The Best Nonfiction Books of 2019
THE 10 BEST NONFICTION BOOKS
1. SAY NOTHING
Patrick Radden Keefe
Keefe delivers a strong example of how to take a brutal crime (the murder of a mother of 10 in 1972 Northern Ireland) and use it to tell, in page after gripping page, a much larger history—delving into the IRA, the British occupation and the terrorism that plagued the country for decades.
2. KNOW MY NAME
Chanel Miller
Miller—known for years as Emily Doe, the woman who delivered a powerful victim-impact statement after being sexually assaulted at a 2015 Stanford party—gives the most profound look at life as a survivor we’ve seen since the #MeToo movement began.
3. THE YELLOW HOUSE
Sarah M. Broom
One of the many things lost in Hurricane Katrina was the home where Broom and her 11 siblings once lived with their parents. In her memoir, Broom reflects on the history of the New Orleans East neighborhood and her family’s experiences there.
4. UNDERLAND
Robert Macfarlane
Macfarlane journeys deep inside mines, through the catacombs of Paris and into glaciers to examine a layer of the world that humans irrevocably shape but rarely stop to consider. He asks that most haunting of questions:
