\n<\/p>\n
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.<\/p>\n
Nonfiction books sometimes get a reputation for being hard to slog through. But the qualities that make good novels so enjoyable\u2014the well-paced plot, the engaging characters\u2014can also be found in many of their fact-based counterparts. The Atlantic\u2019s writers and editors answer the question: What is a nonfiction book that reads like fiction?<\/p>\n
Priestdaddy, by Patricia Lockwood<\/p>\n
This memoir is a trip. A broke 30-something poet, Lockwood returns to Kansas City with her husband to live in her parents\u2019 rectory (her father, a former Lutheran minister, sought permission from the Vatican to keep his wife and kids when he converted to Catholicism). He\u2019s the sort of priest who plays frenzied electric guitar, eats homemade pickles by the handful, and cleans his guns in front of people he doesn\u2019t like. \u201cThere\u2019s no in-between with him, is there,\u201d Lockwood\u2019s husband observes. \u201cHe\u2019s either buck nude or he\u2019s in a little outfit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lockwood\u2019s life, and lens, is so absurd that it\u2019s hard to believe any of it is real. As she reflects on a childhood spent attending pro-life protests and parishes across the Midwest, the sorts of sly, surreal observations that made her Twitter-famous are streaked with darker ones about organized religion, class, and gender. In our very-online world, where people sound more and more like one another, it\u2019s refreshing to read someone who sounds only like herself.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Stef Hayes, senior associate editor<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
One of Us, by \u00c5sne Seierstad<\/p>\n
I wouldn\u2019t say that One of Us is easy to read. Any account of the day\u2014July 22, 2011\u2014that the neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people, many of whom were teenagers, is bound to be horrifying and heartbreaking. And Seierstad\u2019s book is both of those things. She unpacks Breivik\u2019s troubled childhood and youthful obsessions. She traces his descent into extremism, how he holed up on a farm north of Oslo to write his manifesto and prepare for his attack in downtown Oslo and at an island summer camp close by. But what\u2019s remarkable to me is how Seierstad weaves that grim tale with deeply moving narratives of the teenagers and their families, giving their stories the care and the space they deserve. It\u2019s a book about a nightmare\u2014the approximately 70-page description of the massacre itself is unflinching and difficult to shake\u2014and the moments of extraordinary empathy and resilience that the atrocity revealed.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Tom Bartlett, staff writer<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe<\/p>\n
I first read Keefe\u2019s Say Nothing in the depths of COVID lockdown. Although it had come out two years prior, it was the sort of book that gained more and more traction with time. Each of its readers seemed to become an evangelist for the story\u2014I had heard that it was one of the best works of nonfiction at least a dozen times before I picked it up. It can sometimes be difficult for a book to live up to its growing mythology, but Say Nothing is no such book.<\/p>\n
Keefe is a master of his craft. He takes a story about one woman\u2019s murder during the Troubles, in Northern Ireland\u2014which spanned about 30 years, from the 1960s to the \u201990s\u2014and transforms it into a propulsive murder mystery, historical account, and series of riveting character studies. I felt deeply invested in the people, as well as in the sociopolitical and historical landscape, of a country I\u2019ve never set foot in. And the thing is, Keefe has done this in every book he\u2019s written. There is no one quite like him in his ability to take something from the archive, or from a legal cabinet, and transform it into something that reads like your favorite novel.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Clint Smith, staff writer<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs, by Kerry Howley<\/p>\n
This eminently readable book, which gets its title from a viral video of a woman ascribing satanic intent to a can of Monster Energy, expands on Howley\u2019s 2017 New York profile of the NSA whistleblower Reality Winner. But it is less a straightforward narrative than a historical and critical patchwork: a look at how the internet\u2019s ceaseless agglomeration of data has come to shape how we understand the world. As Howley demonstrates, there\u2019s more than enough information out there for everyone to come to their own conclusions about everything\u2014hence, satanic energy drinks. The kicker is that Bottoms Up was released just a few months after the advent of ChatGPT, the aftershocks of which have only served Howley\u2019s thesis.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Will Gottsegen, staff writer<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Eat the Buddha, by Barbara Demick<\/p>\n
When Gonpo, the daughter of the last Mei king of Tibet, was just under 10 years old, Chinese Communists commandeered her family\u2019s palace, arrested her father, and exiled her family. Even though she ended up in Beijing, learned Chinese, and eventually integrated herself into Chinese society, she was sent to a labor compound in Xinjiang, her lineage being enough to mark her as an enemy of the Communists. She is one of the most engrossing and sympathetic characters in Demick\u2019s Eat the Buddha, a chronicle of Tibetan defiance and Chinese repression.<\/p>\n
Much of Demick\u2019s story centers on Ngaba, a county in Sichuan province, which she calls the \u201cundisputed world capital of self-immolations.\u201d She focuses on the history behind this form of Tibetan protest against Chinese rule, masterfully charting the arc of Tibet\u2019s story over 90-odd years by illustrating the motivations and idiosyncrasies of colorful characters: a teacher who passes around an illegal copy of the Dalai Lama\u2019s autobiography, a Tibetan girl who loves Chinese war movies. It is through their intimate recollections and everyday lives that Demick tells the story of a community, an embattled region, and, indeed, Tibetan resistance at large.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Maya Chung, senior associate editor<\/p>\n
Here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic:<\/strong><\/p>\n The Week Ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n Essay<\/strong><\/p>\n Illustration by Jan Buchczik<\/p>\n Six Ways to Start Early and Lift Your Mood<\/p>\n By Arthur C. Brooks<\/p>\n This column generally focuses on how to become happier. But over the years, I\u2019ve found that the questions I most often get from readers are less about getting happier and more about becoming less unhappy. People inquire about how to resolve relationship disputes, quit a job they hate, or deal with anxiety and sadness. Getting happier or less unhappy might strike you as equivalent efforts, but they aren\u2019t. Indeed, neuroscientists have found evidence that certain positive and negative emotions are produced in different regions of the brain. This makes sense when we understand that emotions exist to alert us to opportunities and threats, and parts of the limbic system specialize in producing each type of notification \u2026<\/p>\n So my personal well-being challenge is to manage strong negative affect in the morning. I do this with the help of a six-part daily protocol, based on the neuroscience and behavioral-science research that is my trade. If you, like me, struggle to feel human in the morning, this protocol can probably help you.<\/p>\n Read the full article.<\/p>\n More in Culture<\/p>\n Catch Up on The Atlantic<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Photo Album<\/p>\n A nurse prepares children for a polio-vaccine shot, as part of a citywide test of the vaccine on elementary-school students in Pittsburgh. (Bettmann \/ Getty)<\/p>\n In 1955, the polio vaccine became widely available. Here are images from a world-changing public-health campaign.<\/p>\n Rafaela Jinich contributed to this newsletter.<\/p>\n Play our daily crossword.<\/em><\/p>\n Explore all of our newsletters.<\/em><\/p>\n When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting <\/em>The Atlantic.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Nonfiction books sometimes get a reputation for being hard to slog through. But the qualities that make good novels<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[1001,2945,2476,2563],"class_list":{"0":"post-21344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-fiction","10":"tag-nonfiction","11":"tag-read"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n