Quick Nonfiction Picks for the Current Moment (2020 Archive)

“This post was copied verbatim from the Words Like Silver archive as published in March 2020. The book recs endure, but the reasoning and commentary are likely out of date!”

Hey y’all,

Grace here, occupying the same spot on my living room couch, still not doing nearly enough with my day but not having enough energy to push past that (yet.) But I’m starting to get my bearings of this odd limbo space we’re in and begin to articulate what I want to do.

One of those goals is to push out a reading list for those of you who have asked me. For one, I’m flattered that WLS can fulfill a need right now, and grateful that I’ve been able to keep up with it for this long. It's a good time to have a place to write book reviews.

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Starting off, I wanted to put together a list of books that aren’t escapist or productive necessarily, but applicable to the current moment. Not quite self-improvement and not quite something to sink into if you don’t want to think about any current events, but rather just complementary to our situation or some of the scenarios in which you might find yourself.

There’s definitely going to be overlap between my recommendations for quarantine and my best books of 2019 (found on my Instagram highlight), so flip through those if you want a little more variety in topics.

Here are five reads that I think you’d love if you want to get your head on a little straighter. Please do not buy them from Amazon.

Book: Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
Release Date: October 16, 2018
Publisher: Avery
Format: eBook
Source: Library

No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving--every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.

If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.

Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.

Learn how to:

* make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy);
* overcome a lack of motivation and willpower;
* design your environment to make success easier;
* get back on track when you fall off course;
...and much more.

Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits--whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.

I reviewed Atomic Habits when I was on a self-improvement/productivity kick — reading about scheduling, optimal energy output, etc,. Many “life coach”-esque books feel gimmicky to me, overly structured and inspirational to the point of being non-helpful.

You could definitely call Atomic Habits one of them, but it did take a few compelling points about the way we’re wired to really craft well-written arguments for how best to automate certain behaviors. It’s an excellent read for if you’re looking for intrinsic motivation rather than a framework/schedule/pep talk. I have to understand why a psychological trick works in order for me to be able to institute it.

Some salient points that have stuck with me: the discussion of willpower as a finite vs. infinite resource (totally changed the way I think about decision making during my day), the role of identity in your behaviors (complementary to a read I’m still working through — The Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought by Barbara Tversky — which argues that your actions shape your thoughts rather than the other way around), and more. Atomic Habits feels accurate in a way that most productivity books don’t, and has led to a lot of tangible change for me. I’m considering rereading it now that I feel such a lack of energy in my day.

Bonus pick: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport.

Book: How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency by Akiko Busch
Release Date: February 12, 2019
Publisher: Penguin Press
Format: eBook
Source: Library

It is time to reevaluate the merits of the inconspicuous life, to search out some antidote to continuous exposure, and to reconsider the value of going unseen, undetected, or overlooked in this new world. Might invisibility be regarded not simply as refuge, but as a condition with its own meaning and power? The impulse to escape notice is not about complacent isolation or senseless conformity, but about maintaining identity, autonomy, and voice.


In our networked and image-saturated lives, the notion of disappearing has never been more alluring. Today, we are relentlessly encouraged, even conditioned, to reveal, share, and promote ourselves. The pressure to be public comes not just from our peers, but from vast and pervasive technology companies that want to profit from patterns in our behavior. A lifelong student and observer of the natural world, Busch sets out to explore her own uneasiness with this arrangement, and what she senses is a widespread desire for a less scrutinized way of life--for invisibility. Writing in rich painterly detail about her own life, her family, and some of the world's most exotic and remote places, she savors the pleasures of being unseen. Discovering and dramatizing a wonderful range of ways of disappearing, from virtual reality goggles that trick the wearer into believing her body has disappeared to the way Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway finds a sense of affiliation with the world around her as she ages, Busch deliberates on subjects new and old with equal sensitivity and incisiveness.


How to Disappear is a unique and exhilarating accomplishment, overturning the dangerous modern assumption that somehow fame and visibility equate to success and happiness. Busch presents a field guide to invisibility, reacquainting us with the merits of remaining inconspicuous, and finding genuine alternatives to a life of perpetual exposure. Accessing timeless truths in order to speak to our most urgent contemporary problems, she inspires us to develop a deeper appreciation for personal privacy in a vast and intrusive world.

Update: I also transferred over my full review and book club discussion for this read from when I read in 2020 to my new site, updating it with some thoughts from revisiting the book in 2024.

Right now, one of my favorite thoughts to mull over is about how this moment will change our notions of visibility and invisibility. I’ve loved talking with friends about how everyone is currently equidistant; with the exception of those within your home, you’re equally a FaceTime or digital interaction away from those you care about. So does proximity matter as a measure of a friendship in the way that it normally seems to? Also, how do you measure your own prominence to others (in whichever measurement matters to you most)? Our ways of evaluating others is undergoing a shift, or at least an interrogation, that will hopefully give people a little bit of pause.

I’m also considering this in the context of having spent most of my year resenting my phone. I loved my winter and summer off of social media last year, but another break feels impossible since I’ll be physically alone for the foreseeable future.

Now, is social media achieving more of its intended purpose — a slightly more accurate way of connecting, rather than simply being a “highlight reel”? Going back and rereading The Four Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World by Laurence Scott right now is so appealing. We’re living significantly more of our life on another plane of existence, online, than we normally do, even though we’ve been bemoaning that for ages. What makes you visible right now? Do you feel like you need to be visible?

The read itself might resonate more with readers who can vibe with an abstract, philosophical writing style. It’s rooted in nature and the outdoors, and felt more meditative than preachy, but if you tend to be pretty straight-laced in your reading style then it may not appeal to you. It was one of my favorites of last year.

Bonus pick: Silence: In the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge

Book: Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Changed Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis, James H. Fowler
Release Date: September 28, 2009
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
Format:Paperback
Source: Bought

Celebrated scientists Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler explain the amazing power of social networks and our profound influence on one another's lives.

Your colleague's husband's sister can make you fat, even if you don't know her. A happy neighbor has more impact on your happiness than a happy spouse. These startling revelations of how much we truly influence one another are revealed in the studies of Dr. Christakis and Fowler, which have repeatedly made front-page news nationwide.

In 
Connected, the authors explain why emotions are contagious, how health behaviors spread, why the rich get richer, even how we find and choose our partners. Intriguing and entertaining, Connected overturns the notion of the individual and provides a revolutionary paradigm—that social networks influence our ideas, emotions, health, relationships, behavior, politics, and much more. It will change the way we think about every aspect of our lives.

Last year, I read this, which is about the interconnectedness of social networks. Considering the tight-knit nature of a small school (and just, in general, being in a transitional period of my life), I wanted to know more about how we affect each other without realizing it. I’d been on an “unconscious influences” kick, and I always read about anything I want to be better at recognizing.

As people have various definitions of what behaviors they should be undertaking — as well as a confusion about how exactly our interactions reverberate into the larger network — it seems like probably the most relevant read I could recommend for the current moment. It’s good for understanding your place in the greater scheme of things, for fostering empathy, and it’s also just cognitively engaging. (And to a certain extent, relatively uplifting: you impact others so much more than you expect.)

If you want to understand more about the spread without having to read anything terrifying, this could be a good option. It’s also good for understanding why you’re probably a little more lackluster alone in your house than you’re used to, because of the way your energy relies on others.

Book: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
Release Date: April 13, 2013
Publisher: Knopf
Format: eBook
Source: Library

Franz Kafka, frustrated with his living quarters and day job, wrote in a letter to Felice Bauer in 1912, “time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.”

Kafka is one of 161 inspired—and inspiring—minds, among them, novelists, poets, playwrights, painters, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians, who describe how they subtly maneuver the many (self-inflicted) obstacles and (self-imposed) daily rituals to get done the work they love to do, whether by waking early or staying up late; whether by self-medicating with doughnuts or bathing, drinking vast quantities of coffee, or taking long daily walks. Thomas Wolfe wrote standing up in the kitchen, the top of the refrigerator as his desk, dreamily fondling his “male configurations”. . . Jean-Paul Sartre chewed on Corydrane tablets (a mix of amphetamine and aspirin), ingesting ten times the recommended dose each day . . . Descartes liked to linger in bed, his mind wandering in sleep through woods, gardens, and enchanted palaces where he experienced “every pleasure imaginable.”

Here are: Anthony Trollope, who demanded of himself that each morning he write three thousand words (250 words every fifteen minutes for three hours) before going off to his job at the postal service, which he kept for thirty-three years during the writing of more than two dozen books . . . Karl Marx . . . Woody Allen . . . Agatha Christie . . . George Balanchine, who did most of his work while ironing . . . Leo Tolstoy . . . Charles Dickens . . . Pablo Picasso . . . George Gershwin, who, said his brother Ira, worked for twelve hours a day from late morning to midnight, composing at the piano in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers . . .

Here also are the daily rituals of Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol, John Updike, Twyla Tharp, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Anne Rice, and Igor Stravinsky (he was never able to compose unless he was sure no one could hear him and, when blocked, stood on his head to “clear the brain”).

Brilliantly compiled and edited, and filled with detail and anecdote, Daily Rituals is irresistible, addictive, magically inspiring.

Right now, my biggest struggle is figuring out how to individually schedule my day. I thrive on structure, and schedule, and usually am self-motivated in how I pursue one. I also tend to divide my day in terms of where I physically am, which makes working from home a little more difficult to wrap my head around (lending more credence to the we think spatially theory I’m reading so much about now in Mind in Motion.)

Do I blog and do schoolwork and read in the same place I play guitar and draw and relax? If you’re dealing with the same issue I am, taking inspiration from this read may help. It’s a compilation of influential figures’ daily routines.

The way I read this book was in small fragments, over a relatively long period of time. I’d read a routine or two a day. The vignettes varied in length depending on how straightforward or specific an artist or thinker’s routine was. I enjoyed it purely for pleasure, but it also feels particularly useful now — especially as most of these tended to be solitary, and resulted in clearly relevant projects or meditations. It’s an oddly fun read.

Update: In 2024, reading this blurb back is so funny because I have been working from home for the past four years, and how I spatially and physically divide myself between tasks has always continually been a question. I also seriously love Ursula K. Le Guin's writing schedule, which is remarkably similar to my own. You can read slightly more about it in my ode to my kitchen timer and my latest manuscript revision update.

From an interview.

Book: Gratitude by Oliver Sacks
Release Date: November 24, 2015
Publisher: Knopf
Format: eBook
Source: Library

“My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”
—Oliver Sacks

No writer has succeeded in capturing the medical and human drama of illness as honestly and as eloquently as Oliver Sacks.

During the last few months of his life, he wrote a set of essays in which he movingly explored his feelings about completing a life and coming to terms with his own death.

“It is the fate of every human being,” Sacks writes, “to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.”

Together, these four essays form an ode to the uniqueness of each human being and to gratitude for the gift of life.

“Oliver Sacks was like no other clinician, or writer. He was drawn to the homes of the sick, the institutions of the most frail and disabled, the company of the unusual and the ‘abnormal.’ He wanted to see humanity in its many variants and to do so in his own, almost anachronistic way—face to face, over time, away from our burgeoning apparatus of computers and algorithms. And, through his writing, he showed us what he saw.”
—Atul Gawande, author of 
Being Mortal

Oliver Sacks is one of my favorite thinkers, both for his personal essays and his work in neuroscience. Gratitude is a pretty simple read, a look back at a full life and what he wants to have gotten from it. The biggest thing keeping me going right now is compiling my “happy lists” and soliciting them from others. What are small moments of joy or at least variance that I can extract from my day? I also have to be an optimist to remain functional — so, curating gratitude is the best pursuit for me right now. Sacks provides good perspective, and he’s a straightforward, beautiful writer.

I’m working on my compilation of fiction recommendations for getting through this time — binge-worthy series, meaningful stories, and other assorted favorites — and hoping to have those up this weekend as a starter. I thought 2019 was a huge reading year for me, but it’s clear that 2020 is going to have even more books in store (both a blessing and a curse, considering the circumstances.) In the meantime, if you need some more nonfiction to poke through, check out my “brain food” reads and my all-time favorites. And — shop locally!