(Little Brown and Company)
Leslie Jamison, author of the award-winning essay collection, “The Empathy Exams,” is an astute observer of the people she investigates, holding her skepticism in check, as well as herself, and how she relates to the stories she uncovers and what they say about the storytellers, herself, and the human race at large. Her topics are fascinating — 52 Blue, a blue whale whose song was recorded at an impossible (for blue whales) frequency; virtual lives; a quarter century photography project — on the surface, but in the unraveling and unspooling, Jamison gets at the heart of the matter, connecting disparate points, plucking pathos from isolation, creating metaphors out of isolation. The writing is clear and succinct and the word choices precise. That is why it is refreshing and bracing and invigorating to read her work. Layers are peeled back and humanity is exposed. Some of the essays are intensely personal, “The Long Trick,” about the death of her grandfather, the “original absent man,” and some tackle worldwide phenomena like the cult-like status that was bestowed upon 52 Blue, as people around the world connected with the story of a whale singing a song no other whale could hear. Stellar collection.
— Reviewed by Jenny Lyons of The Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury.
 

10 Must-Read Nonfiction Books of Fall
Erosion, by Terry Tempest Williams
Blowout, by Rachel Maddow
Surfacing, by Kathleen Jamie
Trick Mirror, by Jia Tolentino
Edison, by Edmund Morris
The Body, by Bill Bryson
Know My Name, by Chanel Miller
Wild Game, by Adrienne Brodeur
The Only Plane in the Sky, by Garrett M. Graff
The Education of an Idealist, by Samantha Power