Summer reading favorites in nonfiction and history
The dog days and long nights of summer are upon us—giving us more time to dive into books! The Amazon Editors love to recommend our picks for the Best Books of the Month, but we also relish any opportunity to revisit titles that we haven’t stopped thinking about over the years. Check out a few of our nonfiction and history reviews below, as well as our favorite summer reads across fiction, mystery, romance, sci-fi and more.
One of our Best Books of 2023, The Art Thief is a blast to read—but also horrifying when you realize what the maniac at the center of the story is up to, and what his mom did to $2 billion worth of art to protect her son. Stéphane Breitwieser can’t resist filching priceless pieces from museums, or, as he calls them: “prisons for art.” As Breitwieser’s compulsion grows, readers are left agog wondering how he’ll up the ante, and soon enough he’s dodging guards to throw an ancient tapestry through a window, hiking through a forest to retrieve it, realizing he doesn't have 100 feet to display it in his tiny attic apartment, and then stuffing it under his four-poster bed. Gasp! This true crime tale is gateway nonfiction. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
We named this title the best book of 2017 when it first published—and since Martin Scorsese’s adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone scored ten Oscar nominations, readers continue to flock to this gritty and pacey read about the killings that spurred J. Edgar Hoover to action. But it’s more than just an unputdownable read; David Grann (The Wager, The Lost City of Z) puts a spotlight on Native American oppression, violence, domestic surveillance, and policing that is still a lightning rod for discussion today. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
I stumbled upon R. Eric Thomas’ brilliantly clever (and laugh-out-loud) writing in Elle years ago, and eagerly ordered his book of essays in the dark days of spring 2020, when we all needed a good giggle and some hope. Thomas’ memoir delivers both—and so much more. Through quick-witted storytelling and epic asides, he deftly navigates everything from flirting and pop culture, to growing up gay and experiencing racism. It’s the epitome of, “If we don’t laugh, we cry!” You’ll be left in stitches reading about how he met the pastor he’d go on to marry, and his awkward young adult years. There’s a lot of joy wrapped up in this hugely-relatable book that will make you guffaw a lot, tear up a little, and quite possibly rediscover your love for Whitney Houston. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
As a child of a mother who did jail time, Brittany K. Barnett understands the grave implications of a parent lost to “the striped Looney Tunes suit.” As she writes in A Knock at Midnight, our #1 pick for Best Book of 2020: “There’s something about seeing your childhood hero, your guiding star, fallen. It rocks you to your core.” In this deeply personal memoir, Barnett shares how as a young Black girl she was surrounded by drugs growing up in the south—her mother, a nurse, at times was addicted to crack, and her boyfriend dealt drugs.But Barnett also details how her family fueled her, why she pursued law, and why she became dedicated to defending those unfairly incarcerated for minor drug crimes. As she learned, inequality lurked everywhere: “The discrepancy in sentencing blew my mind. I began to wonder whether America’s harsh drug sentences were tied to the drugs in a man’s hand or the melanin in his skin.” While A Knock at Midnight is a brilliant memoir of Barnett’s own journey, it also chronicles the stories of three of her clients. Their lives—including their crimes, their families, and their jail time—are rendered with such care and compassion that it is impossible to put this book down. It is also impossible not to root for Barnett and her clients as she fights to get them the justice they deserve, and never had. A Knock at Midnight is a profoundly moving memoir that reveals the incredibly racist world of the feds, the courts, and the laws that throw away people’s lives—for life. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
The subject of Walter Isaacson’s book is Jennifer Doudna, who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work developing CRISPR. CRISPR is the innovation that will open the door to gene manipulation, driving the life sciences revolution for decades to come. But it will also open the door to moral quandaries as we ask ourselves: How far should we go in editing humans—especially before birth—and who should control those decisions? —Chris Schluep, former Amazon Editor
Dasani is only 11 years old, and yet carries the world on her shoulders. She’s bright and energetic, and shows promise at school. But getting to the classroom each day is a battle. She’s also homeless, helping to raise her siblings, and watching her parents struggle to recover from drug addiction and do the best they can against countless obstacles in unforgiving New York City. A series of articles about Dasani published in The New York Times captivated and enraged readers on Dasani’s behalf, and spurred politicians to promise to fight for her (as well as the untold number of children in a similar situation across America). Andrea Elliott’s book builds upon her reporting in a feat of narrative storytelling that won her a Pulitzer Prize in 2022. This incredible read will break your heart, it will push you to change the world, and it will make you root for all the Dasanis of the world. I still think about it nearly every single day. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
Oh my god Becky, look at this book. It’s hard not to with its neon yellow cover and perfect peach emoji. Inside this eye-catching package is a thought-provoking read that’s entertaining and smart. Heather Radke whisks us though history, starting with how backsides enabled human evolution two million years ago, to the complicated story of Sarah Bartmann, the owner of the most infamous butt of all time (on display inside a Paris museum until recently), to, yes, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Buns of Steel, and Kim Kardashian. We learn about twerking’s religious roots and why pants never fit (blame the male scientists who dreamed up the “normal” female body in the 1940s). Radke keeps the narrative moving, whether she’s quoting existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir or RuPaul (both are cited in a single paragraph). Yes, butts can be “silly,” Radke explains, but they’re also “tremendously complex symbols, fraught with significance...laden with humor and sex, shame and history...used to create and reinforce racial hierarchies, as a barometer for the virtues of hard work...femininity and humanity." So, I guess what I'm saying is: I like Butts and I cannot lie. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
There’s no arguing the fact that we have short attention spans—as individuals and collectively. Case in point, when I picked up Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus, I had music going, a quiche was in the oven, the windows were open to the city streets, and I was already thinking about how ironic my behavior was and the funny review I would write. But Hari's writing, his own personal journey taking a three-month tech-detox, and his inquiry into the science behind why our focus is stolen, very quickly makes your mind settle and makes you truly think about the way our world works and the ramifications that short attention spans have on things like climate change. In other words, this book will steal your focus, but in the way that books—as Hari argues in his book—are meant to. They help you develop complex thoughts and explore ideas that are unknown; in other words, with attention comes empathy and drive to experience the world more fully. We couldn’t stop talking about this book, which is why we named it one of our Best Books of 2022. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
It’s the rare writer who can capture a social ill with a clear-eyed, nonjudgmental tone and still allow the messiness of real people its due. Matthew Desmond does just that as he explores the stories of tenants and landlords in the poorest areas of Milwaukee during 2008 and 2009. It’s almost always a compliment to say that a nonfiction book reads like a novel and this one does—mostly because Desmond gets very close to the “characters,” relating their words and thoughts and layering on enough vibrant details to make every rented property or trailer come alive. —Adrian Liang, former Amazon Editor
Fans of The Wire, Breaking Bad, and The Godfather won’t be able to resist this heart-pounding—and true—tale of drugs, crime, and power, with real-life characters whose astonishing stories have never been told. Take Wei Xuegang, whom you might call Asia’s “El Chapo,” otherwise known as a “stone-cold genius with the mind of a Fortune 500 CEO” who “dresses like a strip mall accountant”—and is the world’s best player ever in the drug trafficking game. He operates out of “one of the most secretive places on earth,” the 12,000-square-mile Wa State, nestled in a hilly region of Asia that might be compared to America’s Appalachia. Determined to stop Xuegang’s criminal enterprise and bring respect to his people is Superstar, himself a former druglord, whose steely principles land him squarely in the crosshairs of the US’ War on Drugs as a DEA informant. Who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys here? The lines are blurry—but Patrick Winn’s sharp, riveting storytelling never loses focus. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
Song of the Cell is a feat of storytelling. Siddhartha Mukherjee seamlessly pulls together personal anecdotes, little-known history (including a massive feud between two pancreatic experts with all the drama of Hamilton), and the latest health research. We know words like "hormones" and "liver," but Mukherjee makes us truly understand how they function, and where they fit into our body as a whole. The name of the book describes how cells make the "symphony" of our body, all the disparate functions that work to keep us alive (and how they break down as we approach death). I even learned more about COVID, despite feeling like we’ve read it all. This is a book that deserves to be read slowly and thoughtfully, to revel in the awe of the human body that comes through in every word written by Mukherjee, also the Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, and a practicing physician and researcher. When it comes to the body, Mukherjee says: “We have learned so much. We have so much left to learn.” A philosophical take on the body, and life. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
The way we judge smarts and success is all wrong—and the fallout is holding people, and our country, back from greatness, Temple Grandin argues in her fascinating book. Grandin posits that people can be sorted into two buckets: verbal thinkers (words, written and spoken) and visual thinkers (images and patterns). Standardized tests and one-size-fits-all educations weed out people who fall into the latter category, shutting out the ideas of millions of bright thinkers who might solve society’s most pressing problems. (Many people we consider geniuses, like Michelangelo and Thomas Edison, were visual thinkers—and Grandin wonders if they would have accomplished so much today.) Grandin also sprinkles in plenty of fun facts (you’ll never look at Ikea furniture the same way again), a quiz to determine what kind of thinker you are, a case for abolishing algebra, and an illuminating explanation of the brain, the all-powerful organ we know so little about. I’d like to give a copy of this book to every parent, teacher, and anyone who has ever struggled in school. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
I’m a fan of Tunde Oyeneyin’s inspiring sermons during her hugely popular Peloton rides. So imagine my delight when I got my hands on her book, Speak, and heard it was targeted toward “fans of Brené Brown and Glennon Doyle,” who are also two of my favorites. (I loved Doyle’s Untamed so much that I downloaded it on my Kindle, and then bought a second hard copy so I could highlight sections.) Oyeneyin doesn’t disappoint with her accessible storytelling, describing her journey from obese teen to rock-hard fitness instructor (a path paved with failure before success); her grief after her brother, father, and mother die; and her bewilderment when relationships and careers end. She doesn’t shy away from heavy topics, like racism and abuse, but she does find lessons in every setback that will leave you reaching for your own highlighters. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
River of the Gods is thrilling narrative nonfiction full of adventure, ambushes, false starts, and the pursuit of conquest. Richard Burton was a consummate explorer, with a penchant for languages (he spoke more than 25), sex, and glory (one of his greatest expeditions was a trip to discover the head-waters of the Nile in 1857). Candice Millard, the best-selling author of The River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic, recounts Burton’s life and epic journey that not only involved harrowing physical feats but stiff competition and epic clashes with his fellow explorer John Hanning Speke, and also with the man who has been left out of the history books, African guide Sidi Mubarak Bombay. Using diary entries and letters, Millard’s story drops you in the middle of the jungle and exposes a world of conquering and colonial exploits. A fascinating portrait of the characters and the era in which they roamed that is an adventure to read. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
Tara Westover wasn’t your garden variety college student. When the Holocaust was mentioned in a history class, she didn’t know what it was (no, really). That’s because she didn’t see the inside of a classroom until the age of seventeen. Public education was one of the many things her fanatic father was dubious of, believing it a means for the government to brainwash its gullible citizens, and her mother wasn’t diligent on the homeschooling front. If it wasn’t for a brother who managed to extricate himself from their isolated—and often dangerous world—Westover might still be in rural Idaho, trying to survive her survivalist upbringing. It’s a miraculous story she tells in this memoir, which we named our Best Book of 2018. For those of us who took our educations for granted, who occasionally fell asleep in large lecture halls (and inconveniently small ones), it’s hard to grasp the level of grit—not to mention intellect—required to pull off what Westover did. But eventually earning a PhD from Cambridge University may have been the easy part, at least compared to what she had to sacrifice to attain it. The courage it took to make that sacrifice was the truest indicator of how far she’d come, and how much she’d learned. Educated is an inspiring reminder that knowledge is, indeed, power. —Erin Kodicek, Amazon Editor
When it came to the Barbenheimer movie face off last summer, I came down firmly on the side of Oppenheimer, which did proper justice to this complex and iconic scientist. The movie is based on American Prometheus, which is a meticulously researched but compulsively readable account of Oppenheimer’s rise and fall, from his privileged childhood in Manhattan through his history-making tenure in Los Alamos, and to his ignominious fall from grace in a D.C. hearing room. The book points out that for all of its 1,000 pages on Oppenheimer, the hearing board transcript that presaged Oppenheimer’s wilderness years failed utterly to understand him. Inspired by the movie, I’m excited for this book to tell me more about this enigmatic man. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
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