Nonfiction Essentials

  • Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York

    by

    Excellent book. Green chose to focus on humanizing the victims and bringing context to an otherwise grim story. It shares some air with Missing from the Village, in that the homophobia built into the system worked to delay and weaken the investigation (Toronto Police even have an unexpected guest appearance in this story). The book feels…

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  • Say Nothing

    by

    For me this took a while to find its’ legs, but after about 75 pages I couldn’t put it down. Keefe does a tremendous job of weaving together history, politics and violence into a riveting, surprising and educational story of how the Troubles still echo through modern issues. Highly recommend.

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  • Empire of Pain

    by

    This is a worthy read even if you’ve read all the contemporaries. It isn’t so much a book about the opioid crisis (although it is that), as much as it is a real-life Succession. Reads for the most part like a novel. Necessarily gets in the weeds a bit when the courts and investigators get…

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  • This is How They Tell Me the World Ends

    by

    Exhaustive nearly to the point of exhausting. The middle third was repetitive and tough to stick with. Others have noted issues with timelines and I agree – it might have been more clear to have the book told in chronological order. I found myself stopping several times to try to pin down the chronology. HOWEVER…

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  • Missing from the Village

    by

    The true story of Bruce McArthur, a serial killer who found his victims in Toronto’s Gay Village. I have a whole bunch of connections to this story. I lived in the neighbourhood while this was going on, and sat next to McArthur at brunch a couple times at O’Grady’s, I’m loosely related to one of…

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  • Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla

    by

    First half of this book is a snoozer but holy cow did I love the rest. Neidermeyer is more interested in the engineering, design and manufacturing of the Tesla, rather than Elon Musk. Obviously you can’t separate the two but the car comes first in this book, and the book is better for it. The…

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