February’s Best Reviewed Nonfiction

Namwali Serpell’s On Morrison, Gisèle Pelicot’s A Hymn to Life, and Richard Holmes’ The Boundless Deep all feature among the best reviewed nonfiction titles of the month.

Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s home for book reviews.

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1. On Morrison by Namwali Serpell
(Hogarth)

10 Rave
Read an interview with Namwali Serpell here

“Graceful, exhilarating … Serpell deserves consideration for a major prize. Mostly she deserves our gratitude and admiration: On Morrison gives us, in precise yet supple prose, a close reading in action and an exemplar of literary criticism (distinct from book criticism, a journalistic form). This book will spur you to pore overt the master’s achievements.”

–Hamilton Cain (On the Seawall)

2. A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot
(Penguin Press)

8 Rave • 1 Positive

“Unique … Alive with the kind of detail that wouldn’t look out of place in a good novel, but it’s the expression it gives to something glimpsed at during the trial that makes it so singular; namely, the transformation of Gisèle Pelicot from a self-avowedly ordinary woman, ‘content with my little life’, into a figure of astonishing power.”

–Emma Brockes (The Guardian)

3. The Last Kings of Hollywood: Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg—And the Battle for the Soul of American Cinema by Paul Fischer
(Celadon Books)

5 Rave • 4 Positive • 2 Mixed

“With the enthusiasm of an avid fan, the even hand of a journalist, and the narrative skills of a screenwriter, Fischer interleaves the biographies of three Hollywood titans. [An] in-depth, behind-the-scenes book … Rich in glitterati name-dropping and insight into the minutiae of movie creation, Fischer’s tell-all will cause film history buffs to swoon and will assuredly entertain any nostalgic moviegoer.”

–Joelle Egan (Booklist)

4. The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief by Richard Holmes
(Pantheon)

7 Rave • 1 Mixed

“Holmes, master biographer that he is, vividly conjures up this awkward, compelling figure. What gives his book its exceptional energy, though, is not what is happening on the surface of Tennyson’s life and Holmes’s narrative. It is the powerful undertow of threatened belief and existential anxiety tugging the reader down … This biography is a compelling story of an odd, brilliant, charismatic character, and a reappraisal of a man who had become so very established we could no longer see him.”

–Lucy Hughes-Hallett (The Guardian)

5. Leaving Home: A Memoir in Full Colour by Mark Haddon
(Doubleday)

5 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an excerpt from Leaving Home here

“Haddon…writes with uncanny humor and endearing candor as he leapfrogs from childhood incidents to more recent struggles and discoveries … As he reflects on his hard-tested loyalty to his parents and his love for his sister, wife, and children, Haddon is pithily hilarious, deeply insightful, and very moving.”

–Donna Seaman (Booklist)