Nonfiction/Health/Lifestyle
365 Connecting Questions for Couples by Casey and Meygan Caston This author couple, founders of Marriage365 (a marriage-solutions company, offering relationship courses, coaching and such), have updated their previous book listing a year’s worth of open-ended questions designed to get couples talking and creating deeper bonds. Some questions are likely to stir the pot a bit (“How many times have you been in love? Tell me about it”), others are just kind of fun, like, “If a movie were being made about us, who would play you and me?” (Dec. 3)
Rise. Recover. Thrive. How I Got Strong, Got Sober, and Built a Movement of Hope by Scott Strode Strode, in his early 50s, describes his descent into addiction (beginning with his first beer at age 11), road to recovery, and founding of The Phoenix sober community with more than 500,000 members and an emphasis on staying physically and socially active. Referring to this as a “memoir with a mission,” he lays out a roadmap for others who’ve struggled with addiction, noting, “People dealing with addiction are not a problem to be solved. They are full of potential waiting to be drawn out.” (Jan. 7)
Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman by Brooke Shields In her wonderfully titled latest, Shields, 59, writes about how she’s embracing what she’s gained through the years (confidence, for one), and dispelling myths about “women of a certain age.” It’s part memoir, part cultural commentary. (Jan. 14)
And the long-neglected subject of menopause is suddenly the subject of a slew of books, as acknowledged in Menopause Is Hot: Everything You Need to Know to Thrive by journalists Mariella Frostrup and Alice Smellie (Jan. 21). The intro was written by actress Naomi Watts, 55 — who has her own book on the topic coming out on the same day: Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I’d Known About Menopause, which she discussed with AARP Members Edition.
Photo Collage: AARP; (Source: Tiny Reparations Books; Rick Steves; Celadon Books; Getty Images)
More Nonfiction
Fearless and Free by Josephine BakerThe St. Louis-born dancer-actress-singer Josephine Baker’s 1949 memoir, now publishing in English, recounts her youth in St. Louis, move to Paris, Jazz Age stardom and spying for the French Resistance. (Feb. 4)
On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer by Rick StevesThe travel guru with an empire that includes loads of bestselling guide books and a small-group tour company was once a scruffy young man with a thirst for adventure, no money and no clue what he was doing when he set off in 1978 with a friend to complete the legendary Hippie Trail, a trek through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. This is his journal from that heady, rough trip — full of mishaps and excitement. It’s quite the journey, but rather than read his day-by-day recaps, I might have been more interested to learn about the years that followed, when he managed to transition from that 23-year-old wanderer to the 69-year-old master traveler he is today. (Feb. 4)
Cleavage: Men, Women, and the Space Between Us by Jenny Finney Boylan Boylan, 66, lived 40 years as a man and the last 20 as a woman; this is her story, including how her everyday life was transformed with her gender (she’s still married to the same woman she married some 35 years ago), including how people have reacted to her as attitudes toward transgender people have shifted. It follows her 2003 memoir She’s Not There, released a few years after she came out as transgender. Boylan is also the coauthor with Jodi Picoult of last year’s bestselling novel Mad Honey. (Feb. 4)
Source Code: My Beginnings by Bill Gates Gates, 69, tells his remarkable origin story, from childhood through the beginnings of Microsoft, which he cofounded with Paul Allen back in 1975 at age 19, when he was still too young to rent a car. He paints a vivid self-portrait of a difficult (for his parents) little boy then an awkward, clearly brilliant teen whose biggest joy was solving problems. His early life parallels and intersects with the story of the personal computer, whose rise was shaped by Gates and his pals’ radical idea: that the magic of computing was in the software, not the hardware. Two more volumes will follow in the coming years. (Feb. 4)
Also of note:
Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry: The author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of America, a National Book Award winner, explores the color blue in African history. (Jan. 28)
Harriet Tubman: Military Scout and Tenacious Visionary: From Her Roots in Ghana to Her Legacy on the Eastern Shore by Jean Marie Wiesen and Rita Daniels: The authors dove deep into the historical record to flesh out the life and contributions of the legendary Tubman, who escaped slavery and helped rescue enslaved people as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. (Feb 4)
Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance & Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s by Charles Piller: Journalist Piller reports on corruption within the scientific and pharmaceutical communities, including, he argues, falsified research results in the search for Alzheimer’s treatments. (Feb. 4)
Legends and Soles by Sonny Vaccaro: Vaccaro, 85, details his role in the legendary signing of Michael Jordan for Nike. (Feb. 25)