MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Every year, we ask everybody who works at NPR - and I mean everybody - what their favorite books of the year were. We pull this together and present it to you as an interactive guide called Books We Love. Here to tell us about some nonfiction books that made the cut this year is Andrew Limbong. He hosts NPR's Book Of The Day podcast. Good morning, Andrew.
ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: Hey, Michel.
MARTIN: So for the unfamiliar, tell us a bit more about Books We Love.
LIMBONG: Yeah, it's something we've been doing since about 2013. Like you said, we ask everyone what they love. So, yeah, we've got our books team, including writers and critics. But across NPR, we're asking people. So we've got producers, editors, folks on the business side, you know, all sharing what they enjoyed reading. And this year, we've got about 380 entries, you know, in the neighborhood of that. I know that's big, but it's all organized by tags. So it's not just fiction and nonfiction, but also book club ideas, love and romance, for sports lovers. And you can mix and stack the tags so you can really key in on what you or the reader in your life is really into.
MARTIN: All right, with that being said, we're going to talk about nonfiction books today. What have you got for us?
LIMBONG: All right, let's start with a good biography. Michel, have you ever noticed how there's more pockets in menswear than there are in womenswear?
MARTIN: So annoying, so annoying. Yes.
LIMBONG: Yeah, right? This pocket gender disparity was something fashion designer Claire McCardell wanted to solve. She was working mainly in the 1930s and '40s and redefining what American womenswear could be, right? So she turned it into something more sporty and practical, but still beautiful. And she's the subject of a biography by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson titled "Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free." And, you know, like, a lot of good biographies, it's not just about McCardell as a designer, but it's also about America's search for its own aesthetic identity.
MARTIN: You know, we have a lot of history fans out there, so any kind of deep history books on the list?
LIMBONG: Yeah. Mary Annette Pember is a correspondent at ICT News. Michel, I think you might remember that as Indian Country Today. She's got a book out titled "Medicine River: A Story Of Survival And The Legacy Of Indian Boarding Schools." It's about these brutal schools funded by the federal government that works to forcefully assimilate Native American kids - right? - giving them English names and forcing them into Christianity. And these schools were around from the 1800s through the 1970s. And it's a deeply reported story that Pember has direct ties to through her family.
MARTIN: So, Andrew, though, even though we're talking about nonfiction, there are a few books on here that are about some of the biggest names in fiction, right?
LIMBONG: Yeah, real quick, there's "Toni At Random" by Dana A. Williams, which is about the famous writer Toni Morrison. But it focuses on her time as an editor, right? And I think you can argue that she had just as big of an impact on literature from that perch as she did as a writer, right? She was working with Muhammad Ali and Angela Davis. And she wasn't just, you know, like, line editing their copy but really championing her writers in the publishing offices. And then there's the new biography of James Baldwin by Nicholas Boggs called "Baldwin: A Love Story." Michel, you talked to Boggs, right? What'd you think of the book?
MARTIN: Oh, man. Highest recommendation. I mean, if you know a lot about Baldwin, you learn things. If you don't know a lot about Baldwin, I mean, it really will whet your appetite. I just had no idea what a footprint he had. I just can't say enough about it.
LIMBONG: Yeah, it'll more than whet your appetite. It's huge, right? It's (laughter) like a good 600 pages, yeah.
MARTIN: That's right. That is NPR's Andrew Limbong. For more book recommendations, head to npr.org/bestbooks. Andrew, thank you.
LIMBONG: Thanks, Michel.
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