Instagram Facebook X-twitter Linkedin
Science Fiction & FantasyNonfictionFictionSocial ScienceLiterary FictionLifestylesHorrorHistoryHistorical FictionGraphic Novels & ComicsFantasyCultural HistoryCultural CriticismArts & Culture

What to read this Halloween, based on your ideal spooky activity

Whether you’re a homebody or a thrill-hunter, we’ve got a seasonal, spine-tingling read for you.
Whether you’re a homebody or a thrill-hunter, we’ve got a seasonal, spine-tingling read for you.
NonfictionLifestylesCookbooks

Bodega Bakes

In the personable Bodega Bakes, pastry chef Paola Velez presents just that: sweets that can be made solely from the ingredients found at a corner store.
In the personable Bodega Bakes, pastry chef Paola Velez presents just that: sweets that can be made solely from the ingredients found at a corner store.
Previous
Next

All Nonfiction Coverage

Filter by genre
NonfictionTrue Crime

We Keep the Dead Close

Review by Jessica Wakeman

The true crime genre has been so successful in podcasting that one might forget it originated in publishing. Becky Cooper, formerly of the New Yorker, has already drawn comparisons to In Cold Blood with her true crime masterpiece, We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence—and for good reason.

On a winter night in 1969, Jane Britton, a 23-year-old grad student in the Harvard anthropology department, was brutally murdered in her Boston apartment. Aspects of the crime scene suggested that her murderer may have had some knowledge of ritualistic burials. For decades, rumors suggested that a powerful archeology professor killed her. Cooper, herself a Harvard graduate, finally decided to find out.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: We chatted with author Becky Cooper about her transformation into an investigative journalist and the community she found along the way.

Over the course of 10 years, Cooper turns over every stone trying to identify Jane’s killer. She perseveres mightily in her investigation, driven in part by the way she identifies with the quirky, complicated victim. This identification may draw in readers who see themselves in Jane, too. But for others, the author’s embrace of a stranger who died 50 years prior may never quite gel. The book is strongest when we’re empathizing with Jane—her romantic foibles, grappling with sexism within academia—rather than with the author.

For aspiring journalists, Cooper’s impressive work in We Keep the Dead Close is a masterclass on how to do investigative reporting. She dug deep into archival research and interviewed most everyone involved in the case, drawing uncomfortable information out of her sources with particular skill while still withholding judgment. Along the way, the narrative ventures down rabbit holes and zigzags from Cambridge to Hawaii to Iran to Labrador.

Cooper’s 10-year investigation is a meandering one that may drag on for readers who want a neat and tidy resolution. For everyone else, there’s so much to chew on in We Keep the Dead Close. The resolution, when it comes, is as unexpected as it is heartbreaking.

The true crime genre has been so successful in podcasting that one might forget it originated in publishing. Becky Cooper, formerly of the New Yorker, has already drawn comparisons to In Cold Blood with her true crime masterpiece, We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence—and for good reason. […]
NonfictionBlack HistoryAmerican History

The Kidnapping Club

Review by Deborah Mason

Urbane and bustling, New York City is often considered the epitome of “Northern-ness.” However, in the decades before the Civil War, the city’s interests were very much in line with those of Southern cotton farmers. Through its finance, insurance and shipping industries, New York probably profited from slave labor more than any other city in the country. The city would do almost anything to appease the Southern states, even if it meant sending its own citizens into slavery.

The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War by Jonathan Daniel Wells is an eye-opening history of antebellum New York. Wells, a professor of history at the University of Michigan, meticulously details two of New York City’s dirtiest secrets: the city’s illicit backing of the illegal transatlantic slave trade and the Kidnapping Club that helped reinforce it. From the 1830s until the start of the Civil War, and with the support of the city’s judiciary, vigilantes in the Kidnapping Club as well as the police abducted Black New Yorkers on the pretext that they were escaped slaves. With little or no due process, hundreds of men, women and even children were snatched, jailed and then sent south. The broader effects of New York’s illegal slave trade were even more horrific, resulting in the abduction, enslavement and frequently death of hundreds of thousands of West Africans.

There are many villains in this thoroughly researched and fascinating history, including police officers Tobias Boudinot and Daniel Nash, Judge Richard Riker and Mayor Fernando Woods. Yet The Kidnapping Club is more than a story of villainy. It’s also a history of heroes, including David Ruggles, a Black abolitionist who put his body between the victims and their snatchers; Elizabeth Jenkins, who fought against segregated transportation over a century before Rosa Parks; and James McCune Smith, an abolitionist and the first African American to hold a medical degree.

Most important of all, The Kidnapping Club restores the names of the abducted: Ben, Hester Jane Carr, Isaac Wright, Frances Shields, John Dickerson and countless others whose lives were destroyed and humanity erased— until now.

Urbane and bustling, New York City is often considered the epitome of “Northern-ness.” However, in the decades before the Civil War, the city’s interests were very much in line with those of Southern cotton farmers. Through its finance, insurance and shipping industries, New York probably profited from slave labor more than any other city in […]
NonfictionBiographyArts & Culture

Cary Grant

Review by Julie Hale

Film historian Scott Eyman takes a fresh look at a movie legend in the sparkling biography Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise. Drawing upon extensive interviews and archival materials, including the star’s personal papers, Eyman shows that Grant (1904–1986), king of the romantic comedy and the very definition of dashing, was a man of contrasts forever troubled by his working-class past.

Born into a poor household in Bristol, England, Grant, whose real name was Archibald Leach, did not have a happy childhood. His father was an alcoholic. His depressed mother spent decades in an institution, while Grant was told that she was dead. At 14, he engineered his own expulsion from school in order to chase a career in show business. From stilt walking, acrobatics and pantomime in English music halls to American vaudeville revues and the Broadway stage, he didn’t stop until he’d landed in Hollywood.

In 1932, Grant made his first big film, Blonde Venus, with Marlene Dietrich. By 1939, he was a full-blown star. Absent-minded scientist (Bringing Up Baby), wisecracking socialite (The Philadelphia Story), ice-cold government agent (Notorious)—there was no bill he didn’t fit. During the late 1940s, Eyman writes, “Grant had first crack at nearly every script that didn’t involve a cattle drive or space aliens.”

But Grant’s past seems to have left him permanently scarred. Although he maintained a suave public persona and was widely cherished by friends and fellow actors, the truth about him was, of course, more complicated. As the author reveals, Grant had a reputation for stinginess and self-absorption and could be a mean drunk. On set, he was often anxious and tense.

Eyman’s consideration of the inner conflicts that drove Grant results in a wonderfully nuanced study of his life. Along with the star’s many marriages and bitter divorces, Eyman explores the rumors surrounding his sexuality and his LSD use, recounting it all in clean, unaffected prose. He mixes Grant’s personal story with several decades’ worth of Hollywood history, and his film analyses are eye-opening. Grant was “a man for all movie seasons.” They don’t make ’em like that anymore.

Film historian Scott Eyman takes a fresh look at a movie legend in the sparkling biography Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise. Drawing upon extensive interviews and archival materials, including the star’s personal papers, Eyman shows that Grant (1904–1986), king of the romantic comedy and the very definition of dashing, was a man of contrasts forever […]
Nonfiction

A Walk Around the Block

Review by Priscilla Kipp

In these unprecedented days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we may find our housebound selves more curious than ever about what’s going on outdoors in our neighborhoods and across our cities and towns. Where does electricity come from? What happens to our trash and recyclables when they leave our curb? How is our water cleaned? Consider the road signs, and think about what is in and on those roads. Ponder the manholes, their purpose and shape. Observe the ubiquitous squirrels and their mating habits. A Walk Around the Block: Stoplight Secrets, Mischievous Squirrels, Manhole Mysteries & Other Stuff You See Every Day (and Know Nothing About) reads like a very fun trot, with chapters that flow and entertain. Spike Carlsen’s relentless curiosity about everything leads us on to learn more—and more, and more.

Straying far from his block in Stillwater, Minnesota, this editor, author, carpenter and woodworker (he’s also the author of A Splintered History of Wood) tours the graffiti-adorned alleys and sewers (yes, you can) of Paris and a trash museum in New York. Closer to home, there’s a local water treatment plant, recycling operation, traffic control center and post office. There’s also the Mail Recovery Center, which consolidates 90 million undeliverable and nonreturnable mail items annually. Carlsen introduces a snow plower, mail sorter and deliverer, graffiti artist and pigeon professional. The makings of asphalt and concrete are explored, the shapes of road signs are explained, and the history of front porches is revealed. Ever wonder about roadkill? Street names? Roundabouts versus traffic lights? It’s all here. Statistics and cultural histories boost the facts, but the anecdotes carry the day. The people Carlsen meets along the way—the ones who have likely never crossed our minds—become unforgettable.

A Walk Around the Block succeeds in making the mundane fascinating, opening our minds (and front doors) to an everyday world easily taken for granted. As Carlsen writes, “I’ve learned knowledge is power; and when you know more about how the world works, you make better decisions as you walk through it.”

In these unprecedented days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we may find our housebound selves more curious than ever about what’s going on outdoors in our neighborhoods and across our cities and towns. Where does electricity come from? What happens to our trash and recyclables when they leave our curb? How is our water cleaned? Consider […]
NonfictionTrue CrimeArt

The Woman Who Stole Vermeer

Review by Sarojini Seupersad

In The Woman Who Stole Vermeer: The True Story of Rose Dugdale and the Russborough House Art Heist, Anthony M. Amore expertly combines extraordinary history with gripping true crime. Amore, author of The Art of the Con and director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, is an authority on art crimes and homeland security. His new book recounts the life of heiress Rose Dugdale, one of few women in the world to pull off a great art heist. The book starts with her privileged beginnings in England and college years at Oxford studying philosophy and economics, and progresses through her radical transformation into an incredible art thief.

Rich in tantalizing details, The Woman Who Stole Vermeer is filled with personal anecdotes from those who knew Dugdale the best— old college friends, colleagues and political compatriots who all remember her as wholly original and completely fearless. Several dramatic events in Dugdale’s life led her to follow revolutionary politics, but none affected her more than Bloody Sunday in 1972, when British soldiers killed more than two dozen demonstrators at a protest march in Northern Ireland. From then on, she became dedicated to ending British imperialism and helping the Irish Liberation Army.

The reasons for Dugdale’s prolific art heists were complicated and surprising, but they were never selfish. In 1973, to help fund her political causes, Dugdale stole valuable artwork from her family’s estate. As her crimes escalated, she stole a helicopter and attempted to bomb a police station. In 1974, along with three other people, she entered Ireland’s Russborough House, which was then the home of a British Member of Parliament, and stole 19 priceless paintings, including Johannes Vermeer’s “The Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid.” In striking detail, Amore describes how Dugdale was identified as the one who orchestrated the heist. Her subsequent arrest, theatrical trial and most dramatic crimes are also vividly explained. This exciting biography of a singular woman is for anyone who loves true crime, art, politics and history.

In The Woman Who Stole Vermeer: The True Story of Rose Dugdale and the Russborough House Art Heist, Anthony M. Amore expertly combines extraordinary history with gripping true crime. Amore, author of The Art of the Con and director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, is an authority on art crimes […]
RomanceNonfictionFictionChildren's & YAMiddle GradeFamily Drama

The Hold List: Books that inspire good cheer toward humanity

Feature by bookpagedev

Sometimes empathy for our fellow humans can feel just beyond our reach. On those days, we want to shut out the world and escape from our differences. Fortunately there are books that reaffirm hope and help us feel patience for our neighbors once more, like breathing warm breath onto cold hands.

Ninety-Nine Stories of God

This book is pretty clear about what it’s offering: 99 stories from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Joy Williams, all of them in some way about God. In typical Williams fashion, though, Ninety-Nine Stories of God is far more than that. The stories here are short and strange, the longest no more than a few pages, but each is crammed with life. From Kafka and a fish to the Aztecs and O.J. Simpson, these stories highlight the absurdity and whimsy of being alive. A teacher recommended this book to me, but she warned me to curb my expectations: While “God” is present in each story, the book is really about humans and the strange things we do for faith. Praying, hoping, crying—it’s all crystallized in these short stories. Williams reminds us that God, however you think of God, is in people.

—Eric, Editorial Intern

Evvie Drake Starts Over

I hate Hallmark movies. So much so that I can’t even stomach watching them in a so-bad-it’s-good type of way. I get anxious the farther I get from an urban center, I break out in hives when faced with a quirky pun, and I have never really understood the appeal of New England. So it means a lot for me to say that reading Linda Holmes’ wry romance, Evvie Drake Starts Over, filled me with joy. The author’s warmth and humor radiate off every page, the sense of place (a tiny town in Maine, by the sea) is absolutely perfect, and then there’s the marvelous Evvie herself, she of the relatable breakdowns and perfect zingers and hard-won journey to happiness and love. This is an endearing little bundle of a book, and after finishing it, I considered, for the first time in my life, taking a trip to Maine.

—Savanna, Associate Editor

Flora & Ulysses

I love all of Kate DiCamillo’s books, but I love her Newbery Medal-winning Flora & Ulysses most of all. The miraculous, madcap adventure of a superpowered squirrel and the girl he loves, Flora & Ulysses is as honest about the possibility of goodness as it is about darkness and despair. In a world where tragedy can be “just sitting there, keeping you company, waiting,” Flora believes herself a cynic who can’t afford to hope. In fact, all of the characters have been, in one way or another, disappointed by other people. DiCamillo’s willingness to acknowledge how audacious it can be to hold on to hope amid uncertainty makes the book’s climax, in which so many hopes are rewarded, all the more moving. As one character says, “There is much more beauty in the world if I believe such a thing is possible.”

—Stephanie, Associate Editor

The Lager Queen of Minnesota

No one makes me feel good about the world quite like my mom and grandma, the relentlessly positive Minnesota matriarchs of my family. But their upbeat nature isn’t a willful idealism; rather, it’s a daily choice to take the hard stuff in stride, to make the most of it, because why not? J. Ryan Stradal’s Midwestern family drama takes me home. It’s got some ups and downs as two estranged sisters figure their way through a longtime divide, but it’s packed with redemption, as one of the sisters’ granddaughters makes a go of a new beer venture that promises to change everyone’s fortunes for the better. Behold the power of hard work and determination to heal nearly any wound. You’re never too old, and it’s never too late, if you’re willing to put a little elbow grease into it. Plus, there’s pie and there’s beer, and those are my two pandemic love languages.

—Cat, Deputy Editor

Cosy

The best way for me to show good cheer toward humankind is to spend time away from them. Call it introversion, call it misanthropy—the bottom line is that I can lose steam quickly when I interact with people, and it’s difficult to be charitable toward your fellow human when you’re cranky. This is where a book like Cosy becomes invaluable. From soups to tea to socks to soft lighting, Laura Weir is an expert at cultivating a space that’s warm, peaceful and snug, and she shares her insights in prose that radiates comfort. Need a cozy movie, hike, book or tipple? There are recommendations in every category, as well as atmospheric musings on the philosophy of coziness. Dipping into this book makes me gentler and more compassionate, and during a year when keeping your distance is a concrete act of kindness, Cosy is worth its weight in gold.

—Christy, Associate Editor

Sometimes empathy for our fellow humans can feel just beyond our reach. On those days, we want to shut out the world and escape from our differences. Fortunately there are books that reaffirm hope and help us feel patience for our neighbors once more, like breathing warm breath onto cold hands.

Want more BookPage?

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Sign up now

Trending Nonfiction

All Nonfiction

Author Interviews

More Interviews

Recent Features

All Features