E8 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2020
“Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times”
By David S. Reynolds
A Bancroft Prize-winning author considers the
16th president within the cultural context of
his time.“Ac tive Measures: The Secret History
of Disinformation and Political Warfare”
By Thomas Rid
This revealing narrative of how Russian disin-
formation altered the 2016 American presiden-
tial election also looks back at the seeds of
Moscow’s modern manipulation, with a fake
pro-Tsarist movement in the 1920s.“All I Ever Wanted”
By Kathy Valentine
The bassist for the Go-Go’s — still the only,
all-woman rock band to land a No. 1 album —
dishes on the group’s drug-fueled rise to fame
and multiple breakups.“The Art of Her Deal:
The Untold Story of Melania Trump”
By Mary Jordan
A portrait of a first lady who has been as willing
as her husband to break the mold — and the
rules — written by a reporter for The Washing-
ton Post.“Becoming Duchess Goldblatt”
By Anonymous
An unidentified writer intersperses her own
story — including the loneliness and grief that
inspired her comical Twitter account — with
the tale of her fictional alter-ego, an opinionat-
ed 81-year-old literary icon.“Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America
and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own”
By Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
This penetrating book defends the strength
and beauty of Baldwin’s later intellectual proj-
ects, when he was criticized for sympathizing
with the emerging Black power movement.“The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and
the Last Years of Hollywood”
By Sam Wasson
A veteran Hollywood writer revisits the making
of Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown,” considering
the movie’s legacy within the industry decline
that followed.“The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay
Attention, Master Myself, and Win”
By Maria Konnikova
What would motivate someone with zero ex-
perience in card playing to drop everything and
become a gambling champ? A journalist and
psychologist attempts to answer that question
while describing her journey.“Breath”
By James Nestor
A journalist travels the world to understand
how humans have become so bad at the most
fundamental acts: inhaling and exhaling.“The Book of Eels”
By Patrik Svensson
This “strange and nerdy book,” according to its
author, took his native Sweden by storm before
delighting U.S. readers with its mix of memoir
and natural history.“Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden
and the American Surveillance State”
By Barton Gellman
The Pulitzer Prize winner, a former Washington
Post reporter, grippingly recounts the rise of
the surveillance state and his often thwarted
attempts to investigate it.“The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X”
By Les Payne and Tamara Payne
This National Book Award-winning biography,
decades in the making, clears up factual dis-
putes and re-creates fly-on-the-wall details that
add invaluably to our understanding of the civil
rights activist’s life.“The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual
vs. the United States of America”
By Eric Cervini
The first full-length biography of Frank Kame-
ni, the intellectual father of the gay liberation
movement, also provides fascinating new de-
tails about the movement before 1969’s Stone-
wall riots.“Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef
in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking
for the Secret of French Cooking”
By Bill Buford
The “Heat” author meticulously recounts his
exploits in Lyon, France, where he moved with
his wife and 3-year-old twins to learn the
secrets of French cooking.“Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics”
By Dolly Parton
Illustrated with photographs that document a
60-year career, Parton goes behind the scenes
of some of her most popular songs, including
“Jolene,” “9 to 5” and “I Will Always Love You.”“Eat the Buddha:
Life and Death in a Tibetan Town”
By Barbara Demick
A National Book Award finalist who pulled
back the curtain on life in North Korea turns
her attention to a Tibetan province that is the
“undisputed world capital of self-immolations.”“A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History
of America’s Hurricanes”
By Eric Jay Dolin
A finalist for a Kirkus Prize, Dolin’s book
provides a captivating and heart-wrenching
account of some of the worst natural disasters
in U.S. history.“Galileo: And the Science Deniers”
By Mario Livio
A perceptive, illuminating look at Galileo’s
discoveries and the anti-science naysayers who
tried to take him down.“Ghosting the News: Local Journalism
and the Crisis of American Democracy”
By Margaret Sullivan
The Washington Post media columnist exposes
the repercussions of the erosion of local news,
from polarized communities to a lack of gov-
ernment oversight.“His Truth Is Marching On:
John Lewis and the Power of Hope”
By Jon Meacham
A loving and instructive biography of the late
civil rights icon whose unshakable faith that
seeking justice by noble means would ultimate-
ly lead to redemption.“Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women
that a Movement Forgot ”
By Mikki Kendall
In a series of essays that interrogate the notion
of mainstream feminism, Kendall explores the
stubborn issues that plague women of color.“How the South Won the Civil War:
Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing
Fight for the Soul of America”
By Heather Cox Richardson
A professor of history makes a connection
between the Confederacy and modern-day con-
servatives, arguing that democracy has always
thrived on inequality.“Humankind: A Hopeful History”
By Rutger Bregman
A Dutch historian aims to prove that human
beings are, by their nature, good. Skeptics be
warned, he comes with thousands of years of
evidence.“I You We Them: Volume 1:
Walking Into the World of the Desk Killer”
By Dan Gretton
Gretton weaves personal anecdotes into a
sweeping history of the bureaucrats who have
murdered countless people while keeping a
safe distance from the carnage.“Kleptopia: How Dirty Money
Is Conquering the World”
By Tom Burgis
A magisterial account of the money and vio-
lence behind the world’s most powerful dicta-
torships.“The Man Who Ran Washington:
The Life and Times of James A. Baker III”
By Peter Baker and Susan Glasser
The authors’ portrait of Baker, who served as
secretary of state when the Berlin Wall fell, is,
among other things, a description of how
Washington used to work.“Max Jacob”
By Rosanna Warren
This definitive portrait of the French cubist
poet is chockablock with entertaining anec-
dotes about his friends and confidantes, includ-
ing Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau.“Me and White Supremacy”
By Layla Saad
Inspired by her 28-day Instagram challenge,
Saad’s best-selling guide describes how to
recognize and dismantle systemic racism.“Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning”
By Cathy Park Hong
A historical and personal perspective on the
angst of being a non-White person in the
United States, including the dissonance be-
tween lived experience and the American
promise of boot straps, elbow grease and an
ever-more-perfect union.“One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic
Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965”
By Jia Ly nn Yang
Yang explores the 40-year battle to overhaul
racist immigration laws passed in the early
20th century that culminated in the passage of
the Immigration and Nationality Act.“Pelosi”
By Molly Ball
In Ball’s account, Nancy Pelosi is as tough as
bullets and knows how to count votes, negoti-
ate and herd her tribe — lost skills in American
politics, atrophied in the modern-day rush to
preen and tweet.“The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism”
By Thomas Fr ank
From 1891 to the rise of Trumpism, Frank walks
readers through a minefield of assumptions
about populism’s nature and history.“The Professor and the Parson”
B y Adam Sisman
A rollicking look at the life and crimes of
Robert Parkin Peters, a plagiarist, bigamist
and fraudulent priest who would stop at
nothing — not even getting caught — to
become famous.“A Promised Land”
By Barack Obama
Barack Obama’s first volume in his presidential
memoirs revisits his path to the White House
and the successes and obstacles that defined
his first term.“Rage”
By Bob Woodward
Woodward, an associate editor at The Wash-
ington Post, followed his best-selling “Fury”
with this tell-all that incorporates 18 on-
the-record interviews with President Trump
that the president conducted against the ad-
vice of his staff.“Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred
Years of Covert Electoral Interference”
By David Shimer
Shimer assembles a damning oral history of the
Obama administration’s failure to deter or
combat Moscow’s interference in 2016, as told
by some of the top officials responsible for it.“The Splendid and the Vile”
By Erik Larson
The author of “The Devil in the White City”
chronicles Churchill’s turbulent first year as
prime minister, as he buoyed the spirits of
Londoners amid the Blitz.“Stranger in the Shogun’s City:
A Japanese Woman and Her World”
By Amy Stanley
A biography that reads like a novel, Stanley’s
book reconstructs the life of a rebellious Japa-
nese woman who abandoned a series of hus-
bands and absconded to Edo during the early
1800s.“Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family
Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man”
By Mary L. Tr ump
The niece of Donald Trump, a clinical psy-
chologist, traces the president’s bullying,
disrespect, lack of empathy, insecurity and
relentless self-aggrandizement to his father’s
parenting skills.“Twilight of Democracy:
The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism”
By Anne Applebaum
Applebaum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
books on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,
explores why important individuals, particu-
larly intellectuals, make decisions that under-
mine democracy.“Uncanny Valley”
By Anna Wiener
After moving from New York to Silicon Valley,
an optimistic young woman slowly realizes that
her new industry is toxic, both to herself and to
society.“Untamed”
By Glennon Doyle
Part memoir, part self-help book, Doyle uses
her own past — how she divorced her husband
to marry soccer star Abby Wambach — to make
a case for being true to oneself.“A Very Stable Genius:
Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America”
By Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig
Two Washington Post reporters take readers
inside the president’s war with his own advis-
ers.“We Have Been Harmonized:
Life in China’s Surveillance State”
By Kai Strittmatter
An engrossing, deeply reported survey of to-
day’s China, a place that is part George Orwell,
part Aldous Huxley.“What It’s Like to Be a Bird:
From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing —
What Birds Are Doing, and Why ”
By David Allen Sibley
An illustrated guide for the homebound masses
who are staring out windows and suddenly
interested in ornithology.“What Were We Thinking:
A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era”
By Carlos Lozada
The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning
nonfiction book critic tries to make sense of
Donald Trump’s rise to power with a self-ad-
ministered syllabus of 150 books that claim to
capture our current political moment.“Why Fish Don’t Exist”
By Lulu Miller
Through an exploration of the work of David
Starr Jordan — a taxonomist whose quest to
name every fish was continually obstructed —
Miller, an NPR reporter, attempts to make
sense of her own messy life.“Wow, No Thank You: Essays”
By Samantha Irby
Both salty and sweet, Irby’s essays dig for
laughs in the strangest places, as she looks back
at her nearly fatal depression, her mother’s
multiple sclerosis and a deep fear of the
outdoors.“Wuhan Diary:
Dispatches From a Quarantined City”
By Fang Fang
Fang, a resident of Wuhan, describes what
she observed and how she and the people
around her felt during the early weeks of the
covid-19 outbreak when the city went into
lockdown.“You’re Not Listening:
What You’re Missing and Why It Matters”
By Kate Murphy
A journalist considers how, despite our near
constant communication, we have lost the
ability to hear one another.
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