New in April: Non-Fiction

 April is turning out to be a big month for books!  While there is a lot of good fiction on the publishers’ calendars, there are some very interesting non-fiction books a well.  Here are a few of them:

Dame Judi Dench, the wonderful British actress who has delighted audiences with her performances in movies including a turn as M in the James Bond series, turns her attention to her stage work. In Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, she offers insight into the Bard’s plays as well as anecdotes about her roles in them.  According to the publisher, this includes having a live snake in her wig and cavorting naked (albeit painted green) in the countryside.

 Doris Kearns Goodwin is known for her insightful, well-written books on history.  Her newest book, An Unfinished Love Story, is a very personal look at America in the 1960s, when her husband Richard worked for leaders such as Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy.  The book came about as she and her husband began sorting through boxes of papers from that era during the last years of Richard’s life, bringing a mature assessment to both people and events.

Anne Lamott brings her insight to one of our basic emotions in Somehow: Thoughts on Love.  It’s not just romantic love under consideration here, but platonic love, family love, and spiritual love.  

Erik Larson is well known for his riveting non-fiction that has readers turning pages as if reading a thriller.  The author of Devil in the White City, Isaac’s Storm, and In the Garden of Beasts turns his attention to the American Civil War in his new book, The Demon of Unrest.  Larson examines the time between Lincoln’s election and Ft. Sumter which the publisher describes as “a political horror story.”

 

Author Salman Rushdie survived an assassination attempt in August 2022, when a knife-wielding assailant stabbed him several times. In Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, his publisher tells us that Rushdie “reminds us of the power of words to make sense of the unthinkable. Knife is a gripping, intimate, and ultimately life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.”

 

James Patterson is known for his many, many, many fiction books, but of late he has turned his attention to non-fiction, writing about true crime, combat veterans, police officers, nurses, and more. His latest non-fiction title is The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians and I have to say that several staff members are really looking forward to this one!

Nevermore: Bertie, Joseph Anton, Moving the Mountain, Black Box

Jud read Alexander McCall Smith’s  Bertie Plays the Blues, the new book in the 44 Scotland Street series. For the uninitiated, the stories revolve around the inhabitants of a neighborhood.  Sometimes their paths intersect but overall there are usually several stories all going on at once.  Bertie is a little boy with a genius for music.  He has an over-the- top mother who is determined to see to it that Bertie is well rounded, whether Bertie wants to be or not.  She enrolls him in various classes (yoga, music, etc.) and wants him to play with girls.  Bertie’s father is a feckless sort, allowing the mother to take the lead in childrearing.  He’s also more than a bit absent-minded.  Like many of McCall Smith’s books, the theme here is everyday ethical challenges and how people handle them.  They’re slice of life tales, day to day parables, and are utterly charming.

Moving the Mountain by Feisal Abdul Rauf asks Americans to take another look at Islam.  Rauf, the so-called “Ground Zero Iman,” argues that it’s up to American Muslims to show the way forward for the rest of the Islamic world.  He explains the tenets of Islam, making distinctions between the parts that sprang from local custom and those that are central to Islam. 

Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie is a collection of essays about the thirteen years he had to spend in hiding after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him.  The title refers to the name he picked as an alias to use for his own safety, combining the names of Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov.  Our reviewer felt there was too much personal information, especially about his former wives, and not enough consideration given to political, intellectual, and practical concerns.  One comment was that Rushdie was not a likeable character.

The Black Box by Michael Connelly has Harry Bosch trying to solve the twenty year old murder of a journalist who was killed during the Rodney King riots.  Most reviews have been good, but our reader didn’t think it was one of Connelly’s best.