Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow David Finkel explores political divisions in America via profiles of Iraq War veteran and suburban family man Brent Cummings, whom he followed from 2016 to 2020. Try this next: God Land: A Story of Faith, Loss, and Renewal in Middle Americaby Lyz Lenz.
In her heartwrenching debut memoir exploring the failures of the American criminal justice system, Michelle Horton chronicles her ongoing efforts to get her sister, Nikki, released from prison following her 2019 conviction for killing her abuser. Try this next: Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza.
Dance critic Deborah Jowitt spotlights trailblazing modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham (1894-1991), who produced dozens of ballets during her prolific career and whose eponymous technique is still practiced today. Further reading: Martha Graham: When Dance Became Modern by Neil Baldwin.
Iconic Star Wars actor Billy Dee Williams dishes on his life and eight-decade career in this candid memoir written "with the panache and suavity that characterize his screen presence" (Publishers Weekly). For fans of:I Am C-3PO: The Inside Storyby Anthony Daniels.
In her thoughtful and witty debut, disability rights activist Judith Heumann chronicles her trials and triumphs in the face of an ableist society, including her time as the U.S. State Department's first Special Advisor on International Disability Rights, a position she held for seven years. Further reading:Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Centuryedited by Alice Wong.
Journalist Judith Mackrell's engaging and richly detailed collective biography spotlights six women journalists during World War II who braved the front lines -- and workplace sexism -- to break barriers in their profession. For fans of:Katherine Sharp Landdeck's The Women with Silver Wings.
International Women of Courage Award winner Niloofar Rahmani, Afghanistan's first woman fixed-wing pilot and the country's first woman pilot since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, details her unlikely path to success in a "heart-racing account [that] will leave readers gripping their seats" (Publishers Weekly). Try this next: Book of Queens: The True Story of Middle Eastern Horsewomen Who Fought the War on Terrorby Pardis Mahdavi.
Historian Amy Stanley's atmospheric Pulitzer Prize finalist and National Book Critics Circle Award winner surveys the life of Tsuneno, a woman in early 19th-century Japan who endured three failed marriages before leaving her rural village in search of independence and adventure in the city of Edo (present-day Tokyo). Try this next:Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Backby Janice P. Nimura.