September’s Best Reviewed Nonfiction
Featuring the Weimar Republic, the Brooklyn Rave Scene, Connie Chung’s Memoir, and More
Harald Jähner’s Vertigo: The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany, Emily Witt’s Health and Safety: A Breakdown, and Connie Chung’s Connie: A Memoir 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. Vertigo: The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany by Harald Jähner
(Basic Books)
6 Rave • 1 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an excerpt from Vertigo here
“Jähner’s pages are stained with the blood of abortive coups, uprisings and assassinations … Jähner is wonderful on the details of everyday life, from houses and offices to cars, typewriters, dresses and dances … His political coverage is relatively fleeting, probably because German readers are already so familiar with it. And like so many writers he tends to focus on eye-catching extremes … But his book contains so many pleasures.”
–Dominic Sandbrook (The Sunday Times)
2. Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue by Sonia Purnell
(Viking)
3 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an excerpt from Kingmaker here
“Rigorous but rollicking … Purnell seeks nobly to highlight Harriman’s involvement in public as well as private affairs … The majority of biographies lose steam as the subject ages; Kingmaker gets a strong second wind with Harriman’s early talent spotting of Bill Clinton … If Purnell’s prose sometimes lapses into breathlessness, who can blame her? Like her beloved horses, Harriman went through her days at full gallop, and it would be hard for even the most devoted stable mistress to keep up.”
–Alexandra Jacobs (The New York Times)
=3. Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses by M. G. Sheftall
(Dutton)
4 Rave • 1 Positive
“”[Sheftall] proves that first-person accounts are the most powerful tool to educate and reeducate the world about what happened … Sheftall’s voice is respectful, his perspective balanced, his access to a network of people willing to share their lives with him very deep … Sheftall does not spare readers from this human-made inferno. His chapters are short, the prose is tight, and the memories are in Technicolor … For those who want to understand what happened underneath the mushroom cloud—and shouldn’t we all?—Sheftall’s sweeping, sensitive and deeply researched book is required reading for our human hearts.”
–Karin Tanabe (The Washington Post)
=3. Health and Safety: A Breakdown by Emily Witt
(Pantheon)
4 Rave • 1 Positive
“Haunting … Witt…writes with such cool precision that it’s hard to imagine her fully losing herself in sentimental projects, even with chemical assistance … As important as Andrew was for her, exactly what it was that made him such an enthralling presence is never quite conveyed … It’s a testament to Witt’s skills as a writer that this book is enhanced, and not diminished, by her refusal to reconcile such contradictions.”
–Jennifer Szalai (The New York Times)
5. Connie: A Memoir by Connie Chung
(Grand Central Publishing)
2 Rave • 4 Positive
“Chung’s writing about her upbringing and family life are fascinating, but those coming to this memoir more for some media gossip won’t be disappointed … Chung’s memoir, often enchanting and enlightening, serves as a historical account of broadcast news during its most powerful, competitive and sometimes most absurd era.”
–Karen Heller (The Washington Post)
