I'm not sure why I read so many non-fiction books this year. In most years, I think my reading splits fairly evenly between fiction and non-fiction, though that is only a guess, and my memory plays tricks and favourites.
This year, for the first time in my reading life, I kept a list – as I've heard enviably organized people do – and I saw that it skewed rather heavily to non-fiction. Meanwhile, the novels and story collections I read were older, sometimes purchased in used bookstores presided over by cats, and the happiest discoveries had faded notes in the margins. Notes from readers past, which are also notes to readers future, and hopeful in the best sense – the words continue, even when it seems there's not enough light to read by.
In any case, I thought I'd share some of the non-fiction that touched or startled or enlightened me this year, in no particular order. (I should add that, in the name of fairness, I'm not including many fine titles written by friends, or people I'm currently married to.)
Seven Fallen Feathers, by Tanya Talaga. No book affected me more this year than Tanya Talaga's wrenching examination of the deaths of seven young Indigenous students in Thunder Bay. It's enraging as an indictment of institutionalized discrimination, and heartbreaking as a portrait of a group of young people who never got to discover their path in the world. Ms. Talaga writes, "The racism the students felt and experienced had an impact on everyone." Essential reading.
Women & Power: A Manifesto, by Mary Beard. "When it comes to silencing women, Western culture has had thousands of years of practice," the Cambridge University professor of classics writes in this brisk, pointed history of speech as male prerogative. A perfect book to finish a year when women's voices came together in a roar, and could not be ignored.
Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living, edited by Manjula Martin. For writers, money is second only to sex as a maddening preoccupation. Perhaps it even comes first. Who's getting more? Who's only getting by? Should I retrain as a chiropractor? At least people talk about sex; the topic of money, especially for artists, is largely verboten. That's why this collection, with its frank talk from writers including Cheryl Strayed and Roxane Gay, is so rich and refreshing.
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, by Samantha Irby. I feel that I owe everyone on public transit an apology in case I sprayed them with coffee from my nose as I read these essays. From its cover photo – an angry, wretched kitten – to its dedication – "this book is dedicated to Klonopin" – to its essays about anxiety, eating and love, this was a hilarious delight. I can't wait for Samantha Irby's next book.
The Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis. We are so much dumber than we think we are. Okay, that's a simple lesson to take away from a book about the complicated relationship between Israeli psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman and their ground-breaking research into decision-making. Michael Lewis's great gift is storytelling, and finding the fractured resonances between the two wise men and their somewhat dimmer subjects.
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder. Another short book that punched above its weight. As a treatise on the historical fragility of democracy, and how fascism can be averted, the Yale history professor's book probably deserves to be in every pocket. Some of its lessons ("beware of paramilitaries") are predictions that hopefully will not be realized, while others ("make eye contact and small talk") are preventive measures against division and hatred. Oh, and "post-truth is pre-fascism?" You might want to embroider that on a pillow.
Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present, by Robyn Maynard. There is a destructive myth at the heart of the Canadian experience, Robyn Maynard writes: "Canada, in the eyes of many of its citizens, as well as those living elsewhere, is imagined as a beacon of tolerance and diversity." In this densely researched, illuminating book, she shows just how far from the truth this is for black Canadians, who to this day feel the legacy of a violent history in state-controlled restrictions on their rights to education, liberty and work. This is history I never learned in school.
Arrival: The Story of CanLit, by Nick Mount. Speaking of alternative histories, did you know that Canadian literature was a pretty sexy youngster, fun-loving, wild and even a bit dangerous to be around? The country's writers, chain-smoking and bell-bottomed, shook off a parochial past faster than the country did, and documented it all in stories and novels and poetry. Nick Mount's highly entertaining survey of this period is a must-read for anyone who suffered through Grade 11 English feeling pretty sure that there were juicy stories out there the teacher just wasn't sharing.
The Princess Diarist, by Carrie Fisher. The world lost one of its brightest wits, one of its razor-eyed survivors, one of its most screamingly funny writers when Carrie Fisher died in the last week of 2016. Her last book was released late that year, and at first glance, it seems a slighter offering, not destined to live alongside Postcards from the Edge or Wishful Drinking. In essence, it's Ms. Fisher's diaries from the filming of Star Wars, bracketed by current-day reminiscences. Mainly, she obsesses about her on-set affair with Harrison Ford, who seemed to barely remember her name most of the time. As I read it, though, I found it would not leave my mind: It's so agonized and raw, a circular feverish whirl of insecurity that will be familiar to anyone who was ever a 19-year-old girl (never mind that most of us never had to wear giant hair danishes strapped to either side of our head). A book to be read by anyone who has ever been 19, or in love with the wrong person, or out of her depth, or pretty sure she's a fraud. In other words, all of us.