January’s Best Reviewed Nonfiction

Edmund White’s The Loves of My Life, Dorian Lynsky’s Everything Must Go, and Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine 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. The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir by Edmund White
(Bloomsbury)

7 Rave • 2 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an excerpt from The Loves of My Life here

“His witty details are always buffed to high polish. It’s a briny pleasure to read about outré sex in sentences as baroque as peonies, as smooth as eggnog. Gossamer prose and ramrod honesty are White’s dual credos, and each is made peculiar and fresh by the presence of the other … This self-deprecation oils the gears of White’s wit, but it also works as an invitation, gathering beneath its ribs everyone who feels inadequate to some concocted mirage of what sex should be. Look how pathetic I am, and yet how horny! I’ll take my pleasure, and you should too.”

–Sasha Archibald (4Columns)

2. Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World by Dorian Lynskey
(Pantheon)

6 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed

“This is a book that would have lost none of its erudition or energy had it been 25 percent shorter. But Lynskey also happens to be a terrifically entertaining writer, with a requisite sense of gallows humor.”

–Jennifer Szalai (The New York Times)

3. The Secret History of the Rape Kit: A True Crime Story by Pagan Kennedy
(Knopf)

5 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed

“Kennedy follows Goddard’s trajectory, which is a fascinating story in and of itself, but she goes beyond the inventor as well. She writes about just how broken the system for reporting sexual assault remains, and how victims were and still are often undermined, deemed untrustworthy or incapable of making sound judgments … a relatively slender book, but it packs a punch. It’s an important investigation of a complex inventor, her flawed but revolutionary technology, and how it has never been allowed to live up to her hopes for it.”

–Ilana Masad (The Washington Post)

4. Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly
(Atria)

4 Rave • 5 Positive • 1 Mixed

“A provocative, insightful, disturbing, and well-researched indictment of Spotify, the music industry, and streaming platforms, which daily mine billions of data bits from users to maximize profits and churn out musical formulas. Highly recommended.”

–Dr. Dave Szatmary (Library Journal)

5. Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything (Essays on the Future That Never Was) by Colette Shade
(Day Street Books)

6 Rave • 1 Positive

“Shade’s approach oscillates between her personal experiences, narratives about contemporaneous brands and fads and figures, and her trenchant commentary, resulting in essays on subjects that range from the rise of the internet to globalization, climate change, fashion, Starbucks and hip-hop … Shade renders her personal struggles as well, which show admirable fortitude … Shade is a deft and dexterous writer, emotionally intelligent and authoritative. Y2K is her first book, but I hope, for literature’s future at least, that it won’t be her last.”

–Jonathan Russell Clark (The Washington Post)