Non-Fiction That Will Change Your Perspective
There are good books and there are books that can change your perspective of the world. It is often hard to know which are which without reading them, unless you have recommendations like this list. I had the good fortune to read 63 books in 2023 and some non-fiction books are so good, they deserve to be shared and celebrated. These were the books that even months after reading, I could not stop thinking about. In no particular order, here are my top recommendations.
1: The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (2016)
One of the few books that have changed the way I thought about the world. On its surface level, this book is about the supply chain of the matsutake farming; the environmental conditions that lead to its germination, the cultural dynamics of the various groups of harvesters, the capitalist traders, and the Japanese consumers. Digging deeper, every aspect of the supply chain is used to describe a worldview based around assemblages. As the blurb on the back says, “The Mushroom at the End of the World delves into the relationship between capitalist destruction and collaborative survival within multispecies landscapes.”
Reading this book, I am in awe about the possibilities of what it suggests. For example, imagine how we would do politics differently, and what new vibrance there will be to life when we explore all the possible modes of human existence. What ways of being exist out there which we have ignored because they didn’t fit our conception of modernization and progress?
One of my favourite lines: “Instead, agnostic about where we are going, we might look for what has been ignored because it never fit the timeline of progress. (21)”
Beautifully unique and impactful, this book was also the winner of the 2016 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing.
2: A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Solnit (2009)
A Paradise Built in Hell counters the institutional narrative that when a crisis erupts, people will descend into anarchy as the veneer of respectability and decency is rubbed off, and that it is essential for the government to provide order, even to the point of martial law, to protect citizens from themselves.
Paradise, as far as I understand Solnit, is one in which institutional rules and the status quo is ruptured from individual experiences on the ground. “If paradise now arises in hell, it’s because in the suspension of the usual order and the failure of most systems, we are free to live and act another way. (7)” We become free to imagine another way in which society can be structured. This is a book that not only counters narratives, but also creates a new way of looking at the world and how societies come together and form.
I decided to read this book because so many other books I read in the last two years referenced this book, which is incredibly high praise between writers.
3: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell (2019)
Reading Jenny Odell is like picking up a self-help book and realizing that is it a deeply philosophical book that makes you re-evaluate your base premises for living. I picked this book up by chance, and it was probably the luckiest thing to happen to me all year. It is a book about finding quietness outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency and techno-determinism. I really enjoyed how Odell would link concepts to various philosophic and historical traditions, which turned this book from a series of reflections into something more grounded.
4: What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo (2022)
Although this is a fantastic and moving book about overcoming complex trauma (C-PTSD), this book has the strongest content warning I have ever given for a book recommendation. The descriptions of abuse made me put down the book multiple times and just stare into the distance. It was emotionally hard hitting.
But, if you can get past the pain, this book provides the many steps of a long journey towards recovery, overcoming internalized trauma, and living a better life. I love this book not only for the clear and distinct writing style, but because this book explores the good with the bad, the simple with the complex. The ending, while not rosy and perfectly happy, was filled with growth. For those who have experienced personal trauma, this book can help provide a way forward through Foo’s experiences.
5: Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer (2023)
An interesting, reflective book, though, as a warning, it does deal with difficult topics such as sexual assault, among many other terrible things.
The book asks the important question, what do you do with monstrous artists (such as Polanski, Picasso, Allen) when you also love their work?
This collection of essays also goes in a few interesting directions, such as, what does the term “genius” mean in society and what is an “art monster” (An art monster is someone who focus on their own art at the expense of the people around them) and how it is applied differently between men and women.
I always love books where you can see the writer themselves wrestle with meaningful questions, and every line feels like a struggle in self-reflection. You can tell that this was an issue Dederer personally grappled with and was trying to find closure on, and she does so with careful nuance. I think this is one of the more difficult questions of our time, so I am happy to see someone deal with it seriously.
One of my favourite lines: “Consuming a piece of art is two biographies meeting: the biography of the artist that might disrupt the viewing of the art; the biography of the audience member that might shape the viewing of the art. This occurs in every case. (80)”
