Here she is, becoming a celebrity, and ending up in these positions where it’s hard to speak up for yourself. Again, she wasn’t coming from a position of privilege, but she had been taught really well to stand up for herself.

But with Alicia Keys, first of all, I thought it was super-interesting. They haven’t really had that many struggles.

You want to know about their lives, but half the time, it’s not really that exciting. I have to say, I’m always a little bit nervous with celebrity biography. It’s Alicia Keys talking about her life and she gets all sorts of celebrities, like Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama, to do these little interstitial moments. The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist They’re doing something extraordinary and it’s admirable at the start.” Read more. Against all the odds the three boys, the first generation, all become doctors. It’s an immigrant family, Russian Jewish. What he does is go back and look at the origins of the company, Purdue Pharma.

It’s about the Sackler scandal, this family that’s made a fortune out of Oxycontin, this very, very addictive opioid that’s killed more Americans than have died in all the wars the country has fought since the Second World War. And because he has a very transparent style-he’s a New Yorker staff writer-and it’s not fancy, it’s very easy to say, ‘Well, he just had to research it and write it down.’ But no, it’s incredibly beautifully done. There’s incredible artistry in putting this story together. He’s writing of extraordinary things, but that alone won’t make it a good book.

Foreign Policy & International Relations.

Best nonfiction audiobook