This month’s choices:
Nonfiction
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space
By Adam Higginbotham
Both of my picks this month were suggestions from my son, Dominic—and he hit it out of the park. I loved them both.
For the nonfiction selection, I have to say up front that this book made me furious. Not with the author, who did a masterful job, but with many of the people behind the scenes with the space shuttle Challenger.
I’ve read plenty of books about disasters and historical events, but this one hit me harder than most. We all know what happenedon January 28th, 1986. What Higginbotham painstakingly reveals is everything that led to that terrible morning. That’s what set me off.
This was not simply an unforeseeable accident. There were warnings, concerns, and people who understood the danger. And yet Challenger launched anyway.
Higginbotham reconstructs the story in remarkable detail, from the engineers and NASA officials to the seven astronauts and the families who watched that morning. Knowing the outcome somehow makes the buildup even more agonizing.
It’s a sobering, sometimes infuriating book, but an extraordinary one. Challenger is about engineering and spaceflight, certainly, but it’s also about human judgment, institutional pressure, and the devastating consequences when people convince themselves that something will probably be okay.
It’s one of the most powerful nonfiction books I’ve read in a long time. Find your copy here.
Fiction
Anxious People
By Fredrik Backman
Backman has had hits before. He’s the author of A Man Called Ove, which was turned into a Tom Hanks movie—although they changed his name for the movie to Otto. (I’m told they wanted to make it easier for American audiences to understand.)
I’ll admit this one took a little while to win me over. The story begins with a collection of quirky characters, an apartment viewing, a would-be bank robber, and a hostage situation that isn’t quite what it seems. Early on, I wasn’t entirely sure where Backman was taking me.
I’m glad I stayed for the ride.
As the story unfolds, the characters start to reveal themselves—and what at first feels like an odd comedy gradually becomes something much warmer and more human. Beneath the humor is a story about loneliness, anxiety, regret, relationships, and the quiet burdens we all carry around without anyone else knowing.
Backman has that wonderful ability to find both humor and compassion in flawed people. Nobody in Anxious People is quite what they first appear to be, and that’s really the point. And what gives the book its payoff.
It may have been a slow start for me, but by the end I understood why so many readers love this book. Funny, touching, occasionally absurd—and ultimately very kindhearted.
While the Challenger book might upset you a bit, this one will restore your faith in humanity.
Your copy is waiting right here.
Time and Again
By Jack Finney
More than 50 years later, still considered one of the greatest time-travel novels of all time.
Cleopatra: A Life
By Stacy Schiff
Separating legend from history, this is a fascinating portrait of one of the ancient world’s most remarkable leaders.
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Happy reading!
