Our season preview from our Buzz Books 2021 Fall/Winter sampler continues with nonfiction. Because of the number of titles, we have divided the preview in half, today featuring fall and winter books about politics and current events, social issues, and business, science and technology. This season’s nonfiction features vital social justice works by the history-making activists Anita Hill and Tarana Burke. The Coronavirus, Donald Trump, and racism are also covered in many new titles.
Get the “trade edition” of Buzz Books 2021 Fall/Winter from Netgalley or Edelweiss, or find the consumer editions all linked at our main Buzz Books website. Titles excerpted in Buzz Books are noted with an asterisk. (Please remember: Because we prepared this preview many months in advance, titles, content, and publication dates are all subject to change.)
And don’t forget to register now for our much-anticipated virtual Buzz Books Editors Panel, convening in two days — on Wednesday, May 19 at 7 PM Eastern, co-presented by the American Booksellers Association.
Politics and Current Events
Gerard Baker, What Went Wrong: How America Conquered the World and then Defeated Itself (Twelve, 9/7)
Curtis Bunn, Michael H. Cottman, Patrice Gaines, Nick Charles, Keith Harriston, Say Their Names: How Black Lives Came to Matter in America (Grand Central, 10/5)
Ryan Busse, Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America (Public Affairs, 10/19)
Josh Chin, Liza Lin, Surveillance State: Inside China’s Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control (St. Martin’s, 9/28)
Andrew Cockburn, The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine (Verso, 9/21)
Ellis Cose, The Short Life and Curious Death of Free Speech in America (Amistad, 9/14)
Chris Cuomo, Deep Denial (Custom House, 10/26)
David M. Drucker, After Trump: Inside the Not-So-Civil War to Command the GOP (Twelve, 9/21)
Anthony Fauci, Expect the Unexpected: Anthony Fauci on Truth, Service, and the Way Forward (Nat Geo, 11/2) – By the leader of the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force.
Newt Gingrich, Beyond Biden: The Path Back to a Triumphant America (Center Street, 10/5)
Victor Davis Hanson, The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America (Basic, 10/5)
Fiona Hill, There Is Nothing for You Here: Opportunity in an Age of Decline (HMH, 10/5)
David Cay Johnston, The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family (S&S, 9/21)
Bruce Jones, To Rule the Waves: How Control of the World’s Oceans Determines the Fate of the Superpowers (Scribner, 9/14)
Colin Kahl, Thomas Wright, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order (St. Martin’s, 8/24)
Parag Khanna, Move: The Forces Uprooting Us (Scribner, 10/5)
Michael Levitin, Generation Occupy: Reawakening American Democracy (Counterpoint, 9/14)
Tim Mak, Misfire: Inside the Downfall of the NRA (Dutton, 11/2)
Tim Marshall, The Power of Geography: Ten Maps that Reveal the Future of Our World (Scribner, 12/7)
Ethan Michaeli, Twelve Tribes: Promise and Peril in the New Israel (Custom House, 11/16)
Casey Michel, American Kleptocracy: How the U.S. Created the World’s Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History (St. Martin’s, 11/16)
Mark Oppenheimer, Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood (Knopf, 10/5)
Rob Reich, Mehran Sahami, Jeremy M. Weinstein, System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot (Harper, 9/21)
Peter Robison, Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing (Doubleday, 11/16)
Alec Ross, The Raging 2020s: Companies, Countries, People—and the Fight for Our Future (Holt, 9/14)
Mike Rothschild, The Storm is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything (Melville, 9/21)
Jennifer Rubin, Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump (William Morrow, 9/21)
Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig, Untitled (Penguin Press, 1/18) – On Donald Trump’s final year
Eli Saslow, Voices from the Pandemic: Americans Tell Their Stories of Crisis, Courage and Resilience (Doubleday, 9/28)
Suzanne Schneider, The Apocalypse and the End of History: Modern Jihad and the Crisis of Liberalism (Verso, 9/7)
Saul Singer, Dan Senor, The Genius of Israel: What One Small Nation Can Teach the World (Avid Reader, 11/16)
William Sommer, Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Reshaped America (Harper, 11/9)
Eric Swalwell, Endgame: Inside the Impeachments of Donald J. Trump (Abrams, 9/14)
Adam Tooze, Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World’s Economy (Viking, 9/7)
John Vandemoer, Rigged Justice: How the College Admissions Scandal Ruined an Innocent Man’s Life (HarperOne, 9/28)
David Wessel, Only the Rich Can Play: How a Billionaire Sold Washington a Bonanza for the Wealthy as a Way to Help the Poor (Public Affairs, 10/5)
George F. Will, American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent, 2008-2020 (Hachette, 9/14)
Social Issues
Aja Barber, Consumed: On colonialism, climate change, consumerism & the need for collective change (Brazen, 9/14)
Sesali Bowen, Bad Fat Black Girl: Notes from a Trap Feminist (Amistad, 9/8)
Keith Boykin, Race Against Time: The Politics of a Darkening America (Bold Type, 9/14)
Tarana Burke, Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement (Flatiron/Oprah, 9/14)
Sheryll Cashin, White Space, Black Hood: Opportunity Hoarding and Segregation in the Age of Inequality (Beacon, 9/14)
Patrisse Cullors, An Abolitionist’s Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World (St. Martin’s, 10/5)
Jessie Daniels, Nice White Ladies: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our Role in It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It (Seal, 10/12)
Bobby Duffy, The Generation Myth: Why When You’re Born Matters Less Than You Think (Basic, 10/26)
Michael Eric Dyson, Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America (St. Martin’s, 11/2)
Andrea Elliott, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City (RH, 10/5)
Carl Erik Fisher, The Urge: Our History of Addiction (Penguin Press, 1/18)
Danielle Friedman, Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World (Putnam, 1/4)
Jonathan Gottschall, The Story Paradox: How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears them Down (Basic, 11/23)
Edward Glaeser, David Cutler, Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation (Penguin Press, 9/7)
Steven Hale, Death Row Welcomes You: Visiting Hours in the Shadow of the Execution Chamber (Melville, 1/11)
Keeda Haynes, Bending the Arc: My Journey from Prison to Politics (Seal, 11/16)
Chris Hedges, Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison (S&S, 10/19)
Kristin Henning, The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth (Pantheon, 9/28)
Anita Hill, Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence (Viking, 9/28)
Dara Horn, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present (Norton, 9/7)
Kenya Hunt, Girl Gurl Grrrl: On Womanhood and Belonging in the Age of Black Girl Magic (Amistad, 11/9)
Kimberly Jones, How We Can Win: Race, History and Changing the Money Game That’s Rigged (Holt, 11/16)
Solomon Jones, Ten Lives, Ten Demands: Life and Death Stories, and a Black Activist’s Blueprint for Racial Justice (Beacon, 11/2)
Randall Kennedy, Say It Loud!: On Race, Law, History, and Culture (Pantheon, 9/7)
George Makari, Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia (Norton, 9/14)
Tony Messenger, Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice (St. Martin’s, 12/7)
Jessica Nordell, The End of Bias: A Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias (Metropolitan, 9/21)
Lise Olsen, Code of Silence: Sexual Misconduct by Federal Judges, the Secret System That Protects Them, and the Women Who Blew the Whistle (Beacon, 10/12)
Evan Osnos, Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury (FSG, 9/14)
Jillian Peterson, James Densley, The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic (Abrams, 9/7)
Nigel Poor, Earlonne Woods, This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life (Crown, 10/12)
Derecka Purnell, Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom (Astra House, 10/5)
Sam Quinones, The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Age of Fentanyl and Meth (Bloomsbury, 10/12)
Emily Ratajkowski, My Body (Metropolitan, 10/19)
Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez, For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts: A Love Letter to Women of Color (Seal, 9/7)
Andrew Ross, Sunbelt Blues: The Failure of American Housing (Metropolitan, 10/12)
Saumya Roy, Castaway Mountain: Love and Loss Among the Wastepickers of Mumbai (Astra House, 9/7)
Kyla Schuller, The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism (Bold Type, 10/5)
Michael Shellenberger, San Fransicko: Why the Left Ruins Cities (Harper, 10/12)
Amia Srinivasan, The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century (FSG, 9/21)
Matthew Stewart, The 9.9 Percent: The New Aristocracy That Is Entrenching Inequality and Warping Our Culture (S&S, 10/12)
Abe Streep, Brothers on Three: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation in Montana (Celadon, 9/7)
Benjamin van Rooij, Adam Fine, The Behavioral Code: The Hidden Ways the Law Makes Us Better or Worse (Beacon, 10/19)
Jon Yates, Fractured: Why our societies are coming apart and how we put them back together again (HarperNorth, 9/7)
Business, Science & Technology
Marco Alverà, The Hydrogen Revolution: A Blueprint for the Future of Clean Energy (Basic, 11/16)
Robin George Andrews, Super Volcanoes: What They Reveal about Earth and the Worlds Beyond (Norton, 11/2)
David Attenborough, The Living Planet: A Portrait of the Earth (William Collins, 10/19)
Alice Bell, Our Biggest Experiment: An Epic History of the Climate Crisis (Counterpoint, 9/21)
David Bodanis, The Art of Fairness: The Power of Decency in a World Turned Mean (Abrams, 9/7)
Brendan Borrell, The First Shots (HMH, 10/26)
Holly Jean Buck, Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero is Not Enough (Verso, 10/19)
Max Chafkin, The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power (Penguin Press, 9/21)
Neil Dahlstrom, Tractor Wars: John Deere, Henry Ford, International Harvester, and the Birth of Modern Agriculture (Matt Holt, 1/11)
Philipp Dettmer, Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive (RH, 9/28)
John Doerr, Speed and Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now (Portfolio, 10/5)
Rob Dunn, A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us about the Destiny of the Human Species (Basic, 11/9)
Bartow J. Elmore, Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and Our Food Future (Norton, 10/12)
Brian Fagan, Nadia Durrani, Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors (Public Affairs, 9/21)
Priya Fielding-Singh, How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America (Little, Brown Spark, 10/5)
Martin Ford, Rule of the Robots: How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything (Basic, 9/14)
Porter Fox, The Last Winter: The Scientists, Adventurers, Journeymen, and Mavericks Trying to Save the World (Little, Brown, 11/2)
Jane Goodall, Doug Abrams, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times (Celadon, 10/19)
Dave Goulson, Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse (Harper, 9/28)
David Graeber, David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (FSG, 10/19)
Thor Hanson, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid: The Fraught and Fascinating Biology of Climate Change (Basic, 9/28)
Katharine Hayhoe, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World (Atria/One Signal, 9/21)
Chip Heath, Karla Starr, Making Numbers Count: How to Translate Data into Stories That Stick (Avid Reader, 9/7)
Josiah Hesse, Runner’s High: How a Movement of Cannabis-Fueled Athletes Is Changing the Science of Sports (Putnam, 9/14)
Jonathan E. Hillman, The Digital Silk Road: China’s Quest to Wire the World and Win the Future (Harper Business, 10/19)
Steven S. Hoffman, The Five Forces That Change Everything: How Technology is Shaping Our Future (Matt Holt, 8/10)
Phil Jones, Work Without the Worker: Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism (Verso, 10/5)
Henry A Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Daniel Huttenlocher, The Age of A.I.: And Our Human Future (Little, Brown, 9/14)
Jonathan A. Knee, The Platform Delusion: Who Wins and Who Loses in the Age of Tech Titans (Portfolio, 9/7)
Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Nearer (Viking, 11/2)
Howard Markel, The Secret of Life: Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick, and the Discovery of DNA’s Double Helix (Norton, 9/21)
Johnjoe McFadden, Life is Simple: How Ockham’s Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe (Basic, 9/28)
James Andrew Miller, Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers (Holt, 9/14)
Christopher Mims, Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door—Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy (Harper Business, 9/14)
Vanessa Nakate, A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis (HMH, 11/2)
Elsa Panciroli, Beasts Before Us: The Untold Story of Mammal Origins and Evolution (Bloomsbury Sigma, 9/7)
Jonathan Pelson, Wireless Wars: China’s Dangerous Domination of 5G and How We’re Fighting Back (BenBella, 9/28)
Steven Pinker, Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters (Viking, 9/28)
James Poskett, Horizons: The Global Origins of Modern Science (HMH, 11/9)
Cassandra Leah Quave, The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines (Viking, 10/12)*
Nichola Raihani, The Social Instinct: How Cooperation Shaped the World (St. Martin’s, 8/31)
Jonathan Reisman, The Unseen Body: A Doctor’s Journey Through the Hidden Wonders of Human Anatomy (Flatiron, 10/26)
Mary Roach, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law (Norton, 9/14)
Patrick Roberts, Jungle: How Tropical Forests Shaped the World—and Us (Basic, 9/14)
David Rose, SuperSight: What Augmented Reality Means for Our Lives, Our Work, and the Way We Imagine the Future (BenBella, 10/26)
Fred Scharmen, Space Forces: A Critical History of Life in Outer Space (Verso, 11/2)
Anil Seth, Being You: A New Science of Consciousness (Dutton, 10/12)
Beth Shapiro, Life as We Made It: How 50,000 Years of Human Innovation Refined—and Redefined—Nature (Basic, 10/19)
Robby Soave, Tech Panic: Why We Shouldn’t Fear Facebook and the Future (Threshold, 9/28)
Natalie Starkey, Fire and Ice: The Volcanoes of the Solar System (Bloomsbury Sigma, 9/28)
Jude Stewart, Revelations in Air: A Guidebook to Smell (Penguin, 10/26)
Nicole Stott, Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet—And Our Mission to Protect It (Seal, 10/12)
Roanne van Voorst, Once Upon a Time We Ate Animals: The Future of Food (HarperOne, 12/28)
Kinari Webb, Guardians of the Trees: A Journey of Hope Through Healing the Planet (Flatiron, 9/28)
Howard L. Weiner, The Brain Under Siege: Solving the Mystery of Brain Disease, and How Scientists are Following the Clues to a Cure (BenBella, 10/19)
Robin Wigglesworth, Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever (Portfolio, 10/12)
