Show & Tell: I Also Didn't Attend Don Jr.'s Wedding
This is Show & Tell where I tell you some things I loved from the week and the one thing I hated, plus round up everything else going on around these parts. The first half of Show & Tell is free to all. The adoration and hateration are for paid subscribers only.
I feel like a new woman, because the Nonfiction Reading Guide (NRG) is out on the world, and I get the sense you all do not hate it. What a GD relief. In case you missed it, my guide features 30 nonfiction books in six categories that I think are fantastic and you will love. Oh, and aside from a handful of books, none have been featured on The Stacks. Very simple. Very necessary.
This Week in The Stacks
Mostly just preoccupied with getting the NRG out to all of you.
Imani Thompson, debut author of Honey, came on the podcast to talk about women who kill, revenge, and how she came to write this novel (including where the title came from).
It is finally here. And you have between now and September 22nd to get it.
I got together with to talk about the creation of our guides, we shared our processes, answered your questions, and had a really good time.
Books I Read This Week
Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Héctor Tobar
The story of 33 miners trapped in a Chilean mine in 2010. A fascinating look at the incident and the way the men found a way to survive. This book covers the rescue effort and the political jockeying from both inside the mine and on the surface. Tobar delivers exactly what you want from a book like this, comprehensive reporting, suspense, and building a connection between the reader and the miners.
Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu
This month’s pick for The Stacks Book Club1 follows the friendship between two girls as they come into adulthood. This book is beautifully written and deeply unsettling. Wambugu never goes where I thought she would and surprises her reader with her restraint. I loved the subtleties in her unreliable narrator and how through her eyes things are never exactly as they seem.
Tell Her Story: Eleanor Bumpurs & the Police Killing That Galvanized New York City by LaShawn Harris
A detailed and compelling history of the murder of Eleanor Bumpurs in 1984 that rocked NYC. I knew the broad strokes of this story, and found Harris’ detailed history connnected so many dots and situated Bumpurs within the broader context of her place and time. This is a really solid history book and Harris details not only the murder itself but also gives space to Bumpur’s life, the impact her death had on the public, and the movement she inspired.
Fave of the Week
Crossroads: A Memoir in Baseball and Life by Dusty Baker
A memoir from baseball legend, Dusty Baker. This is exactly what you want from a sports memoir. Details about the game, the inside scoop on certain icon moments, and antidotes about so many important players in the game. Some of the book gets redundant and maybe a little too detailed without really going deep. But mostly you get exactly what you think you’ll get about a life in baseball. If you love the sport and want to hear about it from a man who really was the Forrest Gump of the game, this is it.
Housekeeping
I watched all six episodes2 of this season of Euphoria so that I could guest on 2 Black Girls, 1 Rose. I hate this show, but I loved talking about it with Justine!
This month on Here & Now I gave you all some suggestions for books to gift to grads in your life.
MJ Franklin and I joined ’s podcast, Happy to Be Here, to share the three books we’re each excited about for this summer. In case you needed more book recs, lol.
Things I Love…
Books
If you thought you’d get anything other than me reminding you to get a copy of my Nonfiction Reading Guide here, you' don’t know me at all.
Here are five reasons you need this year’s guide.
There are 30 really good nonfiction books in the guide, and they work for people who love nonfiction and folks wanting to read more true stories that aren’t boring histories or biographies.
I enlisted five reader friends to share recommendations. So like, you’re not only get recs from me, you’re getting them from , , , , and Sam Sanders.
All the proceeds from the guide between now and June 4th go to I AM ALS in honor of ’s father who died from the disease this year. And because Sara is wonderful, she is matching all my donations, which means you get a reading guide and I AM ALS gets $10.
The categories this year are really good, if I do say so myself.
I worked really hard on the guide. This year I made a huge effort to read books specifically for the guide. I found so many books I had never heard of before. Which hopefully means this year’s guide will have some new to you books on it.
Subscribe now to get your guide (and you’ll also get to read my hate this week about that Belle Burden article in The New Yorker). And a huge thank you to everyone who has already subscribed. I truly would not have the time and space to make this guide or do most of what I do here without your support. That fact can not be overstated. So thank you!
Politics
This week Donald Trump Jr. got married. When Trump the elder was asked if he would be at the wedding he was like “oh sorry can’t go to the wedding, I have stuff to do” and the stuff he had to do was be part of another “assassination attempt”. Please get another bit.3 Like bro, do you need a ballroom this badly?
Substack
dropped her Paperback Summer Reading Guide, and it is fantastic. Sara really is the best at these things. This year’s guide has 52 books, most of them I’ve never heard of, and it is a great companion to my NRG because hers is all fiction. And Sara is donating her proceeds (plus matching) are going to I AM ALS. So getting this guide is not only good for you, it is good for other people. No brainer. And for those of your doing the math, if you get both our guides that is $20 to I AM ALS.
