Jon Ronson’s The Castle, Emily Wilson’s Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea, and Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s Said the Dead all feature among the best reviewed nonfiction titles of the month.
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1. The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unraveling Men by Jon Ronson
(Riverhead)
7 Rave • 5 Positive • 1 Mixed
Ronson returns to the page after more than a decade with a work that matches the energy and curiosity of his earlier successes. The Castle refuses to deliver simple answers or neat endings; instead, it invites readers to reconsider contemporary masculinity and the factors fueling a widespread mental health crisis among men. It’s a thoughtful, provocative effort to diagnose a social condition and to imagine ways to respond once the underlying causes are understood.
–Sinead Gibney (The Irish Times)
2. American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump by Kai Bird with Susan Goldmark
(Scribner)
8 Rave • 2 Positive
I tore through every page, swept up by a lush trove of midcentury misdeeds and the captivating allure of a man who thrived on power plays. While the saga glories in its ugliness and sensationalism, American Scoundrel remains relentlessly engaging, bursting with startling twists, daring tactics, and last-minute escapes that feel like a legal-age dime novel in real life, as if a renegade outlaw of the Old West slipped through the cracks of justice time and again.
–Laura Miller (Slate)
3. Said the Dead by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
(FSG)
8 Rave • 1 Positive
Read an excerpt from Said the Dead here
It unfolds as an emotionally charged, genre-spanning synthesis of history and imagination. Ní Ghríofa treats women who have long suffered the loss of freedom and autonomy with reverence, placing them at the center of a nascent women’s rights movement while navigating the messy terrain of paternal control.
–Joelle Egan (Booklist)
4. Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature by Emily Wilson
(Liveright)
8 Rave
Wilson proves to be a wonderfully spirited guide to classical material, while also drawing from modern culture in productive ways. She crafts a seamless blend of precise, line-by-line readings with broader claims about what’s at stake. You don’t need to adore ancient texts to be drawn in by this book; by its end, you likely will be. Wilson’s infectious passion for her subject shines through on every page.
–Jennifer Szalai (The New York Times)
5. Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War’s Most Extraordinary Spy by Ben Macintyre
(Crown)
7 Rave
Macintyre continues his celebrated practice of turning dusty intelligence archives into gripping nonfiction thrillers. The narrative moves with brisk momentum, and the final pages carry a quiet, poignant weight that lingers after the story ends.
–Joseph Finer (The New York Times Book Review)
