For Real

Book Riot
For Real

For Real is a biweekly nonfiction podcast that puts the spotlight on new books and old favorites that tell it like it is, or at least try to.

  1. 20/12/2022

    The Final Episode

    This week Alice and Kim wrap up 125 episodes of the For Real podcast by discussing their favorite reads of 2022 and reflecting on their favorite podcast episodes. Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. KIM’S FAVORITES OF 2022 How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil How to Be Perfect by Michael Schur Ancestor Trouble by Maud Newton Invisible Child by Andrea Elliot The World As It Is by Ben Rhodes  In the Shadow of the Mountain by Sylvia Vasquez-Lavado Dog Flowers by Danielle Geller ALICE’S FAVORITES OF 2022 A Most Remarkable Creature by Jonathan Meiburg Ghosts in the Schoolyard by Eve L. Ewing The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú Looking for the Good War by Elizabeth D. Samet The Lost City of Z by David Grann Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? By Roz Chast Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin Trans Mission by Alex Bertie FAVORITE PODCAST EPISODES Episode 13: Suffragists, Suffragettes, and Winning the Vote Episode 23: The Arctic and the Tropics Episode 34: Ahoy, We Sail the Sea of Books Episode 50: 50 Books for 50 Episodes Episode 53: Snake Math! Episode 67: After the Final Rose Episode 70: YA Nonfiction, aka Nonfiction for Exhausted Adults  Episode 91: Library Treasure Hunt Episode 92: The One With Mary Roach  Episode 96: Fell in a Hole (AKA True Stories Underground) Episode 100: Episode 100!!!! Episode 123: Nonfiction Holiday Gift Guide Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    53 min
  2. 06/12/2022

    New Books By the End of the Year

    This week Alice and Kim talk about new nonfiction out in November and December, including memoirs, cold cases, orchid obsession, and more. Gift Tailored Book Recommendations this holiday season! Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Nonfiction in the News New York Times: Best Books of the Year Washington Post: Best Books of the Year Reader’s Digest: The National Book Foundation Announces 2022 National Book Award Winners New Nonfiction Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family by Rabia Chaudry Disability Pride: Dispatches from a Post-ADA World by Ben Mattlin The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder by Edward Humes Queen of Snails: A Graphic Memoir by Maureen Burdock A Coastline is an Immeasurable Thing: A Memoir Across Three Continents by Mary-Alice Daniel The Mexican Witch Lifestyle: Brujeria Spells, Tarot, and Crystal Magic by Valeria Ruelas As Gods: A Moral History of the Genetic Age by Matthew Cobb Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy by Clarence Lusane Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon by Kate Andersen Brower Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening by Douglas Brinkley Orchid Muse: A History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers by Erica Hannickel The Quentin Blake Book by Jenny Uglow Reading Now Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science by Sam Kean Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    50 min
  3. 08/11/2022

    Books by Indigenous Authors

    This week Alice and Kim talk about books by Indigenous authors to recognize Native American Heritage Month. They also speculate about Prince Harry’s memoir and share exciting new nonfiction picks. Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester and Kim Ukura. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. NONFICTION IN THE NEWS Prince Harry’s Memoir Is Due in January. How Explosive Will It Be? [New York Times] How Julie Powell and her ‘Julie/Julia’ blog changed food writing [Washington Post] Keanu Reeves Exits Hulu’s ‘The Devil In The White City’ Limited Series [Deadline] NEW NONFICTION White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America’s Edge by Ted Conover The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge Among Tigers: Fighting to Bring Back Asia’s Big Cats by K. Ullas Karanth NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH Heart Berries: A Memoir by Teresa Marie Mailhot This Place: 150 Years Retold Dog Flowers: A Memoir, An Archive by Danielle Geller Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes READING NOW Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey by Jonathan Meiburg Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    47 min
  4. 25/10/2022

    New Fall Nonfiction

    This week Alice and Kim talk new fall nonfiction. Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester and Kim Ukura. Book Riot’s Reading the Stars Giveaway This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Fall Books Review, Part I The Stolen Year: How COVID Changed Children’s Lives, and Where We Go Now by Anya Kamenetz  Inventing Latinos : A New Story of American Racism by Laura E. Gómez Stay True: A Memoir by Hua Hsu The Surprising Lives of Bark Beetles: Mighty Foresters of the Insect World by Jiri Hulcr, Marc Abrahams Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, Goop, and the False Promise of Self-Care by Rina Raphael Wolf Hustle: A Black Woman on Wall Street by Cin Fabré Fall Books Review, Part II Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis by Annie Proulx Somewhere Sisters: A Story of Adoption, Identity, and the Meaning of Family by Erika Hayasaki The United States of Cryptids: A Tour of American Myths and Monsters by J.W. Ocker Home Bound: An Uprooted Daughter’s Reflections on Belonging by Vanessa Bee American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America’s First Paramedics by Kevin Hazzard Reading Now KIM: Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao ALICE: The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont by Shawn Levy CONCLUSION You can find us on SOCIAL MEDIA – @itsalicetime and @kimthedork. Amazing Audio Editing for this episode was done by Jen Zink. RATE AND REVIEW on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so people can find us more easily, and follow us there so you can get our new episodes the minute they come out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    47 min
  5. 27/09/2022

    Nonfic for Hispanic Heritage Month

    This week Alice and Kim talk about nonfiction reads for Hispanic Heritage Month. Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester and Kim Ukura. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Nonfiction in the News Jung Hae Chae Wins the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize [Graywolf Press] 2022 National Book Awards Longlist for Nonfiction [National Book Foundation] Writer Samantha Irby calls her latest book ‘a devolution!’ [Entertainment Weekly] NEW NONFICTION  Listen, World!: How the Intrepid Elsie Robinson Became America’s Most-Read Woman by Julia Scheeres and Allison Gilbert Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton Runaway: Notes on the Myths that Made Me by Erin Keane Brown and Gay in LA: The Lives of Immigrant Sons by Anthony Christian Ocampo WEEKLY THEME: HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH In the Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantu Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands by Kelly Lytle Hernández In the Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero READING NOW KIM: The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee ALICE: The Office BFFs by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey CONCLUSION You can find us on SOCIAL MEDIA – @itsalicetime and @kimthedork. Our amazing Audio Editing for this episode was done by Jen Zink. RATE AND REVIEW on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so people can find us more easily, and follow us there so you can get our new episodes the minute they come out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    49 min
  6. 13/09/2022

    Women in Sports

    This week Kim and Alice go down a rabbit hole talking about A League of Their Own and talk nonfiction about women in sports. Follow For Real using RSS, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. For more nonfiction recommendations, sign up for our True Story newsletter, edited by Kendra Winchester and Kim Ukura. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Nonfiction in the News Barbara Ehrenreich, author who challenged American Dream myths, dies at 81 [Washington Post] Recommending Books Based on the Weirdest Facts They Taught Me [Book Riot] New Nonfiction Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better by Woo-Kyoung Ahn Off with Her Head: Three Thousand Years of Demonizing Women in Power by Eleanor Herman The Godmother: Murder, Vengeance, and the Bloody Struggle of Mafia Women by Barbie Latza Nadeau Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent by Dipo Faloyin The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World by Max Fisher Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong Women in Sports Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women’s Football League by Frankie de la Cretaz and Lyndsey D’Arcangelo Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team That Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory by Lydia Reeder Baseball’s Leading Lady: Effa Manley and the Rise and Fall of the Negro Leagues by Andrea Williams Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone the First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League by Martha Ackmann Reading Now Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon I Might Regret This: Essays, Drawings, Vulnerabilities, and Other Stuff by Abbi Jacobson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    44 min

About

For Real is a biweekly nonfiction podcast that puts the spotlight on new books and old favorites that tell it like it is, or at least try to.

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