I recommend you the poems of Mahmoud Darwish. he was considered a “resistance Palestine poet,” he was placed under house arrest when his poem “Identity Card” was turned into a protest song. My favorite poem of his is "I Have a Seat in the Abandoned Theater"
I adore Ross Gay's work! The Book of Delights was life changing and The Book of More Delights has been equally meaningful to me so far. I'm also (not very far along yet) reading How to Disappear by Akiko Busch which has raised a lot of thoughtful questions I'm still processing.
Ana if you would like to explore something that intersects radical philosophy and theology I have found ‘Freedom from the known’ by J. Krishnamurthy to be enlightening. Also talking about the mystical and elusive have you tried Rumi translator William Chittick? The book is called The sufi path of love.
And thank you for this amazing question, such brilliant recommendations all over- must be one the best comment section I have seen so far in substack!
Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas, Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso, Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, Men We Reaped by Jasmyn Ward, Girlhood by Melissa Febos...also like someone else recommended I love In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
I love this--I've been keeping a list on my bookshop page that lists a lot of these, although I need to reorganize the categories....
But some really powerful non fiction that has been staying with me:
The Witch of Eye by Cathatine Neurnberger (also a poet)
Green, Green, Green by Gillian Osborne
Heroines by Kate Zamberno (more autofiction/nonfiction)
Death by Landscape by Elvia Wilk
Dominion of the Dead by Robert Pogue Harrison (also Forest by him)
Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta
Distance and Memory by Peter Davidson (includes art crit but mixed with memoir)
All that She Carried by Tiya Miles (just devastatingly beautiful and powerful)
Any and all James Baldwin
Zero at the Bone by Christian Wiman (also his other memoir My Bright Abyss)
Into Great Silence by Eva Saulitis
Decreation by Anne Carson
Madness, Rack, and Honey by Mary Rueffle
An Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky
Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane
for nf canon, I think the heavy hitters are always Baldwin, Didion, Sontag, Montaigne, etc. Even Solnit at this point really. It's an interesting question to ponder!
For non-fiction about diaspora: Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora. I haven’t finished it yet, but as the daughter/niece/cousin of several Salvadoran immigrants it hits close to home.
For the other list:
- Rebel Radio by José Ignacio López Vigil
- The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
What an interesting question. I’m not sure I have great answers aside from that list of Indigenous writers I emailed you a while back. Though there are some young adult novels that fit the diaspora theme. I wish YA got more respect! Some of the best stories are there. (I’m thinking of “Darius the Great Is Not Okay,” by Adib Khorram, and “The Night Diary,” by Veera Hiranandani.)
A few books that I have never been able to let go:
1. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. A work of nonfiction about a Hmong child who has epilepsy and how her family tries to navigate American/western medical system when it so clearly does not acknowledge their culture.
2. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. A novel that takes place in 1975 in rural and urban India. It is harrowing.
3. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I have rarely read an author who writes so beautifully.
Some NF I’ve found illuminating in the past decade.
Empire of things by Frank Trentmann
- too big probably, but you could select an essay from it. Blew my mind by connecting up things I’d never thought of.
Threads of Life: A history of the world through the eye of a needle byClare Hunter
or
The Golden Thread: How fabric changed history by Cassia St Clair
- the history of textiles is a history of suppressed voices, capitalism and colonization. Both of these are excellent. Couldn’t choose between them.
Rest is Resistence Tricia Hersey
- no notes necessary
Lowborn by Kerry Hudson
- a story from the UK. I liked the nuance.
Talking to my daughter about the economy: a history of capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis
- readable, informative
The examined life by Stephen Grosz
- essays about being human, I return to this again and again
Cultural Amnesia by Clive James
- Another behemoth. Kaleidoscopic. James had a distinct voice.
Black and British by David Olusogu
- its often easier to absorb ideas critical of your own society when you read similar criticisms about another society... with less skin in the game there is less resistance, maybe?
Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung
- a memoir of the second generation migrant experience. She writes beautifully.
No Friend but the mountains: writing from Manus prison by Behrouz Boochani
- on my tbr list because its highly emotive for me (an Aussie) but so highly rated I’m willing to include it without direct experience.
This seems like a bonkers task!! Read 150 books in a year and somehow remember all of them! My favorite non fiction books recently have been We Were Once a Family about the Hartt Family murders and child welfare/family separation, Evicted, and On the Line by Daisy Pitkin about friendship and union organizing!
There was a time when I planned on pursuing a PhD, but the struggles that came with my MA quickly disabused me of those thoughts. I miss some of the coursework and the research. Something about citing sources is so satisfying but God damn it doni hate academic writing.
A "nonfiction canon", I love this concept! I can think of a few things I think would be essential to something like this, but I'm not sure they quite fit the parameters of what you'd like to see on your list. When I think nonfiction "classics" I think of Augustine's Confessions and Montaigne's Essays. Jumping ahea I think Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own and Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, may be good choices. And anything by Joan Didion.
Hopefully some part of this helpful. I'd love to see the final list you come up with. Good luck!
This isn't a specific book but if I were compiling a list it would include works from Michel de Montaigne, Joan Didion, James Baldwin, Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, G.K. Chesterton, Jorge Luis Borges, Zadie Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, Albert Camus, David Foster Wallace, Haruki Murakami, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Ivan Turgenev, Natalia Ginzburg and I could go on. I love essayists and creative nonfiction.
I recommend you the poems of Mahmoud Darwish. he was considered a “resistance Palestine poet,” he was placed under house arrest when his poem “Identity Card” was turned into a protest song. My favorite poem of his is "I Have a Seat in the Abandoned Theater"
The one book stuck in my head after reading this is Carmen María Machado's IN THE DREAM HOUSE.
I adore Ross Gay's work! The Book of Delights was life changing and The Book of More Delights has been equally meaningful to me so far. I'm also (not very far along yet) reading How to Disappear by Akiko Busch which has raised a lot of thoughtful questions I'm still processing.
Ana if you would like to explore something that intersects radical philosophy and theology I have found ‘Freedom from the known’ by J. Krishnamurthy to be enlightening. Also talking about the mystical and elusive have you tried Rumi translator William Chittick? The book is called The sufi path of love.
And thank you for this amazing question, such brilliant recommendations all over- must be one the best comment section I have seen so far in substack!
Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas, Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso, Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, Men We Reaped by Jasmyn Ward, Girlhood by Melissa Febos...also like someone else recommended I love In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
I love this--I've been keeping a list on my bookshop page that lists a lot of these, although I need to reorganize the categories....
But some really powerful non fiction that has been staying with me:
The Witch of Eye by Cathatine Neurnberger (also a poet)
Green, Green, Green by Gillian Osborne
Heroines by Kate Zamberno (more autofiction/nonfiction)
Death by Landscape by Elvia Wilk
Dominion of the Dead by Robert Pogue Harrison (also Forest by him)
Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta
Distance and Memory by Peter Davidson (includes art crit but mixed with memoir)
All that She Carried by Tiya Miles (just devastatingly beautiful and powerful)
Any and all James Baldwin
Zero at the Bone by Christian Wiman (also his other memoir My Bright Abyss)
Into Great Silence by Eva Saulitis
Decreation by Anne Carson
Madness, Rack, and Honey by Mary Rueffle
An Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky
Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane
for nf canon, I think the heavy hitters are always Baldwin, Didion, Sontag, Montaigne, etc. Even Solnit at this point really. It's an interesting question to ponder!
Can't wait to read what others have loved! 📚
For non-fiction about diaspora: Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora. I haven’t finished it yet, but as the daughter/niece/cousin of several Salvadoran immigrants it hits close to home.
For the other list:
- Rebel Radio by José Ignacio López Vigil
- The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
- A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
What an interesting question. I’m not sure I have great answers aside from that list of Indigenous writers I emailed you a while back. Though there are some young adult novels that fit the diaspora theme. I wish YA got more respect! Some of the best stories are there. (I’m thinking of “Darius the Great Is Not Okay,” by Adib Khorram, and “The Night Diary,” by Veera Hiranandani.)
A few books that I have never been able to let go:
1. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. A work of nonfiction about a Hmong child who has epilepsy and how her family tries to navigate American/western medical system when it so clearly does not acknowledge their culture.
2. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. A novel that takes place in 1975 in rural and urban India. It is harrowing.
3. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I have rarely read an author who writes so beautifully.
Good luck on making your list.
Some NF I’ve found illuminating in the past decade.
Empire of things by Frank Trentmann
- too big probably, but you could select an essay from it. Blew my mind by connecting up things I’d never thought of.
Threads of Life: A history of the world through the eye of a needle byClare Hunter
or
The Golden Thread: How fabric changed history by Cassia St Clair
- the history of textiles is a history of suppressed voices, capitalism and colonization. Both of these are excellent. Couldn’t choose between them.
Rest is Resistence Tricia Hersey
- no notes necessary
Lowborn by Kerry Hudson
- a story from the UK. I liked the nuance.
Talking to my daughter about the economy: a history of capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis
- readable, informative
The examined life by Stephen Grosz
- essays about being human, I return to this again and again
Cultural Amnesia by Clive James
- Another behemoth. Kaleidoscopic. James had a distinct voice.
Black and British by David Olusogu
- its often easier to absorb ideas critical of your own society when you read similar criticisms about another society... with less skin in the game there is less resistance, maybe?
Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung
- a memoir of the second generation migrant experience. She writes beautifully.
No Friend but the mountains: writing from Manus prison by Behrouz Boochani
- on my tbr list because its highly emotive for me (an Aussie) but so highly rated I’m willing to include it without direct experience.
This seems like a bonkers task!! Read 150 books in a year and somehow remember all of them! My favorite non fiction books recently have been We Were Once a Family about the Hartt Family murders and child welfare/family separation, Evicted, and On the Line by Daisy Pitkin about friendship and union organizing!
There was a time when I planned on pursuing a PhD, but the struggles that came with my MA quickly disabused me of those thoughts. I miss some of the coursework and the research. Something about citing sources is so satisfying but God damn it doni hate academic writing.
A "nonfiction canon", I love this concept! I can think of a few things I think would be essential to something like this, but I'm not sure they quite fit the parameters of what you'd like to see on your list. When I think nonfiction "classics" I think of Augustine's Confessions and Montaigne's Essays. Jumping ahea I think Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own and Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, may be good choices. And anything by Joan Didion.
Hopefully some part of this helpful. I'd love to see the final list you come up with. Good luck!
This isn't a specific book but if I were compiling a list it would include works from Michel de Montaigne, Joan Didion, James Baldwin, Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, G.K. Chesterton, Jorge Luis Borges, Zadie Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, Albert Camus, David Foster Wallace, Haruki Murakami, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Ivan Turgenev, Natalia Ginzburg and I could go on. I love essayists and creative nonfiction.
Also sorry for my English, not my first language.
You're welcome! And check out the faculty that Fishtrap brings in...some interesting voices there.
Robin Wall Kimmerer. Luis Alberto Urrea. Jamie Ford. Beth Piatote.
Check 'em out.