book has in common is its ability to make us think more intently about the culture that surrounds us. (And, coincidentally, these are exactly the sorts of books we’re aiming to publish at our independently owned imprint.)
Gunocracy: Confronting America’s Mass Shooting Problem
by Christopher B. Strain
Flatpage’s lead title of the season is a prescient and urgent look at an issue that touches all Americans. As a renowned researcher on gun violence, Strain offers a new way of understanding firearms as something other than inanimate objects, exploring how they relate to the American Dream, particularly their appeal to those frustrated by traditional pathways to success and wellbeing. In this nonpartisan study, Strain enumerates potential solutions and practical reforms, leaving the reader with not just a diagnosis, but solutions that extend far beyond firearms themselves.
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures
by Sabrina Imbler
This moving collection of essays offers a unique mix of science writing and personal narrative, taking readers far beneath the ocean’s surface into a seldom-explored landscape of marine life. We are introduced to creatures like the predatory Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena Bobbitt), a giant starving octopus, and the elusive sturgeon. The author’s own queer, Asian identity informs the way she writes about mutual relationships within the oceanic ecosystem, resulting in a transformative portrait of the symbioses of the sea.
Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
by Yuval Noah Harari
We are living in an unprecedented age of information, and yet many of us struggle to position ourselves among such an abundance of input. From the oversaturation of AI to rampant misinformation, many are left wondering where we go from here. In Nexus, Harari traces the long history of information systems from the Stone Age to early-modern witch hunts to the current rise of populism in order to understand how we can rediscover our humanity during an information crisis.
Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free
by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson
Claire McCardell, a cult figure in American midcentury fashion, was known for her innovative designs, which included pockets in dresses, ballet flats, accessible zippers, and hoodies, among other disruptions of conventional womenswear. In the post-WWII age where male designers like Christian Dior often championed hyper-feminized silhouettes, McCardell found ways to liberate women’s bodies through her work. This insider’s biography presents an unforgettable look at a celebrated figure of fashion history who forever changed the way women dress and exist in the world.
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent
by Judi Dench
Written by the one and only Dame Judi Dench, this collection of essays takes readers through a lively exploration of William Shakespeare’s work. Looking through the lens of Dench’s own illustrious career, we are invited behind the curtain to witness everything from the etiquette of rehearsals to the ins and outs of theater company dynamics. A must-have for thespians and Shakespearean acolytes. (Our staff recommends the audiobook, narrated by Dench herself!)
Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People
by Imani Perry
Color shapes so much of the world we see, but it’s also uniquely embedded within history and culture. This title traces the profound links between the color blue and Blackness as a racial identity. From the publisher’s description: “In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world’s favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey—an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology.” You’ll walk away from Black in Blues with a new appreciation for the sprawling impact of color.
Revelations in Air: A Guidebook to Smell
by Jude Stewart
Scent is another sensory experience that pushes us to reconsider our relationship with the world around us—in this case focusing on natural and manufactured environments. In Revelations in Air, Jude Stewart gives us an accessible glimpse into the neurological impact of smells upon our memories. Through lively prose and neatly organized chapters, Stewart invites readers to follow him on a journey that spans art, history, science, and many other engrossing disciplines, all in service of that most mysterious of phenomena, scent.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Never has botany felt simultaneously quite so personal and so broad in scope. This beloved book combines science writing with Kimmerer’s own background as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation to give readers a look into the myriad reciprocities that make up humanity’s relationship with nature. Braiding Sweetgrass is one of those illuminating books that comes around rarely, promising to change the lens through which you view your connection with the natural world.
All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
by Patrick Bringhurst
Many of us have enjoyed the art within museums as visitors, but few are afforded an insider’s look at what it’s like to work behind the scenes in a museum. Caught at a moment of personal tragedy, Bringhurst leaves his burgeoning career at The New Yorker to work as a museum guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All the Beauty in the World presents an engaging portrait of an institution teeming with history, drama, and, above all, art of the highest caliber.
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