The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
By: Ari Shapiro
4.05
Format: 256 pages, Hardcover
From the beloved host of NPR's All Things Considered, a stirring memoir-in-essays that is also a lo…
Want to Read $ 12.99"We'd drive west to the fog of the coast. In Oregon, nobody calls it the beach, maybe to discourage false hopes of warm and sun."-Ari Shapiro, The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
"We'd drive west to the fog of the coast. In Oregon, nobody calls it the beach, maybe to discourage false hopes of warm and sun."-Ari Shapiro, The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
If you liked the nonfiction plot in The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening by Ari Shapiro , here is a list of 17 books like this:
1. A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
By: Timothy Egan
4.38
Format: 432 pages, Hardcover
A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the rivetin… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Timothy Egan's A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- nonfiction
- audiobook
"When hate was on the ballot, especially in the guise of virtue, a majority of voters knew exactly what to do."-Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
"Stephenson had succeeded with an unusual formula for a mass movement: men were the muscle, women spread the poison, and ministers sanctified it all."-Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
"The governor of Georgia, Clifford Walker, told a Klan rally in 1924 that the United States should 'build a wall of steel, a wall as high as heaven' against immigrants."-Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
"There are millions who have never joined, but who think and feel and, when called on, will fight with us," Evans wrote. "This is our real strength, and no one who ignores it can hope to understand Am…"-Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
2. Tom Lake
By: Ann Patchett
3.99
Format: 309 pages, Hardcover
In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again prov… read more
Want to Read $ 15.99Similar categories in Ann Patchett's Tom Lake book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- audiobook
"You can’t pretend this [Covid] isn’t happening,"-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
"In the summer the pear trees were fine. In the summer, all that is hideous about a pear tree is hidden by leaves and pears. But once those disguises were removed they were nothing but acres of murder…"-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
"Hazel, listen to me. I'm going to tell you something important, you need to be brave.' I then explained to the dog how I have told myself for so many years that my career fell apart because I wasn't …"-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
"It's as if someone bought all the diamonds at Tiffany's, and crushed them into dust, then spread that dust across the water so that it sifts down evenly, filtering through the shards of light that cu…"-Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
3. The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
By: Ari Shapiro
4.05
Format: 256 pages, Hardcover
From the beloved host of NPR's All Things Considered, a stirring memoir-in-essays that is also a lo… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- audiobook
- biography
- memoir
- lgbt
- travel
- biography memoir
- nonfiction
- essays
- journalism
- queer
"We'd drive west to the fog of the coast. In Oregon, nobody calls it the beach, maybe to discourage false hopes of warm and sun."-Ari Shapiro, The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
4. James
By: Percival Everett
4.54
Format: 303 pages, Hardcover
A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , both harrowing and f… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Percival Everett's James book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- audiobook
5. A Living Remedy: A Memoir
By: Nicole Chung
4.01
Format: 256 pages, Hardcover
A searing memoir of family, class and grief—a daughter’s search to understand the lives her adoptiv… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Nicole Chung's A Living Remedy: A Memoir book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- biography
- memoir
- biography memoir
- nonfiction
- audiobook
"How do you learn to cherish yourself, your life, when grief has made it unrecognizable? I am starting to feel that we do so not by trying to fill a void that can never be filled but by living as best…"-Nicole Chung, A Living Remedy: A Memoir
6. It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs
By: Mary Louise Kelly
3.86
Format: 240 pages, Hardcover
Operating Instructions meets Glennon Doyle in this new book by famed NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Mary Louise Kelly's It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- biography
- memoir
- biography memoir
- nonfiction
- audiobook
"In his book "Being Mortal", the surgeon Atul Gawande accurately describes the joy that flows from being good at your work. 'You become a doctor for what you imagine to be the satisfaction of the work…"-Mary Louise Kelly, It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs
7. I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan
By: Katie Porter
4.23
Format: 304 pages, Hardcover
An honest, inspiring, and laugh-out-loud funny memoir about re-energizing our politics and standing… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Katie Porter's I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- biography
- memoir
- biography memoir
- nonfiction
- audiobook
8. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
By: James McBride
4.00
Format: 385 pages, Hardcover
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new housing de… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in James McBride's The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- audiobook
9. Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain
By: Andrew McCarthy
4.03
Format: 256 pages, Hardcover
An intimate, funny, and poignant travel memoir following New York Times bestselling author and ac… read more
Want to Read $ 11.99Similar categories in Andrew McCarthy's Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- biography
- memoir
- travel
- biography memoir
- nonfiction
- audiobook
10. Table for Two
By: Amor Towles
4.26
Format: 464 pages, Hardcover
From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Amor Towles's Table for Two book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- audiobook
"And though she couldn’t remember the exact reference and whether it was from mythology or the Bible, she knew instinctively as they approached the pier’s limit she mustn’t look back."-Amor Towles, Table for Two
"It is a funny aspect of life, thought Charlie, how a group of grown people can convince themselves to do something that none of them really want to do. They start by talking an idea into existence. O…"-Amor Towles, Table for Two
11. Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships
By: Nina Totenberg
4.13
Format: 320 pages, Hardcover
Celebrated NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg delivers an extraordinary memoir of her personal succes… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Nina Totenberg's Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- biography
- memoir
- biography memoir
- nonfiction
- audiobook
12. All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
By: Patrick Bringley
4.07
Format: 240 pages, ebook
A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former … read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Patrick Bringley's All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- biography
- memoir
- biography memoir
- nonfiction
- audiobook
"Much of the greatest art, I find, seeks to remind us of the obvious."-Patrick Bringley, All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
"Nobody has ever been so much themselves over a span of three thousand years as the ancient Egyptians,"-Patrick Bringley, All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
"It feels like the more I explore, the more I will see, the more I’ll understand how very little I’ve seen."-Patrick Bringley, All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me
13. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession
By: Michael Finkel
3.97
Format: 224 pages, Hardcover
One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first century: the story of the worl… read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Michael Finkel's The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- biography memoir
- biography
- nonfiction
- audiobook
"Museums are secular churches . . . and to steal there is blasphemous."-Michael Finkel, The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession
14. Poverty, by America
By: Matthew Desmond
4.27
Format: 284 pages, Hardcover
Reimagining the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in Ameri… read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in Matthew Desmond's Poverty, by America book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- nonfiction
- audiobook
"To live and strive in modern America is to participate in a series of morally fraught systems. If a family’s entire financial livelihood depends on the value of its home, it’s not hard to understand …"-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America
"The rest of us, on the ·other hand-we members of the protected classes-have grown increasingly· dependent on our welfare programs. In 2020 the federal government spent more than $193 billion on homeo…"-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America
"In her book The Government-Citizen Disconnect, the political scientist Suzanne Mettler reports that 96 percent of American adults have relied on a major government program at some point in their live…"-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America
15. Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
By: Christian Cooper
4.25
Format: 304 pages, Hardcover
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Central Park birder Christian Cooper takes us beyond the viral video th… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Christian Cooper's Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- biography
- memoir
- lgbt
- biography memoir
- nonfiction
- audiobook
"Nor did I know back then that McCartney had written the song as an ode to Black women ("bird" being British slang for a pretty girl) at the pivotal moment of the civil rights struggle. That would onl…"-Christian Cooper, Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
"Writing a memoir is akin to taking off one's clothes in public, and as I learned years ago in the amateur strip contest as Darren and the go-go boys cheered me on, success at such an endeavor can onl…"-Christian Cooper, Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
"Beginning around 1910, The Great Migration saw some 6 million black people surge Northward, out of the states of the former Confederacy, spurred by the same thing that lies behind the yearly migratio…"-Christian Cooper, Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
"What makes birding such a phenomenon? Why not "mammaling" or insecting? Certainly those pursuits have their adherents, as the thousands who visit Africa on safari or who catalog butterflies can attes…"-Christian Cooper, Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
16. You Could Make This Place Beautiful
By: Maggie Smith
4.08
Format: 320 pages, Hardcover
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Maggie Smith's You Could Make This Place Beautiful book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- biography
- memoir
- biography memoir
- nonfiction
- essays
- audiobook
"At our wedding, our college creative writing professor read a poem—John Ciardi’s “Most Like an Arch This Marriage."-Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful
"How I picture it: We are all nesting dolls, carrying the earlier iterations of ourselves inside. We carry the past inside us. We take ourselves–all of our selves–wherever we go. Inside forty-somethin…"-Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful
17. We Should Not Be Friends: The Story of a Friendship
By: Will Schwalbe
3.89
Format: 336 pages, Hardcover
A warm, funny, irresistible book that follows an improbable and life-changing college friendship ov… read more
Want to Read $ 9.99Similar categories in Will Schwalbe's We Should Not Be Friends: The Story of a Friendship book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- biography
- memoir
- lgbt
- biography memoir
- nonfiction
- audiobook
18. Quietly Hostile: Essays
By: Samantha Irby
3.70
Format: 290 pages, Paperback
Samantha Irby invites us to share in the gory particulars of her real life, all that festers behind… read more
Want to Read $ 4.99Similar categories in Samantha Irby's Quietly Hostile: Essays book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- audiobook
- memoir
- lgbt
- nonfiction
- essays
- queer
"[...] and my face is sore from smiling so hard in an effort to appear friendly and nonthreatening."-Samantha Irby, Quietly Hostile: Essays
"I'm so embarrassed by everything all the time, humiliated even by the need to breathe air where other people can see me"-Samantha Irby, Quietly Hostile: Essays
"I want to push back against this idea that it's not real love if you're not passionately chattering at each other all the time, that it's just as valid (and romantic!) to know instinctively when to s…"-Samantha Irby, Quietly Hostile: Essays
"I lived in blissful solitude for a long time...and you learn a lot about yourself and what you require for life when it's just you that you have to think about...You can buy frozen fish sticks and ea…"-Samantha Irby, Quietly Hostile: Essays
19. Look for Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself
By: Luke Russert
3.85
Format: 272 pages, Hardcover
In Look for Me There , Luke Russert traverses terrain both physical and deeply personal. On his jou… read more
Want to Read $ 14.99Similar categories in Luke Russert's Look for Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- biography
- memoir
- travel
- biography memoir
- nonfiction
- journalism
- audiobook
"We work our way back through the crowd. A few steps behind, holding Dad’s hand, I keep my eyes affixed to the back of his white polo shirt. The outline of his wallet is visible through his back pants…"-Luke Russert, Look for Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself
20. Congratulations, the Best is Over!
By: R. Eric Thomas
4.07
Format: 240 pages, Hardcover
The beloved bestselling author of Here for It presents a collection of heartening, thoughtful, and … read more
Want to Read $ 13.99Similar categories in R. Eric Thomas's Congratulations, the Best is Over! book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- audiobook
- biography
- memoir
- lgbt
- biography memoir
- nonfiction
- essays
- queer
"If I'm not heading toward a place where I can feel joy, then hope in the present has nothing to hold on to."-R. Eric Thomas, Congratulations, the Best is Over!
21. The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight
By: Andrew Leland
4.14
Format: 368 pages, Hardcover
A witty, winning, and revelatory personal narrative of the author’s transition from sightedness to … read more
Want to Read $ 12.99Similar categories in Andrew Leland's The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight book and Ari Shapiro's The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening
- biography
- memoir
- biography memoir
- nonfiction
- audiobook
"The problem arises, as [Adrienne] Asch observed, when "a single trait stands in for the whole, the trait obliterates the whole." Disabled people, like African Americans or any other marginalized grou…"-Andrew Leland, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight
