Social justice book reviews
Fall is my favorite time of year. As I write this I’m bundled up in a sweatshirt, listening to the rain outside, while my house smells like apples. It’s a bittersweet time as I say goodbye to the scary fun of Halloween, but I’m reassured because November has something just for itself: Nonfiction November! For me, Christmas is only welcome once I’ve done my annual nonfiction roundup.
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Few things in life are certain. Our world is unpredictable and chaotic. But as surely as sweater weather rhymes, Nonfiction November alliterates. And in the book blogging sphere, seasonal alliterations almost always mean a reading challenge is here. That’s right: Nonfiction November 2025 is right around the corner! And thanks to never-ending calendrical peculiarities, this year’s event begins earlier than ever. My co-hosts and I will be sharing prompts for you to give your nonfiction TBR some much-deserved attention from October 27 to November 30.
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It must have been the third or fourth rave review of Vijay Prashad’s work that pushed Washington Bullets to the top of my TBR. Specifically, a fellow reviewer had called Washington Bullets a “critical (yet still accessible) intro” to US imperialism. I had already been primed on the topic by works like Inventing Reality and Manufacturing Consent as well as myriad YouTube channels and podcasts, but the story of US imperialism is so winding and chasmic that it seems no amount of sources could cover it all.
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The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex caught my eye from the moment I saw it. I’ll admit that I was nervous to see what the essays edited by INCITE! Women of Color would say about the industry I had chosen. What I found were incredibly validating tales and analysis of the nonprofit industrial complex (NPIC). Was nonprofit work really a means of achieving liberation? Or does it just keep activists too busy to notice their own exploitation and deradicalization?
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After spending an afternoon last week protesting Donald Trump’s second inauguration in a wind chill of zero degrees Fahrenheit, I find myself thinking back to Pride last summer.
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I can’t believe I am already hosting my third Nonfiction November! This week, I want to know what books really opened your mind this year. Here’s the prompt!
Read moreOne of the greatest things about reading nonfiction is the way it can open your eyes to the world around you—no plane ticket required. What nonfiction book or books have impacted the way you see the world in a powerful way? Is there one book that made you rethink everything? Is there a book that, if everyone read it, you think the world would be a better place?
This week in Nonfiction November, we are pairing books together! Here’s the prompt from Liz:
Read moreThis week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title (or whatever you want to pair up). Maybe it’s a historical novel and the real history in a nonfiction version, or a memoir and a novel, or a fiction book you’ve read and you would like recommendations for background reading. Or (because I’m doing this myself) two books on two different areas have chimed and have a link. You can be as creative as you like! (Liz)
Week 2’s prompt for Nonfiction November, Choosing Nonfiction, is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. Our host, Frances of Volatile Rune, asks us:
Read moreWhat are you looking for when you pick up a nonfiction book? Do you have a particular topic you’re attracted to? Do you have a particular writing style that works best? When you look at a nonfiction book, does the title or cover influence you? If so, share a title or cover which you find striking.
I truly cannot believe that it is (almost) November once again! It doesn’t feel real that Nonfiction November 2024 has already come around, but I’ll never pass up an opportunity to tell you about my favorite books.
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In Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives, American journalist Siddharth Kara takes us into the Congo’s child-filled mines between 2018 and 2021—at least, as far as the Congo’s military will allow him. Kara encounters numerous obstacles in accessing mines to document and miners to interview. Government and mining company officials do not even try to hide the fact that journalists are not welcome there. If word were to get out—if someone were to, say, write a book about the conditions in the Congo’s mines—increased attention on the mines’ deadly conditions could jeopardize the capitalists’ monopoly on all the region’s resources and on its inhabitants’ lives.
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