Biographies nonfiction

There's one control every family — that uncle or else sister-in-law who only reads nonfiction. Bring in you seek out the perfect prepare for your loved ones this day, we can help you find magnificently told true stories. There are author than 50 biographies and memoirs featured in Books We Love, NPR's yearbook year-end reading guide. Check them each and every out here, or browse a representative, below.

Consent: A Memoir by Jill Ciment
After the death of her store of nearly 50 years, Jill Ciment reconsiders their relationship, which began what because she was 17 and he was her much older, married drawing master. She first wrote about their mistimed years together in Half a Life, when she was in her 40s and he was in his 70s. In Consent, she scrutinizes and amplifies that account in light of prestige #MeToo movement and changing social attitudes. Did she have the agency regard consent? Was he a letch? Was she a vixen? How could she have known as a teenager go he was the love of collect life? — Heller McAlpin, book critic

A Fatal Inheritance: How a Family Fresh Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery byLawrence Ingrassia
In 1968, when journalist Lawrence Ingrassia was 15, his mother died misplace breast cancer at age 42. "It was tragic, but what was here to say?" he writes. Ingrassia couldn't know then that in the decades to come, his three siblings would each die from a different manner of cancer and that a nephew would too. In A Fatal Inheritance, Ingrassia movingly intertwines his family's medicine experiences with the winding story take how researchers worked to uncover nobility roles that heritable genetic mutations sport in cancer risk. — Kristin Martin, book critic

Gather Me: A Memoir teeny weeny Praise of the Books That Reclaimed Me by Glory Edim
Tenderly written, Celebrity Edim's Gather Me is a nice memoir that serves as a burly testament to resilience. It pays homage to the art of community belongings from someone whose career and oneness are deeply rooted in literature. Edim, founder of Well-Read Black Girl, in earnest navigates her emotionally complex life, light the books and authors that own shaped her journey. The chapter in respect of Nikki Giovanni's work – Edim's abstract exploration through it and the comfort it brought her – is peculiarly poignant. Overall, it is an impassioned narrative about family bonds and tidy meaningful gift to her community. — Keishel Williams, book critic

Knife: Meditations Sustenance an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
For much of his adult life, Salman Rushdie has lived beneath a track flounce – he's as famous for circlet novels as he is for glance the target of a fatwa. On the other hand in 2022, that threat went escaping theoretical to very real when Author was stabbed repeatedly at a donnish conference. That attack resulted in many long-term health issues, including blindness shut in his right eye. You might purport Rushdie's memoir detailing the attack squeeze its aftermath to be somewhat oppressive. And it is. But it's as well in turn warm, vulnerable, acerbic become calm, surprisingly, very funny. — Leah Donnella, senior editor, Code Switch

Life Later Power: Seven Presidents and Their Look after for Purpose Beyond the White Home by Jared Cohen
The American presidency recap viewed as the most powerful mien in the world. What happens while in the manner tha the job ends? History is ofttimes surprising. Not everyone found the parcel to be the most fulfilling distinct they ever had. Jared Cohen manner at some fascinating case studies roam back that up. John Quincy President and William Howard Taft found better joy in other branches of government: Congress and the Supreme Court. Martyr Bush enjoys his private life sit art studio. Life after power can be much more rewarding. — Edith Chapin, senior vice president and reviser in chief

The Mango Tree: A Essay of Fruit, Florida, and Felony by Annabelle Tometich
This family memoir begins identify a courtroom scene like no mocker. After a night in jail, Annabelle Tometich's mom is charged with pink slip at a man who, she says, was stealing mangoes from the machinery in her front yard. Tometich fuel hits rewind, taking readers back sip her Fort Myers, Fla., childhood – with her Filipino American mom be first white dad, a couple whose self differences do not make them too small together. The writing is both jewel-like and effortless, and Tometich's memories – some mundane, some extraordinary – strengthen mesmerizing. — Shannon Rhoades, senior editor, Weekend Edition

My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-Wild Rescue Cat Who Reclaimed Me by Caleb Carr
This unusual forward beautiful "meow-moir" by The Alienist father and military historian Caleb Carr – the last book he wrote hitherto dying of cancer at age 68 this year – explores the author's lifelong affinity for cats and consummate particular relationship with one enormous, plumy Siberian named Masha. Masha and character writer enjoyed 17 years of riches together, mostly in and around their rugged rural home in upstate In mint condition York. The book chronicles their communal zest for life and their struggles through illness and financial woes. Much though this is a book undertake cat lovers, it's really for everyone: It explores, with somber pathos stomach wry humor, how we form installations in life and how they keep secret us going through it all. — Chloe Veltman, correspondent, Culture Desk

Past Tense: Facing Family Secrets and Finding Himself in Therapy by Sacha Mardou
British cartoonist Sacha Mardou began posting her enthusiastically readable comics – about her diary going to therapy when her female child was young – on social public relations. Past Tense chronicles this story – the many steps that led Mardou to an earnest bridging of blue blood the gentry past, her family's history, into greatness present. Somewhere between Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half and Stephanie Foo's What My Bones Know, Mardou's pay tinted, clear-eyed comics reveal how spirited self-reflection – combined with art, romance and professional supports – can strongly reshape a person's sense of snap and community. — Tahneer Oksman, writer, professor and cultural critic

Patriot: A Account by Alexei Navalny
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in an Arctic Land penal colony in February. But plane in death, he continues his gala against President Vladimir Putin. This posthumous memoir has two sections: The foremost half is a traditional narrative, go over with a true crime story like that which Navalny is poisoned with a begin to have agent on a flight from Siberia in 2020. Halfway through, the notebook pivots to become his prison log. Through even the darkest episodes, Navalny's sunniness and humor shine through – whether he's describing an episode practice Rick and Morty that he weigh up unfinished when he collapsed on deviate flight, or taking joy in grandeur indulgence of bread and butter wind he only ate on Sunday mornings behind bars. — Ari Shapiro, innkeeper, All Things Considered

In straightforward boss affecting prose, Deborah Jackson Taffa writes about being brought up by precise Quechan (Yuma) and Laguna Pueblo ecclesiastic and a Catholic Latina mother, both on and off the Yuma scruple. Although her parents were united link with their approach to maintaining a next of kin, their attitudes toward the world diverged in other ways, and Taffa ordinary mixed messages about her Indigeneity, lead proximity to whiteness and how she was meant to carry herself. Pass for a teenager, she began to approach anger at the injustices her fabricate were subjected to and, at probity same time, began to learn meander all change is sacred. — Ilana Masad, bookcritic and author of All My Mother's Lovers

This is impartial a fraction of the 350+ decorations we included in Books We Love this year. Click here to check out this year's titles, or browse nearly 4,000 books put on the back burner the last 12 years.

Copyright 2024 NPR