Nonfiction Essentials
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Amusing Ourselves to Death
by Neil PostmanThe thesis: It is my intention in this book to show that a great media-metaphor shift has taken place in America, with the result that the content of much of our public discourse has become dangerous nonsense. This was published in 1985! Postman’s ideas still work, and in many cases they’re more convincing than ever.…
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The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
For the record, if it matters, I’m not American. I read the 10th anniversary edition of this book that has a lengthy preface (the first edition was published in 2010, the second in pre-pandemic 2020). The first came out shortly after Obama’s first election, and presciently, Alexander doesn’t fall into the trap of optimism that…
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Your Face Belongs to Us
by Kashmir HillAnother banger from the FT Business Book of the Year longlist. The preface of this book reads like a pilot episode of a thriller series or good John Grisham novel. The story of how Hill’s investigation of Clearview AI began is enough to inspire a whole generation of new journalists. The rest of the book…
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Blood in the Machine
This is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve read. It’s an impressive feat of research: Merchant writes about the beginning of the Industrial Revolution with incredible detail, balancing very dense storytelling with short, focused chapters to keep it from overwhelming. The story itself is rich and almost impossible to believe: Lord Byron, Frankenstein, Walter…
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Limbo
Not since Susan Cain’s Quiet have I read a book that felt so specifically written about me and the people I know. I grew up in a small mining town in rural Ontario — my dad worked in a uranium mine and my mom was a schoolteacher. I went to university in downtown Toronto and now work…
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Number Go Up
by Zeke FauxThis might be Zeke Faux’s Liar’s Poker. It has the same combination of elements that made Lewis a star — engaging writing, a fun subject and wild characters that exemplify a moment in time, and a writer who not only is waist-deep in the culture he’s writing about, but incredibly lucky. That’s not to diminish the…
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The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
Even if you’ve read all the similar books like The Innovators: , Hackers, Don’t Be Evil, and The Contrarian, this is great. O’Mara details not just the people and brains, but the politics and culture of Silicon Valley and the broader U.S. tech industry from the 1960s to late 2010s. She isn’t a sycophant or part of the culture,…
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Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon
The most readable corporate profile I have read in years, maybe ever, but Cohan has really written detailed biographies of Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt. It succeeds at that level. Cohan sums up the first eight decades of GE’s existence in about 150 pages, which felt way too rushed. But when Welch shows up, Cohan’s…
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The Rape of Nanking
by Iris ChangThis is brutal and upsetting, and at times I wondered if I could continue reading. But it’s not war porn by any means — Chang wanted to both educate and understand with this book. So she spends a lot of time pursuing the (predictably elusive) why of the event. It’s similar in some aspects to Shake Hands with…
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The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
This book was challenging and dense but without exaggeration, it changed the way I think about the world around me. Like Jane Mayer’s Dark Money, but with a much more ambitious scope. The authors are both scholars – each chapter methodically and clearly examines a specific organization or group of people at a key point…
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G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century
I took my time with this — it’s 730+ pages of dense, small type, narrow margins. It’s a beast. It cost $60 Canadian (at Ben McNally books – one of my absolute faves). But it was worth it. I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, and it’s only been the last decade or so…
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Dilla Time
by Dan CharnasThis is great. I learned a bunch of interesting music theory, and it was a fascinating look at hip hop starting in the mid 90s. The author didn’t know the artist — and it kind of felt like very few people that he spoke to knew him well either. Dilla didn’t feel fully formed in…