Match BookFatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century
Dorothy Roberts
2011 · 400 pages · Narrative nonfiction
How it reads
Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century is narrative nonfiction (social science and race studies, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.
It's set in several locations, in the present day, told through letters, documents or mixed forms. Its central concerns are identity, power and politics and class and society. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.
It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 400 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.
Pick it up if…
- you're in the mood for something tense
- you want something to chew on
- you want a complete story in one book
Maybe not if…
- you need something cosy or heartwarming
All 15 dimensions
- Genre
- narrative nonfiction
- Author gender
- female
- Author experience
- established
- Setting: place
- multiple locations
- Setting: time
- contemporary
- Mood / feeling
- tense
- Pace
- moderate
- Tone / weight
- heavy and literary
- Length
- medium
- Narrative style
- letters, documents or mixed forms
- Publication era
- modern classic
- Popularity
- well known
- Series vs standalone
- standalone
- Themes
- identity, power and politics, class and society
- Ending style
- resolved and happy
What these mean: the 15 dimensions of a book.
Books with a similar reading
The closest books in Match Book's catalogue across the same dimensions, and what they share.
- Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily LifeNassim Nicholas TalebShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong ThingsBarry GlassnerShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace- GODDESS OF THE MARKETBurnsShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points that Challenge Every Company and CareerAndrew S. GroveShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- Pegasus: How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and DemocracyLaurent RichardShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
- This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms RaceNicole PerlrothShares: narrative nonfiction, tense mood, heavy and literary tone, moderate pace
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