I’m a fiction guy, through and through, so it’s rare when I pick up nonfiction selections. I work in an industry where a lot of my peers are constantly reading self-help and business publications to make themselves better employees and leaders, but it’s never something I’ve been able to do with much success. I get bored! Most times when I try it, I always think I’m ready to learn something valuable and then realize about 100 pages in that the book could have been an article. (Note: this is when I tell my peers that reading fiction builds your empathy, prepares you to meet the moments, and can be just as educationally valuable as nonfiction, but I am often met with blank stares and huffy explanations.)
When I do pick up nonfiction, I need it to be a subject I’m interested in (duh) that doesn’t hew too close to my professional life (except if it’s gay stuff,) it needs to read like fiction a bit, and I prefer it to move me more emotionally than impress me technically. The selections below did all of the above!
I finished these while I was on vacation in Italy last week (BRAG) on planes, trains, and automobiles, or buses, really. I also got a finish some of my favorite fiction of the year, but you’ll have to wait for the next episode for that. In the meantime, enjoy my newsletter’s best version of a reality show.
THE LIBRARY IS OPEN
Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears
by Michael Schulman (2023)
I love the Oscars. I’ve loved them since I was an outraged elementary school kid who couldn’t believe that E.T. not only didn’t win Best Picture, but also that I wasn’t allowed to stay up and witness it happening. I was the kind of obnoxious college student who’d go see movies myself in the Egyptian revival style art house theater down the street (RIP Bala Theater!) just so I could tell people things like Helena Bonham Carter was robbed of an Oscar for The Wings of the Dove. (And she was!) Sure, I’d say to friends, Titanic was great, if a little obvious, but have you seen L.A. Confidential? A book like Oscar Wars was clearly Zachnip, and I had my eye on it as a most anticipated read of my year.
I wasn’t disappointed, though this book is big. Very big. It’s somehow extremely comprehensive while also being selective about what aspects of Academy Award history the author covers. Rather than acting as a general history of the Oscars, the author picks 11 or so topics or years, and focuses deeply on those as emblematic moments on the Oscar journey. Favorites of mine included: an exploration of the Miramax era of terror, that wild Best Actress race in the year of All About Eve, and how DEI initiatives were affecting the Academy at the very same time they read the wrong envelope when (spoiler) Moonlight won Best Picture.
The chapters are long and chock full of juicy gossip. I actually started this book in the spring and treated myself to a chapter between other novels as something of a pop culture palate cleanser. However you read it, you’ll enjoy this gold mine of cultural inflection points and awards nerd trivia. If you are the type of person who thinks that an Oscar book would at all appeal to you, then you will love this book.
Read it if you like: trivia, the You Must Remember This podcast, Hollywood legends, exhaustive detail, having opinions about that year when Shakespeare in Love beat Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture
Stay True
by Hua Hsu (2022)
I arrived at college as a gaunt, small town nerd with a slightly conservative world view and a lack of desire to rock the boat too much in any way. Obviously, everything changed, as it does when you’re introduced to people different from you who push you outside the limits of who you think you are. I always think of a friend of mine who came from some money, was extremely into drugs, and followed Phish around the country. We had very little in common when we met my freshman year, but we ended up becoming close and often driving around endlessly at night (in his expensive SUV) just talking and connecting. Our friends had no idea what we could possibly possibly saw in one another, but we made each other grow. I also think of my college girlfriend - larger than life and worldly and wise beyond her years - who I credit with teaching me more than any professor in college ever did. She opened my mind and life to so much, so many things I never dared to think about. These people we meet in our most formative years present such an outsize influence in our lives. I’m who I am now because of them.
In Hua Hsu’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Stay True, he examines one of his college friendships and how vulnerably opening up to someone he never expected to grace his days affected the trajectory of his life. His friend, Ken, represented everything he thought he was in opposition to, much like my Phish friend was to me. The two of them grow together and inform their college experiences in intimate and profound ways. The book is an exploration of self, Asian identity, and unfortunately, grief, as the friendship is cut short by a tragic series of events that I won’t give away here. The book is emotionally devastating, but in a subtle way that never feels overly sentimental. It’s set at around the same time that I was in high school/college, so the references really hit hard. But you don’t need to be the same age as the author to understand why this special book just won the Pulitzer. I tore through it and hugged it to my chest when I was done.
My Phish friend lives in Bangkok now, and we still keep in touch, checking in on each other from time to time. My college girlfriend and I were in close touch until last year when she passed away, far too early, from complications with metastatic breast cancer. I was devastated. I think about her often. It felt like an entire piece my institutional history had disappeared. This book spoke to me about how grief is sometimes the price we pay to allow people into our lives - for even a limited time - to make us into who we’re supposed to be.
Read it if you like: immigrant stories, coming of age, straight men being vulnerable about feelings, friendship, true crime that doesn’t exploit, the 90s
The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
by Ari Shapiro (2023)
It is very unfortunate for me specifically that some people lead the charmed life you think you should be living, and to make it even worse, they’re so lovely it’s hard to be jealous of them. That’s how it felt reading Ari Shapiro’s memoir in essays. You see, Ari’s been busy doing a lot of interesting and jealousy-inducing things for a while. To wit: he’s interviewing presidents and other world leaders, he’s joined the radical faeries, he performs in a touring musical group when he’s not performing his cabaret show with Alan Cumming, and he’s writing lovely essays on the many folks he’s interacted with as an NPR reporter - everyone from refugees to authors to refugee authors. Of course, he merely stumbled into reporting. According to the book, he stumbled into a lot of things! He is also handsome, which also feels especially unfair.
Some of the standout essays include the ones when he’s mining his own life for material. He was the first kid to come out in his Oregon high school amidst a proto-Don’t Say Gay referendum some leaders in the state were trying to pass. He was one of the first folks in the country to receive - and then lose - a license for a same-sex marriage. His essays as a foreign correspondent are moving, and an essay about how he learns the most from authors and other artists is particularly impressive. More than anything, I was struck by how often he talked about how his identity as an out gay man affected the way he reported and how it informed his empathy as a communicator. All things considered, ahem, he’s a wonderful guide on his lifelong journey as a listener.
Read it if you like: gay essayists, National Public Radio, politics behind the scenes, other people’s stories, the one degree between Barack Obama and Alan Cumming
LIGHTNING ROUND - a little more nonfiction
Perhaps you’re in the mood for a formally inventive look at queer relationships, abuse, and a wild surprise ending.
Maybe you’re wondering where every Gen X-Millennial border resident cut their teeth on pop culture criticism.
If you’re missing Serena Williams like I am, check out the poetic essay on her in this masterful meditation on race.
Until next time…happy reading!