10 Fascinating Graphic Nonfiction Books for Curious Minds

Pinball: A Graphic History of the Silver Ball by Jon Chad

If there’s an arcade, I’m heading for the pinball machine. There’s thing profoundly fascinating to maine astir trying to recognize each the bells and whistles successful that cacophonous small box. (I’m presently obsessed with the Godzilla instrumentality astatine my section pinball joint.) The crippled itself has a fascinating history, too, touching connected the Court of King Louis XIV and organized transgression successful 20th period New York. This breathtaking publication with appropriately kinetic artwork finds the throughline, bouncing each implicit the spot similar a bully pinball game.

The American Dream? A Journey connected Route 66 Discovering Dinosaur Statues, Muffler Man, and the Perfect Breakfast Burrito: a Graphic Memoir by Shing Yin Khor

Anyone’s thought of the United States is constricted by their exposures to people, landscapes, and taste products. Roadtrips crossed the state supply fantabulous opportunities to grow that vulnerability portion besides getting a consciousness of however the state sees itself. This question memoir from a Malaysian migrant chronicles their travel on historical Route 66 with a saccharine canine companion. It’s a communicative afloat of warmth and curiosity.

The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television by Koren Shadmi

If you’ve spent immoderate clip watching The Twilight Zone (I urge the marathons that popular up connected tv astir New Year’s Eve/Day), you’ll find reasonably subversive messages disguised with monsters, aliens, and different spooky phenomena. You’ll besides find, you know, murderous dolls and whatnot. But this publication profiling Rod Serling’s quest to unfastened tv viewers’ minds to ideas some weird and progressive volition augment your appreciation for the classical amusement and the antheral down it. 

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Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes by Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, and Amézian, translated by Edward Gauvin

Gaining an knowing of modern China requires knowing astir the 1989 concern of Tiananmen Square, erstwhile students and different acrophobic citizens protested demanding governmental reform. Images of tanks rolling into the quadrate dominated planetary quality astatine the time, but this firsthand relationship from a young teacher who witnessed the events paints a richer representation of this infamous incident.

Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice by Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes, and Dawud Anyabwile

People who deliberation sports shouldn’t premix with authorities don’t cognize thing astir sports history. As with the supra publication astir Tiananmen Square, galore radical person seen the photograph of 2 Black Americans connected the podium astatine the 1968 Olympics successful Mexico City, fists raised successful protestation against radical injustice successful the United States. The remainder of the communicative astir that iconic photograph is perfectly essential, and this graphic memoir aimed astatine young readers shares the stirring, courageous truth.

The Body Factory: From the First Prosthetics to the Augmented Human by Héloïse Chochois, translated by Jeremy Melloul

This book, focused connected amputation, looks astatine the intersections of disability, transhumanism, and aesculapian past — positive the specter that loom implicit each of them, eugenics. Unsurprisingly, you should beryllium prepared for immoderate reasonably elaborate illustrations of surgeries. But if a Magic School Bus-esque travel done these topics appeals to you, you’re successful for thing informative, thought-provoking, and adjacent humorous astatine times.

The High Desert: Black. Punk. Nowhere. by James Spooner

I’m a large instrumentality of books that blend idiosyncratic communicative with an facet of history. This memoir astir the instauration of the Afro-punk civilization is cleanable for fans of euphony history, arsenic good anyone who’s ever been looking for their spot to acceptable in. While this publication is surely large for adults, it’s besides large to walk connected to younger readers who mightiness beryllium inspired to find the counterculture that appeals to them.

American Cult edited by Robyn Chapman

Over 20 antithetic cartoonists contributed to this past of spiritual cults successful the United States. Presented successful a escaped chronological order, the cults span the precocious 1600s to the infamous NXIVM cult that was the taxable of aggregate books, podcasts, and documentaries. Some of the contributors are themselves survivors of cults. If this appeals to you, cheque retired my database of must-read books astir cults.

Monumental: Oscar Dunn and His Radical Fight successful Reconstruction Louisiana by Brian K. Mitchell, Barrington S. Edwards, and Nick Weldon

The Reconstruction Era gets abbreviated shrift successful American past classes, successful my experience. The lessons are each scandals and corruption, and indispensable stories get near out. This publication profiles Oscar Dunn, a antheral calved into slavery who became America’s archetypal Black lieutenant politician and acting governor. Told with rigorous superior sources, this publication gives a caller presumption connected a analyzable and tumultuous play successful history.

WE HEREBY REFUSE: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration by Frank Abe, Tamiko Nimura, Matt Sasaki, and Ross Ishikawa

First of all, radical request to beryllium educated astir the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It’s an disfigured section of past that is glossed implicit each excessively often. Then, radical request to cognize that Japanese Americans didn’t spell quietly. Highlighting the absorption from 3 individuals, this publication draws from archival materials to archer their moving, sometimes brutal, stories.