Readings 2021 - Nonfiction

I read some really wonderful nonfiction books this year although half as many as last year.

I only read one biography this year which is very unusual for me although it was of a very significant historical figure... Osama bin Laden.

Several of the novels I read this year were of the black American experience and I also read Isabel Wilkerson's which told the stories of black migrants from the South which had a very strong impact on me. The collection of essays on ACLU cases also contained many important experiences of black Americans over the years. I really loved it so much that I bought the book after reading a few sections of the library copy.

There was also more to read about the pandemic and the recent traitor in the white house but both felt like they were really just the first chapter of a long eventful story with so much more to learn.

I read a lot of books on American history that focused on the many aspects and events that have been hidden or mythized over the years including books about the CIA, the Secret Service, the influence of corporate intrigue on foreign policy and the false history of the Alamo. Forget the Alamo was a real eye opener. I knew a lot about the myth of that so called historical event but this book tied it all together and really destroyed all those false images of my childhood.

• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration - Isabel Wilkerson, 2010
• Forget the Alamo: The True Story of the Myth That Made Texas - Bryan Burrough, 2021
• If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future - Jill Lepore, 2020
• Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases - Michael Charbon, et el, 2020
• The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies and the Dawn of the Cold War - Scott Anderson, 2021
• The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid - Lawrence Wright, 2021
• Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service - Carol Leonnig, 2021
• Rock Me on the Water: 1974 - The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television and Politics - Ronald Brownstein , 2021
• The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden: The Biography - Peter Bergen, 2021
• Songs of America: Patriotism, Protest and the Music that Made a Nation - Jon Meacham, 2019
• Peril - Bob Woodward & Robert Costa, 2021
• Below the Edge of Darkness: A Memoir of Exploring Light and Life in the Deep Sea - Edith Widder, 2021