From Paste Magazine’s 19 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019:
11. The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West
Lindy West rose to fame as part of the early wave of women writers who defined a sharp corner of online cultural commentary. In her latest collection of essays, West turns her wit to our troubling times, taking aim at pop culture and politics. She’s adept at finding fresh ways to cover well-tread ground, in part because of her ability to balance skillfully punching up (at the creators of South Park and the president) and showing tenderness (to her home city of Seattle or Adam Sandler movies). Essays about her experiences in Hollywood making her Hulu show Shrill sit easily alongside considerations of climate change thanks to West’s ability to crack a joke while taking her subject matter seriously. Funny and cathartic, The Witches Are Coming is a book that cuts through the noise like few others.
—Alexis Gunderson
1. Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family by Mitchell S. Jackson
Mitchell S. Jackson is one of the finest writers currently working in the English language, and the language he uses is uniquely his own. Examining race and economic disparity through the lens of his own life, Jackson delivers a book that is heavy but not crushing, terrifying but not frightening. In combining Jackson’s experiences in Portland, his voracious mind, his acid blood and his shotgun-lethal tongue, Survival Math evolves into the Konami Code of memoirs. This is a book capable of unlocking depths of pathos, bathos and artistic envy in any reader.
—B. David Zarley
For the full list, see here.