Archives de catégorie : Narrative Nonfiction

THE LAST WHALE HUNTER de Justin Vibbert

A gripping work of narrative nonfiction that transports readers to the remote island of Bequia and into a battle for the soul of the Caribbean.

THE LAST WHALE HUNTER
by Justin Vibbert
Diversion Books, November 2026
(via Kaplan/DeFiore Rights)

Bequia—a volcanic speck in the Lesser Antilles—finds itself in crisis. Chinese-backed infrastructure now stretches from Jamaica to Trinidad; meanwhile, U.S. developers are scrambling to counter Beijing’s influence with luxury resorts. The result: local workers, displaced by foreign labor and priced out of their homes, are migrating south down the chain of islands in search of jobs. For former fishermen and port workers Nico, Junior, Baby, and Eustace, whaling isn’t about preserving tradition: it’s about staying afloat.

The man they sail with, and the heart of this book, is Bruce Ollivierre, whose family has hunted whales for generations. In THE LAST WHALE HUNTER, we journey alongside Ollivierre and his crew of economic migrants as they battle millionaire environmentalists, crumbling ocean ecosystems, and an ancient foe five hundred times their size.

Diving deep into Bequia’s resilient past, Vibbert details the epic story of Ollivierre’s enslaved ancestors, who built a whaling industry from scratch after British landowners abandoned the island and its failing sugar plantations. Now, as new empires carve up the Caribbean, Ollivierre has just days left in the season to land a whale and bring in enough money to keep schools open and his people housed and fed. All eyes turn to the 2025 Easter Regatta, where a final, high-risk hunt unfolds in full view of locals, yachting tourists—and Louise Mitchell, the island’s most powerful anti-whaling crusader, bent on shutting Ollivierre down for good. Failure could mean death for him and his men—and the end of whaling on Bequia altogether.

Justin Vibbert is a journalist and English Instructor at the City University of New York. His embedded reporting on underworld figures inspired the Off-Broadway play Royal Oak, now in development as a limited TV series. Justin has extensive magazine connections and has already been approached by The Explorers Club to give a presentation upon publication. This project has drawn early interest from Robert Downey Jr. and Gregg Bello, as well as documentary filmmaker Sasha Kneller (National Geographic, Discovery Channel). In addition to his writing, Justin is a model who has appeared in major brand campaigns for Ralph Lauren, American Express, and Google.

DARK FACTOR de Benjamin E. Hilbig, Morten Moshagen & Ingo Zettler

Gripping insights into the dark side of human nature.

DARK FACTOR
by Benjamin E. Hilbig, Morten Moshagen & Ingo Zettler
Artiston/PRH Germany, October 2025

What do people with a tendency to steal, incite hatred, bully and lie have in common? Studies conducted over the past 10 years by international teams of researchers suggests that what they all share is a quality called ‘the dark factor’. It exists in each of us to a greater or lesser degree, and can actually be measured. For the first time ever, DARK FACTOR provides comprehensive answers to some key questions, based on data obtained from more than 2 million people.

What makes us do bad things? What do our negative personality traits – such as narcissism, psychopathy and sadism – have in common? How do gender, age and level of education affect the dark factor, and how does it, in turn, shape our relationships, career choices and political views? Does it lead to success and happiness, or is it more likely to make you lonely, or even ill? And can its levels change, or is it a case of ‘once bad, always bad’?

The D-Factor: The general tendency to maximize one’s individual utility – disregarding, accepting, or malevolently provoking disutility for others –, accompanied by beliefs that serve as justifications

An analysis of the nine classic personality traits: egoism, malice, Machiavellianism, moral disengagement, narcissism, psychopathy, sadism, self-centeredness and excessive entitlement.

Prof. Benjamin E. Hilbig, PhD, has a degree in psychology and obtained his PhD in 2009. He then joined the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods before moving to an assistant professor role at the University of Mannheim, where he specialised in judgement and decision-making. In 2014, he joined the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, where he heads up the experimental psychology and personality research group. He specialises in ethical and social decision-making, personality traits and research methods.

Prof. Dr. Morten Moshagen has a PhD in psychology. Following a postdoc at the University of Mannheim, he became professor of psychology at the University of Kassel in 2014, specialising in research methods. After a spell at the University of Copenhagen as visiting researcher, he joined the University of Ulm in 2016. He now heads up Ulm’s Department of Research Methods in Psychology, specialising in mathematical modelling and socially problematic personality traits.

Prof. Dr. Ingo Zettler is professor of personality and behaviour at the University of Copenhagen’s Institute of Psychology and Center for Social Data Science (SODAS). Before moving to Denmark, he did a degree in psychology, and after graduating worked at the RWTH in Aachen (obtaining his PhD there) and at the University of Tübingen. He is part of a research team specialising in personality traits and their significance in different contexts, including anti-social, pro-social, workplace and environment-related behaviour.

THE GLORIANS de Terry Tempest Williams

From the visionary New York Times bestselling author, a revelatory work of narrative nonfiction exploring beauty in the desert, climate change, and, transformative moments of power in a world beset by uncertainty.

THE GLORIANS
by Terry Tempest Williams
Grove Press, March 2026

Whether we believe it or not, rapid change is upon us. I am searching for grace.

In this time of political fragility, climate chaos, and seeking beauty wherever we can find its glimmer, Terry Tempest Williams introduces us to the Glorians. They are not distant deities, but the ordinary, often overlooked presences—animal, plant, memory, moment—that reveal our shared vulnerability and interconnectedness with the natural world. The Glorians can be as small as an ant ferrying a coyote willow blossom to its queen or as commonplace as the night sky. But what they can collectively show us—about the radical act of attending to beauty and carrying forward against all odds—is immense.

Journeying through encounters with the Glorians in the red rock desert of Utah during the pandemic to Harvard University where she teaches in the Divinity School, Williams weaves a story of astonishing personal and societal insight. As she grapples with the unsettled state of the world, she turns not to despair but to deep reflection. She sees how the Glorians are calling us to attention, not as an army, but as fellow inhabitants of our sacred, threatened home. They remind us of the power of contact between species and the profound courage—and awareness—it will take to dream a more cohesive future into being.

Wise and lyrical, The Glorians is a testament to the power of witness, a field guide to finding grace in the unexpected, and a moving invitation to engage with one another and our surroundings with renewed intention. In a modern world filled with increasing noise and anxiety, Terry Tempest Williams offers honest sustenance for the mind and spirit and distinguishes herself again as a trusted voice to whom we can turn to more fully understand our times.

Terry Tempest Williams is the award-winning author of over twenty books of creative nonfiction, including the environmental classic, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. Among her other books are Leap; Red; The Open Space of Democracy; Finding Beauty in a Broken World; When Women Were Birds; The Hour of Land; and Erosion: Essays of Undoing. Her work has been translated and anthologized worldwide. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Lannan Literary Award, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters and is currently writer-in-residence at the Harvard Divinity School. She divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Southeastern Utah.

THE NIGHT GARDENER de Susannah Charleson

In the spirit of Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller, Fox and I by Catherine Raven, and Wintering by Katherine May, THE NIGHT GARDENER is a beautiful inquiry into the natural world, as well as a contemplation on loss and grief and the hope of re-birth. A perfect mix of narrative, memoir and nature writing.

THE NIGHT GARDENER:
Grief, Regrowth, and the Secret Life of Nature After Dark
by Susannah Charleson
St. Martin’s Press, Fall 2027/Winter 2028

It is another sleepless night for Susannah Charleson, beset by grief over the death of her mother, and waging a years’ long battle with insomnia in the way one does when a loved one is lost and you’re left contemplating life. A shrill cry echoes in the middle of the night (Human? Animal? What?), and Susannah is drawn out onto her porch and suddenly headlong into a childhood memory of that same sound—a fox crying out in the dark—and a youthful fascination with the night that likewise kept her curious younger self up at odd hours. What goes on when humans are sleeping? Susannah remembers wondering. What lives do the plants, animals, and insects lead in the night?

And so, she lights on the idea of using her anxious, sleepless hours in another way—by gardening at night. She studies the medieval practice of two sleeps, in which an individual rests twice each night, divided by an active middle-of-the-night pursuit. She researches the history of the land and the soil on which her house is perched. She gathers tools, gear, seeds, and a research-grade microscope, hatching plans to rise night after night when the rest of the world is sleeping and work outside over the course of a year to transform her disheveled yard into a beautiful garden sanctuary and wildlife habitat. Frozen ground, stubborn roots, a fall that trips her watch alarm, a tornado blowing through, and a four-foot snake with a penchant for surprises make for a bumpy beginning, but as each night passes, dogs by her side, and progress is made, what Susannah discovers in the dark is a revelation. And a salvation.

THE NIGHT GARDENER is a beautiful look into the science of the natural world, as well as into the human soul, an inquiry of the sort that can only happen when the world quiets enough so we can listen, really listen, and see, and not just appreciate but come to understand. 

Susannah Charleson is an award-winning journalist, professor and the author of three books, including the New York Times bestselling Scent of the Missing: Love and Partnership with a Search and Rescue Dog. Charleson’s work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, The Wall Street Journal, The Denver Post, AARP Magazine, People, The Bark, Life+Dog, and on ABC’s Good Morning America, Fox & Friends, and NPR’s Here & Now.

THE BURIED TEACHESTS d’Annika Blau

An extraordinary true story of family secrets, scandal, and survival.

THE BURIED TEACHESTS
by Annika Blau
on submission
(via The Pilkington Agency)

THE BURIED TEACHESTS follows journalist Annika Blau’s journey after she stumbles upon a secret family legacy. What follows is a remarkable investigation into a family who rose to prominence as purveyors of the famous 4711 cologne, only to be brought down by scandal, internment, and erasure.

A few years ago, Annika discovered that two teachests of mail collected by her great-grandfather had been found during a demolition and auctioned off for a small fortune by strangers. They were lauded as one of the most significant hauls of military mail in Commonwealth history, containing rare correspondence from Sydney’s WW1 prisoner of war camp. But for Annika,they revealed family secrets, silences and shame.

Using the mail as clues, Annika uncovers the riches to rags tale of the relatives who collected it. Charting a path through two world wars and the Great Depression, it’s a story about the family’s rise to Sydney’s high society and their fall to years behind bars as British “war trophies”. At the heart of the story is a mystery: why did Annika’s great-grandfather collect this historic haul only to hide it under some floorboards? Ultimately, she discovers he buried not just the teachests, but the truth of who the family were and where they came from.

At once memoir and investigation, The Buried Teachests sits alongside Wifedom by Anna Funder and The Hare with Amber Eyes as a powerful exploration of identity, loss, and the truths families bury to endure.

Annika Blau is an award-winning journalist, editor and podcaster. She is a reporter for ABC Radio National’s flagship investigative program, Background Briefing. In 2023, she wrote, produced and presented The Buried Teachests: a two-part podcast series for RN’s History Listen program.