1. All In: An Autobiography by Billie Jean King, Johnette Howard and Maryanne Vollers (Knopf)

The tennis megastar, remembered on the court for her Grand Slam titles and destruction of Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes,” has written (with assists from top-notch Howard and Vollers) an account distinguished by its candor and principles. King conveys the thrill of hitting a tennis ball and the intensity of the sport as well as her determination to fight for equal rights, refusing to knuckle under to conformity and losing endorsement contracts after a past female lover filed a palimony lawsuit. King recounts her evolution into an activist, taking on the tennis establishment in a quest for equal rights for women players and fighting for trans rights and gun control, all while dealing with her personal challenges like an eating disorder, with a convincing authenticity and passion rare for a celebrity.

2. The Arbornaut: A Life Discovering the Eighth Continent in the Trees Above Us by Meg Lowman (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)

“I will never look at a tree in the same way again, nor will the rest of the world, thanks to the author of this book,” writes oceanographer Sylvia A. Earle (aka “Her Deepness”) in her foreword to this mind-blowing book by Lowman (aka “Her Highness” or “Canopy Meg”), who really does see the trees and the forest. From her childhood summers on a lake in a leaky boat, peering through enormous binoculars from Sears, through nearly six decades of a passion for plants – “specifically a field biologist who studies biodiversity” – Lowman’s enthusiasm feels real as she explains that over half of land’s creatures live about 100 feet above our heads in the treetops. A winning memoir of her journey from Elmira, New York, around the world through the wonders of treetops, arguing for the recognition of trees as unique and for preservation of their ecosystem, The Arbornaut deserves to share bookshelf space with Richard Powers’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Overstory.

3. Refugee High: Coming of Age in America by Elly Fishman (New Press)

In a feat of immersive reporting, Fishman spent more than three years chronicling life at Chicago’s Sullivan High School, where half the student body was originally from another country, a school that welcomes more refugees than any other high school in the state. Fishman zeros in on a set of teens from Iraq and Burma as well as one born in a Tanzanian refugee camp. In this book that documents an academic year at Sullivan, Fishman connects with students and families and clearly has won their trust to vividly convey the traumas of their childhood, the instability of their unsafe American neighborhoods, and their quests for asylum. Fishman deftly weaves in the changing national context of xenophobia and the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies, while capturing the dynamic of the school administration and the overworked and devoted director of its newly created Newcomer Center, and the subtle tensions and pressures of assimilation.

4. The Most Fun Thing: Dispatches from a Skateboard Life by Kyle Beachy (Grand Central)

In his meditative linked essays, Beachy chronicles his 30s through his passion for the “sacred” art of skateboarding. Easily shifting between the nuances of boarding tricks and the challenges of his marriage, he casts them in the cultural context of skateboarding’s anti-authoritarian roots and impulses and his own often-futile efforts to balance the competing demands of writing and skateboarding. For a taste of Beachy’s distinctive style, try the podcast Vent City, which he co-hosts with his skateboarding friends.

5. Afterparties: Stories by Anthony Veasna So (Ecco)

This debut story collection was published after So’s death in December. Hotly anticipated with headlines praising So (1992–2020) as a young writer on the brink of stardom, Afterparties hits the bestseller lists with boosts from supporters like Roxane Gay, who selected it for her monthly Audacious Book Club, and n+1, the magazine to which he was a contributor and which established the Anthony Veasna So Fiction Prize in his honor. The powerful, imaginative stories are rooted in California’s Central Valley among generations of Cambodian American immigrants, haunted by the Khmer Rouge and genocide, and hit a dizzyingly wide range of emotional notes that seem to burst beyond the pages of this short volume.