10 New Nonfiction Book Releases For May 2024

On February 17, 2022, Brittney Griner was detained in Russia for mistakenly carrying hash oil that had been medically prescribed. For the first time, Griner shares what it was like experiencing the Russian legal system and eventually being sent to a Russian penal colony. Days after her arrest, Russia invaded Ukraine, making Griner’s legal battle even more complicated. Griner describes how thoughts of her family, especially her wife Cherelle, helped keep her holding on to hope that one day she would be free.

When Lilly Dancyger’s cousin is murdered, Dancyger finds herself holding on to her female friendships with a new urgency. First Love delves into ideas around the importance of female friendship, its complexities, and the importance that it holds in women’s lives.

In this new essay collection, writer Nina Sharma examines her interracial Black and Asian relationship. Sharma first meets her husband Quincy when she catches a ride with him to a friend’s barbecue for the 4th of July. From there, they spark a relationship that will change her perspective on the world forever. The Way You Make Me Feel dives into race, class, colorism, and so much more.

The Light Eaters is a love letter to the world of plants. In this well-researched look into the way plants have learned to survive, we meet plants with flowers that change the shape of their blooms to better accommodate pollinators and vines that learn to blend in with the bushes they grow around. With her examination of these incredible specimens of the natural world, Zoë Schlanger illustrates what humanity can learn from the never-ending wisdom of plants.

Award-winning journalist Carvell Wallace has spent his career looking outward, profiling others, and reporting on events happening in the world around him. But now, Wallace turns his writing to himself. In Another Word for Love, Wallace describes what it’s like to grow up Black and queer in America. With his portrait of his own life, Wallace finds beauty in the simple things and shows gratitude for the people who made him who he is today.

The author of Midnight in Chernobyl, Adam Higginbotham, returns to write about another disaster, but this time, it’s in America. Higginbotham delves into the history of the shuttle program that led to the disaster on January 28, 1986, when Space Shuttle Challenger fell apart and killed all on board. His in-depth look gives readers a new perspective on one of the worst disasters in the history of space exploration.

When Vanessa Angélica Villarreal becomes a mother, she decides to return to Mexico to learn more about her grandmother and her family. But when Villarreal returns, she finds that her entire life—her marriage, her family, her reality—has fallen apart. With Magical/Realism, Villarreal puts her life back together using everything from pop culture references to video games.

The Story Game is an imaginative personal narrative that starts with Hui telling stories to a little girl. Hui goes into detail about her marriage, her life as the child of immigrants, and her mental health. However, Hui struggles to remember certain events from her life. What is it that she can’t remember, and why is Hui telling this girl her story in the first place?

With a nod to Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness, author Robert G. Parkinson describes the imperialism that led to the settling of North America. Parkinson tosses out the rose-colored glasses and notes that the colonization of America was violent, ill-planned, and extremely destructive. Parkinson’s new book destroys the myth of the founding of the United States and reveals its dark history.

In this new memoir from queer Black trans writer KB Brookins, they share their experience moving through the world when you appear as one gender, but your ID says another. Pretty is a call for change, a call for acceptance of Black trans bodies in the face of ongoing prejudice and violence.