June’s Best Reviewed Nonfiction

Thomas W. Laqueur’s The Dog’s Gaze, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’s The Book of Birds, and Carlos Barragán’s The Yahoo Boys 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 Dog’s Gaze: A Visual History by Thomas W. Laqueur
(Penguin Press)

7 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an excerpt from The Dog’s Gaze here

“A clever and beautiful survey of dogs in painting, with a brilliant interpretation of their role at its heart … Luminous … Laqueur takes us on a wonderfully illustrated tour of dogs in art … By the end of this clever, beautiful book, Laqueur has persuasively made his point that the dog’s function in western art is to provide an entry-point or alter ego for viewers who might otherwise feel overwhelmed or outclassed.”

–Kathryn Hughes (The Guardian)

2. The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris
(W.W. Norton & Company)

7 Rave • 1 Positive

“Another beautiful, eminently giftable, clarion call to pay attention to the wonders of the natural world … The Book of Birds is no mere catalog of endangered species … Full-throated prose poems flag distinguishing habitats, habits, and character traits that make the birds come alive in a way that more traditional field guides do not … I had never before read a field guide from cover to cover, but after marveling at the wonders in The Book of Birds, I can well understand the authors’ profound admiration for their subjects.”

–Heller McAlpin (The Christian Science Monitor)

3. The Traveler: One Man’s Quest for Humanity from the South Seas to Revolutionary Paris by Andrea Wulf
(Knopf)

7 Rave • 1 Mixed
Read an excerpt from The Traveler here

“George Forster is one of the most fascinating figures you have probably never heard of … Forster is the vibrant subject of Andrea Wulf’s The Traveler, a lively new book that hums with her characteristic verve … It is invigorating, especially now, to read him observing, thinking and enthusing on the page.”

–Jennifer Szalai (The New York Times)

4. Stolen Revolution: Betrayal and Hope in Modern Iran by Yeganeh Torbati and Bozorgmehr Sharafedin
(Doubleday)

6 Rave

“Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati’s powerful history of the Islamic republic is a badly needed corrective because it is at once an engrossing story and a balanced, meticulously researched primer on modern Iran (the clearest I’ve ever read). And it is dramatic, personal and often heartbreaking … Stolen Revolution is a careful and unwavering account of the regime’s absurdities and crimes. It should be required reading for anyone who cares about human rights or justice in the Middle East.”

–Dina Nayeri (The Guardian)

5. The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria’s Romance Scammers by Carlos Barragán
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

5 Rave • 1 Positive

“Barragán brings a surprising depth and empathy to The Yahoo Boys, to the tin roofs and traffic jams of Lagos, the SIM cards and Apple IDs that buttress this edifice of deceit. He’s gone rappelling into the bottomless pit that surrounds desire. The result is a compassionate, elegant, unsettling book about some extremely shabby people. At least they’re still people, though.”

–Dan Piepenbring (Harper’s)