As someone who loves books, purely for the ability they have at transporting you to other worlds and offering up a bit of escapism, I have done my best over the years to avoid those coming under the non-fiction category. This year, however, I decided enough is enough took it upon myself to read 10 pages a day of a non-fiction title. So far, it has been going well. Here are three recommendations if you’re looking to get into non-fiction and put the novels down for a little while.
All About Love by Bell Hooks
The book’s synopsis reads: “All About Love offers radical new ways to think about love by showing its interconnectedness in our private and public lives. In eleven concise chapters, hooks explains how our everyday notions of what it means to give and receive love often fail us, and how these ideals are established in early childhood. She offers a rethinking of self-love (without narcissism) that will bring peace and compassion to our personal and professional lives, and asserts the place of love to end struggles between individuals, in communities, and among societies. Moving from the cultural to the intimate, hooks notes the ties between love and loss and challenges the prevailing notion that romantic love is the most important love of all.
“Visionary and original, hooks shows how love heals the wounds we bear as individuals and as a nation, for it is the cornerstone of compassion and forgiveness and holds the power to overcome shame.
“For readers who have found ongoing delight and wisdom in bell hooks’s life and work, and for those who are just now discovering her, All About Love is essential reading and a brilliant book that will change how we think about love, our culture-and one another.”
Blueberries: Essays Concerning Understanding by Ellena Savage
The book’s synopsis reads: “The body frequently escapes her, but is always very much present in these compellingly vivid, clear-eyed essays on an embodied self in flight through the world, from the brilliant young writer Ellena Savage.
“In Portuguese police stations and Portland college campuses, in suburban Melbourne libraries and wintry Berlin apartments, Savage shows bodies in pain and in love, bodies at work and at rest.
“She circles back to scenes of crimes or near-crimes, to lovers or near-lovers, to turn over the stones, reread the paperwork, check the deeds, approach from another angle altogether. These essays traverse cities and spaces, bodies and histories, moving through forms and modes to find a closer kind of truth. Blueberries is ripe with acid, promise, and sweetness.”
Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults by Laurie Penny
The blurb states: “Smart and provocative, witty and uncompromising, this collection of Laurie Penny’s celebrated essays establishes her as one of the most important and vibrant feminist voices of our time. From the shock of Donald Trump’s election and the victories of the far right to online harassment and the transgender rights movement, this darkly humorous collection is an unflinching look at the definitive issues of our age.
“Penny is lyrical and passionate in her desire to confront injustice; she writes at the raw edge of the zeitgeist at a time when it has never been more vital to challenge social norms. This revelatory, revolutionary collection will give readers hope and tools for change from a bitch who wants to get stuff done.”