Staff Picks
New York Times Best Sellers Nonfiction
- Richland Library
- Tuesday, May 07
Collection
The most recent list of best selling nonfiction titles from the New York Times.
Outlive
The Science & Art of Longevity
Published in 2023
"Wouldn't you like to live longer? And better? In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health. For all its successes, mainstream medicine has failed to make much progress against the diseases of aging that kill most people: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and type 2 diabetes. Too often, it intervenes with treatments too late to help, prolonging lifespan at the expense of healthspan, or quality of life. Dr. Attia believes we must replace this outdated framework with a personalized, proactive strategy for longevity, one where we take action now, rather than waiting. This is not 'biohacking,' it's science: a well-founded strategic and tactical approach to extending lifespan while also improving our physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Dr. Attia's aim is less to tell you what to do and more to help you learn how to think about long-term health, in order to create the best plan for you as an individual. In Outlive, readers will discover: Why the cholesterol test at your annual physical doesn't tell you enough about your actual risk of dying from a heart attack; that you may already suffer from an extremely common yet underdiagnosed liver condition that could be a precursor to the chronic diseases of aging; why exercise is the most potent pro-longevity 'drug'--and how to begin training for the 'Centenarian Decathlon"; why you should forget about diets, and focus instead on nutritional biochemistry, using technology and data to personalize your eating pattern; why striving for physical health and longevity, but ignoring emotional health, could be the ultimate curse of all. Aging and longevity are far more malleable than we think; our fate is not set in stone. With the right roadmap, you can plot a different path for your life, one that lets you outlive your genes to make each decade better than the one before"-- Provided by publisher.
Reading the Constitution
Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism
Published in 2024
An analysis by recently retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer that deconstructs the textualist philosophy of the current Supreme Court's supermajority and makes the case for a better way to interpret the Constitution.
Shakespeare
The Man Who Pays the Rent
Published in 2024
"Discover the work of the greatest writer in the English language as you've never encountered it before by pre-ordering internationally renowned actor Dame Judi Dench's SHAKESPEARE: The Man Who Pays The Rent - a witty, insightful journey through the plays and tales of our beloved Shakespeare. Taking a curtain call with a live snake in her wig... Cavorting naked through the Warwickshire countryside painted green... Acting opposite a child with a pumpkin on his head... These are just a few of the things Dame Judi Dench has done in the name of Shakespeare. For the very first time, Judi opens up about every Shakespearean role she has played throughout her seven-decade career, from Lady Macbeth and Titania to Ophelia and Cleopatra. In a series of intimate conversations with actor & director Brendan O'Hea, she guides us through Shakespeare's plays with incisive clarity, revealing the secrets of her rehearsal process and inviting us to share in her triumphs, disasters, and backstage shenanigans. Interspersed with vignettes on audiences, critics, company spirit and rehearsal room etiquette, she serves up priceless revelations on everything from the craft of speaking in verse to her personal interpretations of some of Shakespeare's most famous scenes, all brightened by her mischievous sense of humour, striking level of honesty and a peppering of hilarious anecdotes, many of which have remained under lock and key until now. Instructive and witty, provocative and inspiring, this is ultimately Judi's love letter to Shakespeare, or rather, The Man Who Pays The Rent"-- Provided by publisher.
An Unfinished Love Story
A Personal History of the 1960s
Published in 2024
The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian reflects on her 42-year marriage with Dick Goodwin, one the shining stars of John F. Kennedy's New Frontier and the journey of going through the letters, diaries, documents and memorabilia he saved over the years.
The Wager
A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
Published in 2023
"On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes. But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they had a very different story to tell. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous captain and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death-for whomever the court found guilty could hang. The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. "-- Provided by publisher.
The Anxious Generation
How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
Published in 2024
After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s, with rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rising sharply. The author lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time, and then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this rewiring of childhood has interfered with children's social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.
Nuclear War
A Scenario
Published in 2024
"Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These projects are vital to how we understand the world we really live in: where one nuclear missile begets one in return; where the choreography of the world's end requires massive decisions made on seconds-notice, with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have. Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking clock scenario, based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons; created the response plans; and been responsible for those decisions should they need to have been made. Nuclear War: A Scenario is unlike any other book in its depth and urgency"-- Provided by publisher.
By the Time You Read This
The Space Between Cheslie's Smile and Mental Illness
Published in 2024
By the Time You Read This is the story former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst was about to publish before her tragic suicide. Her mother, April, wraps up the narrative by exploring the mental illness and depression that took her daughter's life. The text read, "By the time you get this . . ." This is the story of Cheslie Kryst, a former Miss USA, in her own words. When the world awoke on the morning of January 30, 2022, many were shocked to learn of the tragic death of former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst. For most people, the news was unfathomable. How could a young woman in the prime of her life--a pageant queen, accomplished attorney, Extra correspondent, and tireless advocate for charity organizations--have been lost to the world so suddenly? By the Time You Read This shares the manuscript Cheslie wrote before her passing, her story in her own words--from the highest highs of passing two bar exams, winning Miss USA, and beginning an exciting career as an entertainment journalist to the lowest lows of heartbreak, betrayal, and persistent depression. When Cheslie's mother, April Simpkins, picks up the narrative, she shares for the first time what she experienced in the aftermath of Cheslie's suicide. When faced with such a devastating loss, how does a mother find a way to carry on? Whether you are someone who struggles to maintain your mental health, or you love someone who does, this book will share insight into a reality that impacts thousands of families every year--as well as provide hope for those who are left behind.
Somehow
Thoughts on Love
Published in 2024
""Love is our only hope," Anne Lamott writes in this perceptive new book. "It is not always the easiest choice, but it is always the right one, the noble path, the way home to safety, no matter how bleak the future looks." In Somehow: Thoughts on Love, Lamott explores the transformative power that love has in our lives: how it surprises us, forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, reminds us of our humanity, and guides us forward. "Love just won't be pinned down," she says. "It is in our very atmosphere" and lies at the heart of who we are. We are, Lamott says, creatures of love. In each chapter of Somehow, Lamott refracts all the colors of the spectrum. She explores the unexpected love for a partner later in life. The bruised (and bruising) love for a child who disappoints, even frightens. The sustaining love among a group of sinners, for a community in transition, in the wider world. The lessons she underscores are that love enlightens as it educates, comforts as it energizes, sustains as it surprises. Somehow is Anne Lamott's twentieth book, and in it she draws from her own life and experience to delineate the intimate and elemental ways that love buttresses us in the face of despair as it galvanizes us to believe that tomorrow will be better than today. Full of the compassion and humanity that have made Lamott beloved by millions of readers, Somehow is classic Anne Lamott: funny, warm, and wise"-- Provided by publisher.
I'm Glad My Mom Died
Published in 2022
"Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother's dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called "calorie restriction," eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, "Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn't tint hers?" She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income. In I'm Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail--just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi ("Hi Gale!"), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants." -- Amazon.com.
The Work of Art
How Something Comes from Nothing
Published in 2024
"From former editor-in-chief of New York magazine Adam Moss, a collection of illuminating conversations examining the very personal, rigorous, complex, and elusive work of making art. What is the work of art? In this guided tour inside the artist's head, Adam Moss traces the evolution of transcendent novels, paintings, jokes, movies, songs, and more. Weaving conversations with some of the most accomplished artists of our time together with the journal entries, napkin doodles, and sketches that were their tools, Moss breaks down the work-the tortuous paths and artistic decisions-that led to great art. From first glimmers to second thoughts, roads not taken, crises, breakthroughs, on to one triumphant finish after another"-- Provided by publisher
Knife
Meditations After an Attempted Murder
Published in 2024
The internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner speaks out for the first time about the traumatic events of August 12, 2022, when an attempt was made on his life, in this deeply personal meditation on violence, art, loss, love and finding the strength to stand up again.
The Wide Wide Sea
Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
Published in 2024
"From New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides, an epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook's death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment? Hampton Sides' bravura account of Cook's last journey both wrestles with Cook's legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science--the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment. Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain's imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook's intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook's overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter. At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers"-- Provided by publisher.
Age of Revolutions
Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present
Published in 2024
The CNN host and best-selling author explores the revolutions--past and present--that define the polarized and unstable age in which we live.