Below I’m highlighting some nonfiction books coming out in May. 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
“I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything” by Joanna Stern (May 12)
You’ve heard the hype: AI will make us healthier, give every child a personalized tutor, run our businesses more efficiently, return hours of free time to our overworked brains and make discoveries previously unimagined by humankind. The AI future is going to be unlike any other technological revolution. But what does that really mean? And will AI truly make life better? To find out, journalist Joanna Stern surrendered her life to artificial intelligence for one year. The results are both hilarious and unsettling. “I Am Not a Robot” is like a time machine trip to the very near future, where AI promises to be your doctor, chauffeur, teacher, masseuse, coworker, therapist, financial planner, chef, housekeeper and even… romantic partner. Your colleague might be using ChatGPT to write emails at work, but Joanna used AI tools and robots to do household chores, to manage her health, and to transport her family on vacation. If there was a decision to make or a task to do, she let AI go first. Along the way, she conducted exclusive interviews with the tech leaders building this future, then reported back from the front lines as your funny, no-nonsense tour guide. Of course, tech’s sunny promises never tell the whole story, and that’s what Joanna is here to share. Filled with illustrations and photographs, this book offers less hype, more clarity, and as little jargon as humanly (or robotically) possible. It’s an AI guide for ordinary people—not the tech bros who tried to sell you a cruise to the metaverse or an NFT of a cartoon monkey. This book is not the definitive story, because we’re only a few years into the AI revolution. But after a year of living as a human lab rat, Joanna delivers one of the clearest—and funniest—pictures yet of what’s really happening and what it means for you.
“Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground” by Zayd Ayers Dohrn (May 19)
Zayd Ayers Dohrn was born underground. His parents were fugitives after a decade fighting the US government; his mother was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. All his life, Dohrn’s parents said his birth marked a clean break with violent revolutionary struggle, but in this explosive memoir, he discovers that story wasn’t entirely true. This masterpiece of personal and social history brings us inside an infamous family and their lives underground. Drawing on exclusive interviews, declassified FBI files, and long-hidden letters, photos, and diaries, Dohrn tells a new story of radical resistance, including revelations about the Weathermen’s bombing campaign, their secret alliance with the Black Liberation Army, and the dramatic prison break of Assata Shakur. Reckoning with the emotional damage the Weathermen inflicted on their victims, their children, and themselves, Dohrn’s unflinching memoir explores the roots of radicalism and asks how a young person survives when the place they feel safest―with their family―also puts them in danger.
“The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright: The True Story of Mass Murder in Paradise” by Casey Sherman (May 26)
Frank Lloyd Wright was more than the mind behind America’s most iconic buildings―he was a man whose turbulent private life captivated a nation. The famous architect’s stormy marriage to Kitty Wright and his infamous affair with another woman, Mamah Borthwick, ignited one of the country’s first celebrity scandals, splashed across headlines from coast to coast. Then, in August 1914, scandal turned to horror. A tragedy at Taliesin, the Wisconsin home Wright built as a monument to love, shook the very foundation of Wright’s life―and catapulted him back to the front pages of newspapers across the country as readers clamored for glimpses of his very darkest moments. In “The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright,” author Casey Sherman delves beyond the myth of Wright’s genius to reveal a man of relentless ambition, consuming passion, and devastating loss. With haunting intimacy and propulsive storytelling, Sherman delivers a portrait of an artist who could not escape the shadows of his own making―and who rose, again and again, from the ashes.
More Notable Releases for May
- “GIRLS®: Generation Z and the Commodification of Everything” by Freya India (May 5)
- “Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children” by Mac Barnett (May 5)
- “True Crime: A Memoir” by Patricia Cornwell (May 5)
- “Take Me to Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter” by Neil DeGrasse Tyson (May 12)
