Non-Fiction — Narrative Nonfiction

Cue the Sun!

Because, like, why read Cue the Sun!? Did it put anything into grand perspective? Did it change the way I felt about any big moments in TV programming? Did it make me more or less likely to watch reality TV going forward? Not really, no. It’s just sort of an interesting way to spend your time. The author is talented, with fun sentences like, “Every time a free AOL disc frisbeed into someone’s mailbox, it felt like an invitation to dial in, then confess, anonymously, to strangers. Mixing the internet with reality TV was the speedball of pop culture.” I am not implying the book is mindless junkfood in a simple parallel to the frequent label that is tritely applied to reality programming. Just that the book is structured in a comprehensive and clear way—it does not have a “twist” or “reveal” like it would if it were aping its subject matter, for which I was probably subconsciously braced.

David DinaburgOctober 13, 2024reality TV, Non-Fiction, The New Yorker

¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons

As individual essays, they’re fun to read. As a collection—one in which I felt personally invested, thanks to the parasocial nature of social media—I would recommend taking them more slowly than the library allowed me.

David DinaburgDecember 1, 2021Memoir, Essay, Non-Fiction

Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers

Based on past years of detective work, CrowdStrike tied Fancy Bear to the Russian military intelligence agency known as th GRU. Cozy Bear, it would later be revealed, worked within Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency.(The two “bear” names derived from CrowdStrike’s system of labeling hacker teams with different animals based on their country of origin--bears for Russia, pandas for China, tigers for India, and so on.)

These are cool little facts that add depth to general interest readers. Cybersecurity people would know this naming convention, but I definitely didn’t. It’s a nice peek behind the curtain, and something I appreciate being explained; a lot of books that focus only on their core demographic might elide this part to make sure they don’t bore or insult their intended audience.

David DinaburgFebruary 9, 2021Tech, Non-Fiction

Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit

Much like you need to be “above 5’9” and under 6 feet” to be considered a model, you need to know what words will be used and how in each specific frame of reference. But VIP never moves too fast, or assumes you come into the pages knowing exactly what a high-end club looks, sounds, or feels like. The book never punishes you for being outside, looking in: in fact, it is presented from the liminal space between inside and outside the scene. As both erstwhile model and active sociologist, the author is in the field, participating without disrupting; an important facet of why the book works as well as it does. As reader, you never feel left outside the velvet ropes so the author can flex their intellectual fortitude.

David DinaburgJanuary 10, 2021Non-Fiction, Nightlife, Sociology

Once Upon a Time in Shaolin: The Untold Story of the Wu Tang Clan's Million-Dollar Secret Album, the Devaluation of Music, and America's New Public Enemy No. 1

I am not exaggerating when I say I would consider myself successful as a writer if I turn a garbage-nothing clichéd phrase like “due diligence” into idiosyncratic flow with half the zest as a cool quarter of the sentences in this book.

David DinaburgMay 11, 2020Non-Fiction, Wu Tang, Music Industry

Catch & Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators

Catch & Kill is too Eustace Tilley to be a trash spectacle, too sombre because it respects and internalizes serious subject matter, too close, too soon, too decent. It’s the opera Pagliacci when you’re searching for the “But, doctor, I am Pagliacci” joke format.

David DinaburgMay 11, 2020Non-Fiction, Film