Below I’m highlighting some nonfiction books coming out in April. 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
“Boat Baby: A Memoir” by Vicky Nguyen (Apr 1)
Starting in 1975, Vietnam’s “boat people” — desperate families seeking freedom — fled the Communist government and violence in their country any way they could, usually by boat across the South China Sea. Vicky Nguyen and her family were among them. Attacked at sea by pirates before reaching a refugee camp in Malaysia, Vicky’s family survived on rations and waited months until they were sponsored to go to America. But deciding to leave and start a new life in a new country is half the story… figuring out how to be American is the other. “Boat Baby” is Vicky’s memoir of growing up in America with unconventional Vietnamese parents who didn’t always know how to bridge the cultural gaps. It’s a childhood filled with misadventures and misunderstandings, from almost stabbing the neighborhood racist with a butter knife to getting caught stealing Cosmo in the hope of learning Do You Really Think You Know Everything About Sex? Vicky’s parents approached life with the attitude, “Why not us?” In the face of prejudice, they taught her to be gritty and resilient, skills Vicky used as she combated stereotyping throughout her career, fending off the question “Aren’t you Connie Chung?” to become a leading Asian American journalist on television. She delivers a uniquely transparent account of her life, revealing how she negotiated her salary in a competitive industry, the challenges of starting a family, and the struggle to be a dutiful daughter.
“America, América: A New History of the New World” by Greg Grandin (Apr 22)
The story of how the United States’ identity was formed is almost invariably told by looking east to Europe. But as Greg Grandin vividly demonstrates, the nation’s unique sense of itself was in fact forged facing south toward Latin America. In turn, Latin America developed its own identity in struggle with the looming colossus to the north. In this stunningly original reinterpretation of the New World, Grandin reveals how North and South emerged from a constant, turbulent engagement with each other. “America, América” traverses half a millennium, from the Spanish Conquest — the greatest mortality event in human history — through the eighteenth-century wars for independence, the Monroe Doctrine, the coups and revolutions of the twentieth century, and beyond. Grandin shows, among other things, how in response to U.S. interventions, Latin Americans remade the rules, leading directly to the founding of the United Nations; and how the Good Neighbor Policy allowed FDR to assume the moral authority to lead the fight against world fascism. Grandin’s book sheds new light on well-known historical figures like Bartolomé de las Casas, Simón Bolívar and Woodrow Wilson, as well as lesser-known actors such as the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda, who almost lost his head in the French Revolution and conspired with Alexander Hamilton to free America from Spain; the Colombian Jorge Gaitán, whose unsolved murder inaugurated the rise of Cold War political terror, death squads, and disappearances; and the radical journalist Ernest Gruening, who, in championing non-interventionism in Latin America, helped broker the most spectacularly successful policy reversal in United States history. This is a monumental work of scholarship that will fundamentally change the way we think of Spanish and English colonialism, slavery and racism, and the rise of universal humanism. At once comprehensive and accessible, “America, América” shows that centuries of bloodshed and diplomacy not only helped shape the political identities of the United States and Latin America but also the laws, institutions, and ideals that govern the modern world. In so doing, Grandin argues that Latin America’s deeply held culture of social democracy can be an effective counterweight to today’s spreading right-wing authoritarianism.
“Ordinary Time: Lessons Learned While Staying Put” by Annie B. Jones (Apr 22)
Annie Jones always assumed adulthood would mean adventure: a high-powered career; life in a big, bustling city; and travels to far-flung places she’d longed to see. But her reality turned out differently. As the years passed, Annie was still in the same small town running an independent bookstore — the kind of life Nora Ephron dreamed. During that time, she hosted friends’ goodbye parties and mailed parting gifts; wrote recommendation letters and wished former shop staffers well. She stayed in her small town, despite her love of big cities; stayed in her marriage to the guy she met when she was 18; and she stayed at her bookstore while the world outside shifted steadily toward digital retailers. And she stayed loyal to a faith she sometimes didn’t recognize. After 10 years, Annie realized she might never leave. But instead of regret, she had an epiphany. She awakened to the gifts of a quiet life spent staying put. In “Ordinary Time,” Annie challenges the idea that loud lives matter most. Rummaging through her small-town existence, she finds hidden gifts of humor and hope from a life lived quietly. Staying, can itself be a radical act. It takes courage to stay in the places we’ve always called home, Jones argues, as she paints a portrait of possibility far away from thriving metropolises and Monica Gellar-inspired apartments. We’ve long been encouraged to follow our dreams, to pack up and move to new places and leave old lives — and past selves — behind. While there is beauty in these kinds of adventures, “Ordinary Time” helps us see ourselves right where we are: in the middle of messy, mundane lives, maybe not too far from where we grew up. We don’t have to leave to find what we yearn — we can choose to stay, celebrating and honoring our ordinary lives, which might turn out to be bigger and better than we ever imagined.
More Notable Releases for April
- “The Last American Road Trip: A Memoir” by Sarah Kendzior (Apr 1)
- “Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice For the Creative Life” by Maggie Smith (Apr 1)
- “Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools” by Mary Annette Pember (Apr 22)
- “The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780” by Rick Atkinson (Apr 29)
