Highlighting My Four Favorite Nonfiction Books of All Time

In last month’s blog post, (you may start to notice a familiar pattern of my entries falling on the last days of the calendar months in an odd mix of procrastination and OCD)  I helped prepare for summer reading by revealing my five favorite novels of all time. Now it’s time to tackle nonfiction. For some strange reason, I am stuck on four rather than five; it is what it is.

As with last month’s selections, there is not necessarily an order overall, except for the fact that the first title on the list does happen to be my favorite book (regardless of genre) of all time. So, I guess I am kind of fuzzy on rules here, but it’s my blog. These are real-life stories that offer a memorable combination of the style of writing, the themes, or the people presented. Yes, it’s all subjective, but here goes….

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story by John Berendt

Midnight chronicles the protracted series of events surrounding the murder case against prominent Savannah antiques dealer Jim Williams for the shooting death of Danny Hansford, a young male escort with a long list of prominent clients (and would-be-clients) among the historic city’s elite circles. In a style that draws comparisons to literary giants Truman Capote and Norman Mailer, Berendt brings vivid attention to characters and setting to recount his time spent alongside Williams and a host of other Savannah residents.

As a devotee to the book, what stands out as I remember first devouring its pages back in the late nineties, is that the mysterious, eccentric, and charming city of Savannah itself takes center stage as the leading character. From the well-mannered precision of the Married Women’s Card Club to the banter of customers at the lunch counter of Clary’s Drug Store to the macabre beauty of Bonaventure Cemetery, the sense of place becomes palpable in a manner that transfixes the reading experience.

All Over But the Shoutin‘ by Rick Bragg

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Bragg has drawn on his hardscrabble childhood in the Piedmont region of Alabama and his colorful family in multiple books, but if you want the best introduction to Bragg’s impressive body of work, start with this title recounting the gritty resilience of his resourceful mother and the emotionally haunted life journey of his father.

Southern storytelling seems to vacillate between extremes, where the fortunate get to embellish their tales of rich tradition and the not-so-fortunate become shocking caricatures to be pitied but not presented as possessing culture, ideals, hopes, and dreams. Bragg doesn’t sugarcoat the rough edges, but he never loses sight of the human dignity at the heart of his subjects. As an added bonus, if you listen to audiobooks, he is a fabulous narrator of his own material.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Speaking of resilience, Jeannette Walls, who first made  a name for herself as a celebrity gossip columnist for New York  and Esquire magazines and MSNBC, chronicles a less than glamorous upbringing in her powerful autobiography. Though her parents both possessed considerable intellect and talent, through a combination of eccentricity and/or mental illness (a distinction perhaps open to interpretation), they raised their children off the grid in a vagabond existence.

As with Bragg, Walls challenges her readers to dig more deeply into the souls of the down-and-out, beyond the maudlin. The 2017  movie adaptation featured terrific performances from a top-notch cast, but I still think that the nuances of someone coming into peace and acceptance with the sordid and dysfunctional don’t quite play out as smoothly on the big screen as in print. I still recommend the film, but it’s no substitute for savoring the pages of this great book.

The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer

Speaking of dysfunction, how about a child raised in a pub? Well, that would be a bit of an exaggeration, but J.R. Moehringer hails from the Western Long Island community of Manhasset, New York. Manhasset holds a distinction for its rather high per-capita presence of liquor establishments and also its proximity to the real-life locales that inspired the gin-soaked antics of Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby.

Raised by a single mother, Moehringer turned to the community around him for father figures. This included the men at a local watering hole. He also found purpose in his part-time job at the town’s branch of a bookstore chain where the staff managed the store and its inventory in a rather unorthodox fashion. The vivid descriptions of time and place manage to create something special here, even when the coming-of-age details seem pretty conventional at face value .

I realize that these picks probably slant heavily in the direction of my taste for the quirky. Yet, I would still make a pitch for any of them as solid choices for a great reading experience. Oh, and by the way, I just now thought of a possible number five, Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, but I will leave that as a last-minute aside rather than a full-fledged listing.

Keep cool everyone!