Best reads: The top ten most gripping non-fiction books
It’s time to get real this holiday break. Forget the fiction and get stuck into some real-life stories that are topical, terrifying and will change the way you look at the world.
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It’s time to get real this holiday break. Forget the fiction and get stuck into some real-life stories that are topical, terrifying and will change the way you look at the world.
1. Manhunters: How we took down Pablo Escobar (Javier Pena and Steve Murphy)
The real story about how two US Drug Enforcement Agency agents took down the world’s first narco-terrorist. Pablo Escobar ruled the Colombian drug trade as the leader of the Medellian cocaine cartel for more than a decade.
The story of how DEA agents Steve Murphy and Javier Pena took down Escobar has been turned into the Netflix series Narcos. But in their book, Pena and Murphy tell the real story about how they brought down the world’s most wanted man.
2. Dark Emu (Bruce Pascoe)
Bruce Pascoe’s groundbreaking Dark Emu was first published in 2014, and has been showing us different ways of seeing the country and its “truer history”, as Pascoe puts it, ever since. Pascoe’s groundbreaking account of the birth of agriculture in Australia challenges the idea that indigenous people were merely hunter gatherers. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing. As told by Pascoe the bond between the land and the people is undeniable. Aboriginal agriculture was reported by many of the early explorers, Pascoe quotes diary entries – why weren’t these findings in the official reports? Was it to create the illusion that the Aborigines were a nomadic race, therefore not having any real value on their land and thus making land acquisition a walkover. Food for thought – and a story that should be told to all Australians.
3. Troll Hunting (Ginger Gorman)
Ginger Gorman has achieved something extraordinary with Troll Hunting. Part memoir, part thriller, this is an up close and personal look into a world of cyber hate. Gorman spoke directly with predator trolls who were intent on manipulating her (and many others). In this brave connection she has uncovered the uncomfortable truth of who trolls really are – and the real-world damage they cause (everything from bullied teens through to international terrorism). Gorman’s work shows not only the heartbreaking reality trolling can have, but its huge economic cost. As a mum herself, she’s got some tips for parents navigating the online world with their kids. Her work is having a global impact, and our government has recently drafted a new Online Safety Act to put more pressure on tech companies to keep us safe.
4. She Said (Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey)
Rewind to a few years ago, and outside of those within the Hollywood bubble, very few people knew the name Harvey Weinstein. But in October 2017 an extensive and exhaustive piece of journalism from New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey changed all of that.
Offering a behind-the-scenes deep dive into what it took for the two journalists and their team to bring one of the biggest stories of the decade to light and the incredible wave of #MeToo accusations that followed in its aftermath, She Said not only chronicles the seismic social shift their reporting contributed to, but also the very real toll it cost so many people stepping forward.
The story, which also covers Dr Christine Blasey Ford’s assault allegations against Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh, catalogues a moment and a movement in time in a way that no one will ever forget.
5. Inside Out (Demi Moore)
Thanks to her countless blockbuster films over the years, everybody knows Demi Moore. Or rather, we thought we did until she released her searing new memoir.
In Inside Out, Moore leaves nothing on the field. Opening up about her fraught relationship with her dysfunctional alcoholic parents and the sexual assault that lead to her planning her escape to Hollywood, her marriages with Bruce Willis and Ashton Kutcher, the joys and heartbreaks of parenthood, and her own struggles with addiction, this is a story of pain, trauma and survival as much as it is about triumph.
For the heaviness of its content, though, Inside Out is one of the most compelling celebrity memoirs to have been published in years. From start to finish it’s impossible to put down.
As Moore writes, “My story is mine alone; I’m the only one who was there for all of it, and I decided to claim the power to tell it on my own terms.”
6. Perspective (Ellyse Perry)
You know the deeds behind the athlete – now know the mind. Perspective by Ellyse Perry, arguably Australia’s greatest all-rounder – male or female – is an insight into what makes an elite athlete tick. Featuring 27 reflective essays, Perspective recounts personal stories and reflections on dreaming, belief, resilience, opportunity and perseverance. Given that Perry made her international debut at 16-years-old, playing for both the Matildas and the Australian women’s cricket team in their respective World Cup tournaments, there is a feeling of familiarity that surrounds her name. Recently named the ICC Women’s Player of the Year – for a second time – Perry’s writing reflects her personality – humble. This empowering book is a great read for any athlete – and weekend warrior — because as Perry herself advocates, grassroots sport is where dreams are born. Start reading and continue dreaming.
7. Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators (Ronan Farrow)
Journalist Ronan Farrow’s book reads like a Hollywood spy thriller that could have starred his movie-star parents, Woody Allen and Mia Farrow.
But far from fiction, Farrow chronicles his exhaustive investigation into sexual assault claims against Harvey Weinstein, US Today host Matt Lauer and the efforts taken to try and stop the journalist – even by his former network, NBC – from reporting his findings.
Farrow, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his investigations into Weinstein, tells how media executives would buy the rights to stories and then bury them in a practice known as “catch and kill”.
While the expose of sexual assault claims is equally insightful and gripping, the challenges Farrow faced, included being surveilled by foreign spies, helps make Catch and Kill a must-read and one of the best books of the year.
8. One Hundred Years of Dirt (Rick Morton)
This hybrid memoir/social affairs commentary on the reality of the Australian working class is a brilliant and brutal look into the cycle of poverty and what entitlement earns you when you are born into a lucky postcode. Rick Morton works as a reporter but how he got there, when weighed down by so many inequities bestowed by the lottery of life, frames the narrative of the book. It is worth a read just for the beautiful writing but more so for the feeling you get on the last page when you think ‘I am so glad I read that.’
9. Against All Odds (Richard Harris and Craig Challen with Ellis Henican)
2018’s most compelling news story – the rescue of the Wild Boars soccer team from a flooded cave in northern Thailand – formed the basis of one of last year’s best page turners. Full of new details, Against All Odds reveals the agonising risks the rescue team had to take in the operation; risks that could have been fatal for the boys and which could have landed the divers themselves in considerable legal and diplomatic trouble. Harris and Challen eloquently express what draws them to explore the planet’s darkest spaces, and reveal the trauma of an earlier operation in which they had to recover the body of a cave diving colleague. The book is also fascinating in the way it conveys how the divers went from dismissing the idea of sedating the boys, to realising it was the best solution, and finally on to convincing everybody else it was in fact the only option. Even knowing the happy outcome, the path to get there will leave you with your heart in your mouth.
10. Becoming (Michelle Obama)
Michelle Obama would have to be the coolest first lady ever to have resided in the White House. And after reading this refreshingly frank memoir, you cannot help but warm to her more. Nothing is off limits as the confident girl from Chicago takes the reader on the ultimate life tour – from her African-American childhood, inherent ambition and determination to please, to her legal studies, own independent career and meeting the man who would go on to become the most powerful in the world, Barack. Her insights into her cherished family life go right down to dinner table discussions. She also gives behind-the-scenes detail of the rollout of her White House initiatives, including her kids healthy eating program to reduce childhood obesity. She has an innate ability to poke fun at herself and delivers wonderful, deep analysis. This is a story of triumph and personal accomplishment that will inspire.
Originally published as Best reads: The top ten most gripping non-fiction books