Top Ten Nonfiction Books Read in 2024

Welcome to this week's list of books by category I read in 2024. Today I am looking at my top ten nonfiction books for 2024. I am a nonfiction reader, and I was fortunate to read some good nonfiction books last year. Here is the list below in no particular order and with links to the reviews, if available at this time, so you can check them out. The list does not feature any cartomancy or esoterica books. I did read some great ones, but I am writing a separate list for those books, so stay tuned.

Emily C. Hughes, Horror for Weenies. 

 A good book to help you learn more about the horror genre so you can hang out with your friends who enjoy horror. 

Ken Light, Delta Time: Mississippi Photographs

 A solid collection of black and white photographs focusing on the Mississippi Delta region exploring poverty, racism, rural living, religion, and resilience. 

Timothy Eastman, All the Past We Leave Behind. 

This is a beautiful and at times moving photography book documenting the lives of workampers. If you liked books like Nomadland, you might like this one too. 

Mike Caulfield and Samuel S. Wineburg, Verified: How to think straight, get duped less, and make better decisions about what to believe online.

As I wrote, in my review, "In these Hard Times where the internet and social media are full of scams, click bait, rage bait, and all sorts of assorted bullshit, this book gives you the tools to separate the crap from the few good things that remain. This guide can help you navigate the enshittified internet." 

Brian Keene, End of the Road. 

This is a book I saw mentioned on social media, Bluesky most likely, and I knew I had to read it right away. I am glad I did. If you are already a fan of Keene's fiction, you will likely enjoy this memoir and reflection on writing and publishing and more.

Austin Frerick, Barons.

Right after I read this book, I knew this account of 7 robber baron dynasties and the empires they created was going to be on this list. Robber barons love to portray themselves as self-made men, and they are mostly men, but read this book to learn what the truth is. 

Lenny Duncan, Psalms of My People. 

From my review: This book "offers an interesting and different way to look at the Black American experience of struggle and liberation through hip hop. I do recommend this one for all libraries."

 

 Colin Kaepernick, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, eds. Our History Has Always Been Contraband: in Defense of Black Studies. 

From my review: "This is book is essential reading not just for Black History Month but at any time. Black history is everyone's history, and this book makes it accessible for anyone to read it and start learning." 

Mitzi Szereto, Women Who Murder. 

From my review: "Very often in crime, folks tend to dismiss women or don't think the 'gentler sex' is not capable of deeds like extreme violence and murder. The editor shows in 14 tales that when it comes to crime females are not the 'gentler sex. '" 

Margaret Kaplan, Words to Win By

 From my review: "The book looks at campaign materials as a way to learn about American politics and society." This is one I recommend for all libraries.

If you read this far, thank you for stopping by. Coming up, I will be posting my top list of graphic novels, comics, and manga for 2024, and after that my list of cartomancy and esoterica books read for 2024. Meanwhile, have you read any good nonfiction? Feel free to share in the comments if you wish. 

Happy reading.

 

Book Review: Words To Win By

Margaret Kaplan, Words to Win By: the Slogans, Logos, and Designs of America's Presidential Elections. New York: Apollo Publishers, 2020.  ISBN: 9781948062640.

Genre: U.S. history and politics

Subgenre: reference, elections, pop culture

Format: paperback

Source: Hutchins Library, Berea College 

This is a compact reference book that looks at presidential election slogans, logos, signage, and other artifacts. The volume starts with the election of 1900 and takes us up to Trump's 2016 election. We get a glimpse of 2020, but at the time of publication the 2020 election had not been decided. The book looks at campaign materials as a way to learn about American politics and society. 

The book includes a preface to introduce the book. As stated in the preface, something every candidate has in common is their need to persuade the people to their cause. In the book we see the campaigns that worked as well as the ones that did not. 

For every election entry you get:

• Overview of the winning campaign, including names, party, electoral vote tally, popular vote percentages, and a sampling of slogans. 
• Text summarizing the campaigns in terms of their rhetoric, slogans, and art. 
• Images with samples of art and artifacts like photos, buttons, ribbons, posters, etc. 
• Same for the losing campaign. 
• Also included are any notable 3rd party candidates.
   

You can read this book cover to cover, and you get a pretty good overview of electoral presidential history in the United States.  You can see the slogans and images they used. Sometimes they stuck to traditions. Other times they went against tradition and tried something new. Reading through allows readers to see how campaigns have evolved from print to radio to television to the internet. We also get to see that certain slogans are not original, and they often get recycled. For example, Trump is not the first candidate to use "Make America Great Again." That one goes back to Reagan, and even then variants on American greatness and/or returning to it have been used before. 

You could also use the book as a reference book. If you need to find campaign details of presidential elections, such as who was say "America First" way before Trump, you can find it here. By the way, that was one of Woodrow Wilson's slogans in 1916. 

This is a pretty easy book to read. You can read a bit here or there. An issue for me was the size of some images were some text and/or details that were not easy to see. Still this is a cool book to look through just for the images. Book also includes some reference notes at the end. 

Overall I really liked this one. If you are a history reader, a political junkie, or a trivia enthusiast, you will likely enjoy this book. I recommend it for both public and academic libraries in terms of politics, history, and/or pop culture. For libraries doing book displays about elections, this is a good one to include on displays. 

4 out of 5 stars. 

 Qualifies for the following 2024 Reading Challenge: