2020 Non-fiction CAT: Journalism and News

There are many, many options for journalism. These suggestions are just a start:

1. Reportage - collections of articles on various topics by various writers.

The Faber Book of Reportage starts with Plague in Athens by Thucydides, 430 BC and ends with James Fenton's article about the fall of President Marcos in 1986. Two millennia of historic events, covered by people who were there.

The Best of Granta Reportage has articles by Germaine Greer, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Martha Gellhorn and other well-known writers.

Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World by Zahra Hankir

2. Letters from ..........

Julian Barnes - Letters from London
Alistair Cooke - Letter from America

3. Feuilletons - essays and articles from continental Europe

Report from a Parisian Paradise and What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-33 by Joseph Roth
Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi

4. War Reporting

The View from the Ground and A Stricken Field by Martha Gellhorn

5. Humour

Raising Demons and Life Among the savages by Shirley Jackson
Almost anything by David Sedaris

6. Collected articles

Joan Didion, Julian Barnes, V.S. Naipaul, George Orwell, Hunter S. Thompson, Martin Amis, Clive James, James Fenton
The Spirit of Prague by Ivan Klima

More suggestions please!

We have lots of cross-overs with other non-fiction topics, but that's OK. More choices.

I was thinking I had nothing suitable in my TBR pile but I'd forgotten I had Selections from The Tatler and the Spectator, 18th century journalism.

I have quite a few on my list.

The Tall Man by Chloe Hooper. Hooper is a journalist who won the Walkley Award (an Australian award for excellence in journalism) for her story on an Aboriginal death in custody. She then wrote this book about it.

The Fate of Food by Amanda Little. Little is a professor and environmental journalist. She also rote Power Trip.

Our Towns by James and Deborah Fallows. The authors spent four weeks travelling America in a small plane, reporting for The Atlantic on the renewal of America's towns. Deborah Fallows also wrote Dreaming In Chinese on her time living and working in China.

The Taliban Shuffle by Kim Barker. This may also be published with the title Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. A memoir of her time as a journalist in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Somebody Told Me by Rick Bragg.

Personal History by Katherine Graham. Graham headed The Washington Post in different capacities between 1963 and 1991.

All The President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. If there is anyone, like me, who has not read this yet!

Women In American Journalism by Jan Whitt.

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown. Brown was the editor of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker.

Behind The Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. Boo documents the lives of people living in poverty.

The Great Deluge by Douglas Brinkley. This is about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

Where We Have Hope by Andrew Meldrum. Meldrum lived in Zimbabwe for twenty years and watched Robert Mugabe come to power. He was the last foreign journalist working in Zimbabwe before he was forced to leave.

Radio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli. This sounds like a lighter read compared to most of the books in this category.

Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa by Peter Godwin. Godwin grew up in Rhodesia and tells about the country's transformation into Zimbabwe.

The China trilogy by Peter Hessler. Books are: River Town, Oracle Bones and Country Driving.

I did not realise I had so many books by journalists on my Goodreads list! And I have more but I will stop now. Some of these I will be reading in other challenges, such as The Great Deluge for KITastrophe.

Hope you find something interesting - you can see I am an obsessive list maker!

>4 JayneCM: Love Country Driving. So good. I also have Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but both would be rereads. Would like to find something else.

I recommend Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now, by Alan Rusbridger.

>3 Robertgreaves:, >4 JayneCM: Many good suggestions.

Here are some more from my library. All of them are collections of articles except for The Emperor : downfall of an autocrat, which is a short book. Others I've read by Ryszard Kapuscinski are Shah of Shahs, The Soccer War, Imperium and The shadow of the sun. I am a fan.

The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell There are four volumes.

Reporting at wit's end : tales from The New Yorker by St. Clair McKelway

What the Chinese Don't Eat by Xinran

My Holy War: Dispatches from the Home Front by Jonathan Raban

The Emperor : downfall of an autocrat by Ryszard Kapuscinski

India: A Million Mutinies Now by V. S. Naipaul

Miami by Joan Didion

Quintana & Friendsby John Gregory Dunne

Granta 63 Beasts

The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 by Martin Amis

Culture of Complaint by Robert Hughes

>5 Kristelh: You might like Ma Jian's Red Dust: A Path Through China.

>6 rabbitprincess: I will definitely read this one.

>5 Kristelh: Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test might be a good follow-up to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

So many great suggestions! It will be hard to make up my mind.

I have quite a few books by Andy Rooney on my shelf. They are collections of his short writings/columns, etc. Also Lewis Grizzard.

> yes, for sure, I've read that one too.

As of now I'm planning to read Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion.

All these suggestions are immensely helpful as I really wasn't sure what I was going to read for this month. Leaning towards What the Chinese Don't Eat by Xinran since I already have another book by her on my shelf.

I do highly recommend Behind the Beautiful Forevers for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

So many options. I am choosing to read about the reporting process. Two current books I hope to read She said : breaking the sexual harassment story that helped ignite a movement or Catch and Kill cover the recent MeToo! movement and how stories were finally brought into the daylight. Both are on my library hold list and hopefully will be in by January.
Recent books I have read by journalists and highly recommend are Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, Killers of the Flower Moon and Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America

Is this the January thread already!?

>16 LibraryCin: Yes. I am always early!

I'm planning on reading How to be Right: in a World Gone Wrong by James O'Brien. O'Brien is a former journalist, who now presents a daily talk show on news and current affairs on LBC radio in the UK (he's also occasionally presented Newsnight, apparently), and has become very well known for his anti-Brexit views.

>17 pamelad: LOL! Thank you for confirming!

This is maybe stretching the theme a bit but I've had Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back by Norah Vincent on my wishlist for ages, so I'll probably take this occasion to read it! (unless I change my mind by then of course)

I've read a book last year that qualifies for this theme and that I highly recommend": Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick. She collected stories of people who escaped from North to South Korea. This was a revelation to me who knew basically nothing about the regime.

>20 chlorine: - I completely agree about Nothing to Envy - it's one of my all time favorite non-fiction books.

>20 chlorine: I had that on my list too. But my list is way too long - I think I have about 20 books I want to read for this one month!

I wasn't going to "officially" join this Cat this year, but since I have a non-fiction category anyway, I figure I'll dip in if I have something planned that fits. Malcolm Gladwell has a number of books that are compilations of his essays that he wrote for The New Yorker magazine. He was also a journalist for the Washington Post.

Would a work written by a journalist count, even if it's not really about journalism? I'm interested in reading Play It Again: An Amateur against the Impossible by Alan Rusbridger. It's about his challenge to learn Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G Minor in a one-year period...but he was also the editor of the Guardian at the time, so I'm sure there will be some stuff about journalism and the news cycle in there too!

>24 christina_reads: - I don't know if it counts or not, but I think I've just taken my first BB for next year. I hope you do read it.

>25 dudes22: Haha, you're welcome! ;) I actually took the BB from Jackie_K in the 2019 challenge myself!

Oh! I just saw and ordered a copy of the London Review of Books's selection of Frank Kermode's articles/essays, LRB Selections 1: Frank Kermode!* This should start my New Year off nicely! :-)

*No touchstone yet...

>24 christina_reads: It's a book about a journalist, by a journalist, and lots of people on LT have tagged it journalism. We don't need to be too rigid!

>28 pamelad: Sounds good to me!

>25 dudes22: I read it a couple of months ago and loved it, I hope you do too!

I wasn't officially planning on participating in this CAT but I love nonfiction, so I'll probably dip in when possible. One book that should work for this theme is I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life. Ed Yong is a science journalist for The Atlantic and has been published in other magazines.

>31 This-n-That: I don't read a lot of nonfiction either, but this will challenge me to do so in 2020. My husband reads only nonfiction, big history and military and biography books. Maybe this will prompt me to sort of "keep up" or at least "read alike." I read lots of mysteries and novels.

I don't normally read a lot of Non Fiction either and when I do, it tends to be narrative non-fiction as opposed to expository. But lately, I've been reading a lot of long-form journalism and I can feel myself gravitating to more NF as a whole. I mentioned that I have a collection of Frank Kermode's articles coming from LRB but I also discovered that I have an audiobook of All the Presidents Men (by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein; narrated by Richard Poe) sitting in my queue. Perfect!

I am planning reading Dispatches From the Edge by Anderson Cooper.

I think selections from one or more of Eyewitness to History, Berlin Diary, By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, Veil.

A friend loaned me Midnight in Siberia: a train journey into the heart of Russia by NPR's Moscow Bureau Chief David Greene. It is described as a "travel narrative" but Greene reports from the field where he connects with ordinary Russians and uses their stories to tell the larger themes of a changing Russia.

>36 witchyrichy: I have this book lined up for the GeoCAT later this year. Now that I know that it's as much reportage as travel I'm looking forward to it even more!

Read and enjoyed What The Chinese Don’t Eat by Xinran. It was a tad dated but still informative. I’d love to see her take on current day China.

I just finished God Land by Lyz Lenz, which is something of a journalistic memoir--Lenz is a journalist, and writes as a reporter researching Midwestern Christianity in the Trump era, but she also talks about her own struggles with the intersection of faith and politics.

Just finished Behind the beautiful forevers by Pulitzer winning journalist Katherine Boo.

>39 susanna.fraser: I've just added that to my wishlist.

I ended up reading The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage and a Girl Saved by Bees by Meredith May who was an award winning journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Although I rarely read memoirs, I quite liked this one.

>42 This-n-That: Oh my goodness, I'm going to need to stop looking at this thread, that's another BB today!

>42 This-n-That: - Looks like I got hit too..

>42 This-n-That: Me too, on that one! My BB list is already VERY long!

I may go with a functional approach with Writing for Your Readers: Notes on the Writer's Craft from the Boston Globe by Donald Murray - it's been on my shelves for several decades.

Or perhaps something by Anna Politkovskaya. She's been on my TBR for awhile now, an intrepid Russian journalist - an investigative reporter, who was murdered in Moscow in 2006. Some of her books are: Is Journalism Worth Dying For?: Final Dispatches, Nothing But The Truth: Selected Dispatches, and Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy.

>45 JayneCM: This is where the wishlist comes into its own! Initially I just used to buy BBs, but now if they're on the wishlist there is a chance that somebody else will buy them, and also my TBR pile feels a bit more in control!

I completed the trilogy Memory of Fire by Eduardo Galeano. I am claiming it here because while this is considered fiction it really is as accurate non fiction as many history books. Eduardo Galeano was an Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist considered, among other things, "global soccer's pre-eminent man of letters" and "a literary giant of the Latin American left". (from wikipedia). This book is Memoria del fuego (Memory of Fire Trilogy, 1982–6) that tells the history of Americas from 1500 to 1984. This is a quote from the author; "I'm a writer," the author once said of himself, "obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past of America and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia." I recommend this book to anyone that would like a complete survey of the history of the Americas.

>43 Jackie_K: >44 dudes22: >45 JayneCM: Sorry about the BB expansion. ;-) I understand what you meant though; so many reading possibilities.

I am reading The Writer's Life by Julia Cameron, which in some ways is repetitious, but at the same time inspiring.

I have completed Dispatches From the Edge a book of memoirs by Anderson Cooper.

I have read Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World by Zahra Hankir and recommend it highly.

I didn't mean to read this book for this challenge, but the author used to be a journalist so I guess technically it counts: junior doctor memoir Your Life in My Hands by Rachel Clarke, which was excellent.

February's Non-fiction Travel thread is up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/315589#

I'm thinking of reading Martha Gellhorn's A Stricken Field which is also a Virago Modern Classic.

A couple more ideas for anyone still looking/thinking about this month's challenge:

A Train of Powder by Rebecca West
Getting Away with Murder: Political Killings and 'disappearances' in the 1990s
The WikiLeaks Files

>55 LisaMorr: I should read some Martha Gellhorn - she sounds like an amazing woman.

I finished How to be Right: ... in a World Gone Wrong by James O'Brien and thought it was excellent (also depressing though).

>56 JayneCM: I've been meaning to read something by her for a while! I also have Liana, another VMC.

I have finished two of my selections so far.
In the Enemy's House was my book club selection this month. The author is a journalist who did in-depth research to tell the story of Russian espionage in the US during the end of WWII and into the Cold War. This is definitely a book that you need to keep track of the characters if you want to fully follow the espionage. The author assists by reminding the reader of code name changes and sometimes repeating the role of the character. Time periods alternate which is helpful in most cases, but it requires a careful read. If you don't read a lot of espionage, which I don't, it does offer an insiders look on the process of catching a spy. 3 stars

I also read American Fire. Journalists can tell a fascinating story when they are not restricted to a few columns. Monica Hesse spent months in Accomack County, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia getting to know the people of the towns and all the characters involved in the record-breaking string of arsons. The author introduces us to the principles of fire investigation, local law enforcement, volunteer fire fighters and life in a run-down town. I really appreciated the style she used to tell the story. Like most non-fiction accounts the whodunit is already in the public arena, but the factual account was peppered with interesting facts and just enough of a mystery to keep the reader going. 4 stars.

I've finished The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell who is a writer for The New Yorker magazine. From cover: ”The Tipping Point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire."

>60 dudes22: Did you like it? I have that on the shelf also and probably need a nudge to read it...

I did. I thought there was a lot of insight into what needs to happen for things to catch on. My granddaughter just graduated last year and said she had read parts of it for a marketing class. It was written in 2000 though so a few things were a little dated and some of the new technology obviously wasn't being used yet.

(There was a mention of calling 411 for information which nobody does any more, do they?)

I finished She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement. The authors, both NYT journalists, laid out the research and sourcing for their award-winning expose of Harvey Weinstein. The second part of the book covers the accusations against Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing to the Supreme Court. In some ways this seemed like a non-sequitur, but the theme of calling out assault ran through the book. During the Epilogue, the journalists gathered all the women who had served as sources. That part was particularly fascinating to see women from different walks of life process their experiences. I thought this book was good, not great. If you have had not exposure to the stories these women told, it is remarkable to read their words. I followed the story as it was revealed so not much was new to me. I do have great respect for the care that journalists take to get the story "right".

I plan to read Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators in the future which I have heard is a more interesting read.

I don't tend to read a lot of non-fiction but ever since it broke I've always had an interest in the Edward Snowden story and events surrounding that. Read his biography towards the end of last year and it has reignited my curiosity so have read The Snowden Files which focuses more on the jounalism side of what happened focusing especially on The Guardian. Definitely filled in a few gaps for me with how little furore there was here in England concerning the subject matter.

Another book completed for this CAT. The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan written by Swedish journalist, Jenny Nordberg. This was a fascinating and well researched book about patriarchal societies, Afghani women specifically and gender identity. Four * Highly recommend.

I finished Life Sentence: Stories from four decades of court reporting, or how I fell out of love with the Canadian justice system (especially judges), by Christie Blatchford, a journalist for the National Post.

I didn't think I'd get one read for this month, but I did reread The Killers of the Flower Moon for my real life book club this month. Even though this is a reread for me, it's still a shocking book. Journalist David Grann not only told the story of the Osages killed in the 1920's for their wealth from oil leases, but dug further into the facts and concluded there were not just two dozen Osages killed, but many many times that number. A really dark chapter in American history.

I finished Self-made man: one woman's journey into manhood and back by Norah Vincent.
The author dressed herself up as a man, with a long preparation including learning how to put on a false stubble, building up her muscle and taking voice lessons. Then she engaged men and women in various contexts. This is not a scientific book and she makes no claim to derive general conclusions from her experience. I don't follow her in some of her conclusions:at times she seems to think that many differences between men's and women's behaviour, in which IMO culture and upbringing (both by parents, by siblings, friends and general societal messages) plays a huge role, are biologically induced; for instance the supposedly stronger sex drive of men than women, or some differences in expressing emotions. Then at other points she seems to imply the opposite so maybe I just don't understand her fully.

Despite this minor gripe I really liked this book. I greatly admire the guts she has to have performed this and wonder if I would be able to do it, if only for a day, not speaking of extended periods of time as she did. Her conclusions, though not ringing true sometimes, are very interesting and remind of some other reading I've done with respect to gender, and in particular that our gendered society in which men have the upper role has also some aspects detrimental to men. This is just the experience of one person but I found it really enlightening at times.

I ended up reading Ten Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly as part of #NewYearWhoDis at Litsy. Considering that I live on the island that once included the madhouse in the title, reading this was long overdue.

I have finished Alan Rusbridger's Breaking News which brought back memories of reading the Guardian for many years. And I caught up with the mindboggling changes happening since 2005. This was a fantastic and educating read. If only the internet were not such a time-sink! I'd love to explore some of the sites he mentions, but I'd never get anything else done then.

>70 MissWatson: It always a dangerous trap! My other trap is bibliographies - I always want to read all the other books on a topic.

>71 JayneCM: Yes, they are so dangerous!

I finished a 2015 book by Canadian journalist Chantal Hébert, The Morning After. It's a retrospective look at the 1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty. She interviews a number of the major players involved and tries to capture their thinking immediately before and after the referendum result (which had Quebec citizens voting "no" to a sovereignty question by a very narrow margin).

I thought the book was very informative and readable, though I'd recommend it mainly to those with a particular interest in Canadian politics and/or history. The subject matter might seem not particularly relevant these days, but it occurs to me that many of the issues brought up at that time are similar to the current Brexit discussions.

On a lighter note, reading this book motivated me to look up the current activities of the politicians and I was pleased to see that our former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien recently celebrated his 86th birthday by going indoor sky-diving with his great-grandson. :)

>73 mathgirl40: I live in Alberta that the stupid "Wexit" thing is going on around here. I hope it doesn't gain too much traction. What a nightmare that would be!

Les racines de la colère (Roots of Wrath) by Vincent Jarousseau is a photography reporting about some people in Denain, a small town in the North of France were unemployment and low income are at their highest. The goal is to put forward people who are not taken into account when our government makes its reforms. I found it very enlightening and very relevant in this time of political turmoil in France. Unfortunately I'm not sure that Macron will read it...

>74 LibraryCin: I certainly hope that Wexit doesn't come about, and from what we hear in the East, it's a fairly small though vocal minority who supports it.

>76 mathgirl40: I'm pretty sure that's what it is, too. There are a heck of a lot of us who also aren't happy with Kenney, either (and weren't from the start; not just since all the cuts). Just not enough of us to keep him out. Ugh!

I ended up reading Trace: Who Killed Maria James, finishing it in early February. It was an ER book that I was behind on reading and reviewing. It was about a cold case murder of a Melbourne, Australia book shop owner that happened in 1980. The author, a journalist, spent 16 months investigating this murder for a podcast that eventually aired in 2017. It was really well done, covering what happened in 1980, jumping ahead to the journalist's investigation, and then back to the murder, and also in between, as additional parts of the investigation continued. The journalist's investigation led to new leads and questions about the original investigation and why certain leads were not completely followed up on way back then.

It ends in a bit of cliffhanger, because eventually you have to publish the book; I checked on line and was happy to see that the historical inquest was re-opened.