Below I’m highlighting some nonfiction books coming out in November. 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
“Bread of Angels: A Memoir” by Patti Smith (Nov 4)
“God whispers through a crease in the wallpaper,” writes Patti Smith in this moving account of her life. A post–World War II childhood unfolds in a condemned housing complex where we enter the child’s world of the imagination. Smith, the captain of her loyal and beloved sibling army, vanquishes bullies, communes with the king of tortoises, and searches for sacred silver pennies. The most intimate of Smith’s memoirs, “Bread of Angels” takes us through her teenage years where the first glimmers of art and romance take hold. Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan emerge as creative role models as she begins to write poetry then lyrics, ultimately merging both into the songs of iconic recordings such as Horses, Wave and Easter. She leaves it all behind to marry her one true love, Fred Sonic Smith, with whom she creates a life of devotion and adventure on a canal in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. Here, she invents a room of her own, a low table, a Persian cup, inkwell and pen, entering at dawn to write. The couple spend nights in their landlocked Chris-Craft studying nautical maps and charting new adventures as they start a family. A series of profound losses mark her life. Grief and gratitude are braided through years of caring for her children, rebuilding her life and, finally, writing again — the one constant in a life driven by artistic freedom and the power of the imagination to transform the commonplace into the magical, and pain into hope. In the final pages, we meet Smith on the road again, the vagabond who travels to commune with herself, who lives to write and writes to live.
“Winning the Earthquake: How Jeannette Rankin Defied All Odds to Become the First Woman in Congress” by Lorissa Rinehart (Nov 4)
Born on a Montana ranch in 1880, Jeannette Rankin knew how to ride a horse, make a fire and read the sky for weather. But, most of all, she knew how to talk to people and unite them around a shared vision for America. It was this rare skill that led her to become the first woman ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. As her first act, Rankin put forth the legislation that would become the Nineteenth Amendment. During her two terms, beginning in 1917 and in 1941, she introduced and lobbied for legislation strengthening women’s rights, protecting workers, supporting democratic electoral reform, and promoting peace through disarmament. As Congress’s fiercest pacifist, she used her vote to oppose the declaration of war against the German Empire in 1917 and the Japanese Empire in 1941, holding fast to her belief that “you can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.” A suffragist, peace activist, workers’ rights advocate, and champion of democratic reform who ran as a Republican, Rankin remained ever faithful to her beliefs, no matter the price she had to pay personally. Despite overcoming the entrenched boys’ club of oligarchic capitalists and career politicians to make enormous strides for women in politics, Rankin has been largely overlooked. In “Winning the Earthquake,” Lorissa Rinehart expertly recovers the compelling history behind this singular American hero, bringing her story back to life.
“The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind” by Simon Winchester (Nov 18)
What is going on with our atmosphere? The headlines are filled with news of devastating hurricanes, murderous tornadoes and cataclysmic fires affecting large swaths of America. Gale force advisories are issued on a regular basis by the National Weather Service. In 2022, a report was released by atmospheric scientists at the University of Northern Illinois, warning that winds — the force at the center of all these dangerous natural events — are expected to steadily increase in the years ahead, strengthening in power, speed, and frequency. While this prediction worried the insurance industry, governmental leaders, scientists, and conscientious citizens, one particular segment of society received it with unbridled enthusiasm. To the energy industry, rising wind strength and speeds as an unalloyed boon for humankind — a vital source of clean and “safe” power. Between these two poles—wind as a malevolent force, and wind as savior of our planet — lies a world of fascination, history, literature, science, poetry, and engineering which Simon Winchester explores with the curiosity and vigor that are the hallmarks of his bestselling works. In “The Breath of the Gods,” he explains how wind plays a part in our everyday lives, from airplane or car travel to the “natural disasters” that are becoming more frequent and regular. “The Breath of the Gods” is an urgently-needed portrait across time of that unseen force — unseen but not unfelt — that respects no national borders and no vessel or structure in its path. Wind, the movement of the air, is seen by so many as a heavenly creation and generally a thing of essential goodness. But when it flexes its invisible muscles, all should take care and be very afraid.
More Notable Releases for November
- “Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore” by Char Adams (Nov 4)
- “Life On A Little Known Planet: Dispatches From a Changing World” by Elizabeth Kolbert (Nov 4)
- “Sword Beach: D-Day Baptism by Fire” by Max Hastings (Nov 11)
- “100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life” by Dick Van Dyke (Nov 18)
