From Europe to the U.S. to outer space, big stories with high stakes dominated my reading list in May in both fiction and nonfiction. I also read a new academic book about the challenges Black language scholars face in academia.
Read on for short takes about all six books:
NONFICTION
Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI by Karen Hao
Business. Technology.
Penguin Press
May 2025
496 pages
In this highly acclaimed nonfiction book, journalist Karen Hao recounts the chilling history of conflict and chaos within OpenAI, the not-really-a-nonprofit company that created ChatGPT. Hao’s stated purpose isn’t to dismiss AI in its entirety, but rather to reject the “dangerous notion that broad benefits from AI can only be derived from—indeed, will ever emerge from—a vision for the technology that requires the complete capitulation of our privacy, our agency, and our worth, including the value of our labor and art, toward an ultimately imperial centralization project.” Whether OpenAI can be pivoted from its current harmful trajectory remains to be seen.
Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe by Katja Hoyer
History. Politics.
Basic Books
June 9, 2026
509 pages
Adolf Hitler’s dramatic rise to the peak of political power in Germany in the 1930s has been the subject of thousands of books. What historian Katja Hoyer brings to this fresh retelling is a perspective grounded in the Nazis’ power base in Weimar, where the democratic Weimar Republic was established after World War I. Personal stories from diaries written at the time are interwoven with political events, antisemitic violence, misappropriation of writers’ and artists’ work to support Nazism, and the construction, operation, and liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. The result is a thought-provoking portrait of Nazi leaders and ordinary German citizens who became witnesses, perpetrators, and victims in the two decades that led up to World War II and the Holocaust.
Lifting As We Climb: How Black Faculty Make Professional and Linguistic Choices to Thrive in Higher Education by Kendra Calhoun, Aris M. Clemons, Joy P. G. Peltier, Kahdeidra Monét Martin, and Anne H. Charity Hudley
Academic.
Teachers College Press
May 22, 2026
216 pages
This insightful collection of five academic articles explores common challenges and systemic barriers that Black language scholars face in academia. Examples include precariousness in the job market, loneliness of being the only Black instructor in an academic department at a predominately white institution, and exploitation of labor or ideas without proper recognition or reciprocity. Highlights include mini-biographies, a discussion of the importance of “mattering,” and specific, actionable suggestions and practical tips for Black language scholars (and their allies) to help ensure they thrive in their chosen career.
Full review coming soon on Mostly Books.
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation
by Andrew Ross Sorkin
Business. Finance. History.
Viking Penguin
October 2025
400 pages
This narrative history of the U.S. stock market crash in 1929 and the early years of the Great Depression that followed it flows from exhilarating and terrifying to tragic, thoughtful, and sobering. Author Andrew Ross Sorkin writes that by the end of 1930, economic pain had spread throughout the country, and by 1932, stock prices had dropped more than 80 percent from their peak. It was only in 1933, with the passage of the landmark Glass-Steagall Act, which set up federal deposit insurance and separated commercial banks and investment brokerages, that Wall Street was barred from “going back to the good old days” that triggered the catastrophe.
FICTION
Radiant Star by Ann Leckie
Speculative Fiction.
Orbit Books
May 12, 2026
432 pages
On the remote ice-covered planet Aaa, religious devotees known as “savants” await the return of the blessed Radiant Star, last seen three thousand years ago. Meanwhile, Captain Charak Svo tries to exercise her authority over Aaa’s only city, Ooioiaa; Hierarch Niranhin tries to consolidate his power over the savants, and Serque Tais, owner of Ooioiaa’s only waste management company, tries to become a saint in a process that will mummify him into a stiff, solid, and seated corpse. Despite some serious subject matter, this newest installment in Ann Leckie’s fan-favorite Radch universe delivers with a sardonic narrator and plenty of happily-ever-after for (almost) all.
Full review on Mostly Books: https://marciegeffner.substack.com/p/book-review-radiant-star-by-ann-leckie
Dooneen by Keith Ridgway
Literary Fiction.
New Directions
May 31, 2026
320 pages
In Keith Ridgway’s latest literary novel, Dooneen, a militarized, authoritarian government has taken control of Dublin, Ireland, and impoverished the populace. Bartholomew “Mew” Port, an author in town for a book festival, is drawn into a group of potentially violent dissents. A long walk through a maze of underground tunnels gives Mew an opportunity to hear their stories, some of which read like interrogations conducted by an invisible and silent inquisitor. Despite a slow pace, this disquieting and politically explosive novel hits hard. #
Full review on Mostly Books: https://marciegeffner.substack.com/p/book-review-dooneen-by-keith-ridgway
Marcie Geffner is a journalist, writer, and book critic in Ventura, California.
Disclosure: One of Lifting As We Climb’s lead authors is a member of a global online writing community of which I am also a member.
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