The Way Home in the Night by Akiko Miyakoshi

'Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore' by Elizabeth Rush (Milkweed, 320 pages, $26) With the snap of a great narrative and near-Biblical grandeur, Blight recounts the myth-making that Douglass assembled for himself while shredding the easier image of high school history classes: Douglass, Blight writes, presented the 19th century with something it had not anticipated, a 'frightening black man with brains, who has penetrated the racist psyches of powerful people with words and his physical presence.' The definitive biography you assumed was already written. Historian David Blight returns the heartbeat to the story of a man too often known from plaques and speeches.

Some historical figures never break from their amber jails, regardless of how vital their legends may be. Blight (Simon & Schuster, 913 pages, $37.50) 'Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom' by David W. The accumulated power of these pieces - angry, corny, inspiring, mournful and insane - takes on the shape of a salute to durable, keenly observed newspaper writing. And yet, what is actually here, a decade of stories about crumbling traditions, breaks in trust and flickers of grace, is the most comprehensive single-book portrait of the United States (circa 2007-2016) in a long time.

Story to story, this collection of reportage from Dan Barry for The New York Times might appear to be what it is - old journalism. 'This Land: America, Lost and Found' by Dan Barry (Black Dog & Leventhal, 400 pages, $29.95) (Bonus points for the most fitting epigraph in years: John Ashbery's perfect reminder that 'Some things are simultaneously too boring and too exciting to write about.') As Anderson insists, you really do start to believe this is the story of everything. Sam Anderson goes to Oklahoma City to write about basketball and expectations, then, pinging between centuries and subjects, electric with curiosity, comes away with a story of highways, weather forecasting, land rushes and James Harden. Then again, before reading John McPhee's 'Oranges' and Ian Frazier's 'Great Plains,' citrus and the Dakotas weren't especially front-of-mind either.

'Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-Class Metropolis' by Sam Anderson (Crown, 448 pages, $27) But in this universe, here's what I especially adored this year. Say you think the following top-10 list is ridiculous and an equally valid list, in an alternative universe, must include Wesley Yang's essay collection 'The Souls of Yellow Folk,' Jill Lepore's 'These Truths: A History of the United States,' Susan Orlean's 'The Library Book,' and 'The Witch Elm,' the latest masterful crime novel by Tana French.

The Way Home in the Night by Akiko Miyakoshi