You might dig the audiobook of Deacon King Kong by James McBride, it's a novel set in 1960s Brooklyn housing projects and is very loosely a mystery about why the local drunk shot a drug dealer he used to coach in baseball. It's also very funny and at times quite dark, with a huge and engaging ensemble.
I listen to a lot of nonfiction history but looking at my Goodreads I'm realizing I get mad about most of it. Barbara Ehrenreich's Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy covers a lot of stuff, but I'd never read a book about collective joy before. Tom Reiss's The Black Count is about Alex Dumas, the father of the novelist, who led an absolutely wild life in 18th century France that inspired a lot of his son's adventure stories. A World On Fire by Amanda Foreman is a looonggg but super interesting look at Britain's involvement in the US Civil War, a topic I had honestly never thought much about. I am not personally super interested in food history but if you are, Sarah Lohman's Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine is solid and not extremely taxing after 30 hours on the Civil War.
I was able to get these all on audiobook from the library, obviously ymmv.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2023-07-08 02:22 (UTC)I listen to a lot of nonfiction history but looking at my Goodreads I'm realizing I get mad about most of it. Barbara Ehrenreich's Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy covers a lot of stuff, but I'd never read a book about collective joy before. Tom Reiss's The Black Count is about Alex Dumas, the father of the novelist, who led an absolutely wild life in 18th century France that inspired a lot of his son's adventure stories. A World On Fire by Amanda Foreman is a looonggg but super interesting look at Britain's involvement in the US Civil War, a topic I had honestly never thought much about. I am not personally super interested in food history but if you are, Sarah Lohman's Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine is solid and not extremely taxing after 30 hours on the Civil War.
I was able to get these all on audiobook from the library, obviously ymmv.