Nonfiction Roundup: January 2024

New Year, new nonfiction books coming out in January 2024! All of the mentioned titles are available to put on hold in our catalog and will also be made available via the library’s Overdrive website on the day of publication in eBook and downloadable audiobook format (as available). For a more extensive list of new nonfiction books coming out this month, check our online catalog.

Top Picks

“The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with Our Wild Neighbors” by Erika Howsare (Jan 2)
Deer have been an important part of the world that humans occupy for millennia. They’re one of the only large animals that can thrive in our presence. In the 21st century, our relationship is full of contradictions: We hunt and protect them, we cull them from suburbs while making them an icon of wilderness, we see them both as victims and as pests. But there is no doubt that we have a connection to deer: in mythology and story, in ecosystems biological and digital, in cities and in forests. Delving into the historical roots of these tangled attitudes and how they play out in the present, Erika Howsare observes scientists capture and collar fawns, hunters show off their trophies, a museum interpreter teaching American history while tanning a deer hide, an animal-control officer collecting the carcasses of deer killed by sharpshooters, and a woman bottle-raising orphaned fawns in her backyard. As she reports these stories, Howsare’s eye is always on the bigger picture: Why do we look at deer in the ways we do, and what do these animals reveal about human involvement in the natural world?

“Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are” by Rebecca Boyle (Jan 16)
Many of us know that the Moon pulls on our oceans, driving the tides, but did you know that it smells like gunpowder? Or that it was essential to the development of science and religion? Acclaimed journalist Rebecca Boyle takes readers on a dazzling tour to reveal the intimate role that our 4.51-billion-year-old companion has played in our biological and cultural evolution. Our Moon’s gravity stabilized Earth’s orbit — and its climate. It drew nutrients to the surface of the primordial ocean, where they fostered the evolution of complex life. The Moon continues to influence animal migration and reproduction, plants’ movements, and, possibly, the flow of the very blood in our veins. While the Sun helped prehistoric hunters and gatherers mark daily time, early civilizations used the phases of the Moon to count months and years, allowing them to plan farther ahead. Mesopotamian priests recorded the Moon’s position in order to make predictions, and, in the process, created the earliest known empirical, scientific observations. In “Our Moon,” Boyle introduces us to ancient astronomers and major figures of the scientific revolution, including Johannes Kepler and his influential lunar science fiction. Our relationship to the Moon changed when Apollo astronauts landed on it in 1969, and it’s about to change again. As governments and billionaires aim to turn a profit from its resources, Rebecca Boyle shows us that the Moon belongs to everybody, and nobody at all.

“Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks” by Crystal Wilkinson (Jan 23)
Years ago, when O. Henry Prize-winning writer Crystal Wilkinson was baking a jam cake, she felt her late grandmother’s presence. She soon realized that she was not the only cook in her kitchen; there were her ancestors, too, stirring, measuring and braising alongside her. These are her kitchen ghosts, five generations of Black women who settled in Appalachia and made a life, a legacy and a cuisine. An expert cook, Wilkinson shares nearly 40 family recipes rooted deep in the past, full of flavor — delicious favorites including Corn Pudding, Chicken and Dumplings, Granny Christine’s Jam Cake and Praisesong Biscuits, brought to vivid life through stunning photography. Together, “Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts” honors the mothers who came before, the land that provided for generations of her family, and the untold heritage of Black Appalachia. Wilkinson found their stories in her apron pockets, floating inside the steam of hot mustard greens and tucked into the sweet scent of clove and cinnamon in her kitchen. Part memoir, part cookbook, “Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts” weaves those stories together with recipes, family photos, and a lyrical imagination to present a culinary portrait of a family that has lived and worked the earth of the mountains for over a century.