Claire Stapleton’s Don’t Be Evil, Kimon de Greef’s The Ego Trip, and Dave Ziren’s The People’s Historian all feature among the best reviewed nonfiction titles of the month.
This month’s top nonfiction picks, as highlighted by Book Marks—Lit Hub’s central hub for reviews.
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1. Don’t Be Evil: Bad Bosses, Fake Promises, and My Escape from Big Tech by Claire Stapleton
(William Morrow and Company)
4 Rave • 1 Positive • 1 Mixed
A candid narrative tracing a woman’s arc from a dutiful, eager-to-please corporate performer to a clear-eyed advocate. It sits compellingly with other recent examinations of Big Tech’s misdeeds, such as Sarah Wynn-Williams’ Careless People and Anna Wiener’s Uncanny Valley. Works like Stapleton’s equip those aiming to reform the industry with the essential information needed to drive change.
–Harvey Freedenberg (BookPage)
2. The Ego Trip: Psychedelic Toads, a Trail of Deaths, and the Guru Who Peddled Transcendence by Kimon de Greef
(Doubleday)
4 Rave • 1 Positive
“A marvelous journey that unfolds centuries of the Seris’ hardships, the rise of commercial toad milking in a territory ruled by narco gangs, feuds among rival gurus, and a contest between the heirs of an English countess and a German baroness to turn 5-MeO-DMT into a drug.”
–Annie Bartlett (BookPage)
3. The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State by Jill Lepore
(Liveright)
3 Rave • 2 Positive • 1 Mixed
A staggering, sobering, yet essential read for anyone seeking to understand the arc of a world that is increasingly digital, online, corporate, and out of control.
–Carol Haggas (Booklist)
4. Days of Miracle and Wonder: Paul Simon and the Trials and Triumphs of Graceland by Ahley Kahn
(Atria)
4 Rave • 1 Mixed
“What a welcome surprise … It has only deepened my appreciation for the album’s complexities and paradoxes. Kahn allows historical voices to speak for themselves as often as possible, assembling a remarkably broad chorus within a remarkably brief book.”
–Mark Braude (The New York Times Book Review)
5. The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn by Dave Zirin
(Dutton)
2 Rave • 3 Positive • 2 Mixed
“Rousing … It’s a captivating portrait of a historian who reshaped the way America envisions its potential for change.”
–Publishers Weekly
