What Nonfiction Books Do You Love?

A Different Kind of Power- autobiography by Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of NZ

The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth by Elizabeth Rush Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

How the Word Was Passed by Clint Smith is a must read.

“All That Remains” by the incredible forensic anthropologist Sue Black. Has me wanting to donate my body to a university when I die.

– Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker – Outlive: the Science and Art of Longevity by Bill Gifford and Peter Attia – The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert – Townie: A Memoir by Andre Dubus III

Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates It made a huge impact on me, gorgeously written.

Immune by Philipp Dettmer/ kurzgesagt. My then 11 year old son an avid Kurzgesagt subscriber asked me to buy him this book, and he finished and read it all summer last year. He was talking about how I should give the book a try, and found myself enjoying and learning a lot.

Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life by Sharon Blackie. This book is about loving ourselves (women) as we age and get wiser and stronger and more badass. It’s about not letting the world tell us that aging is a disaster, but something that brings wisdom and experience and goodness. I listened to it on audio (she has such a soothing voice), but then went out and bought a hard copy and I plan to read it every other year until I die. This book is also so original in that it mixes psychology with European myths and stories in such a fascinating way. My friends would be tired of hearing about it, except that I think I’ve managed to intrigue them enough to want to read it too!

Everything is Tuberculosis – John Green. 11/10

I recommend Patrick Radden Keefe’s books. “Say Nothing” and “Empire of Pain” are both engrossing.

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing

This one haunts me! WE KEEP THE DEAD CLOSE by Becky Cooper. Becky returns to Harvard to research the murder of an anthropology student who was rumored to have been killed by a professor. And of course, I return again and again to Rebecca Solnit, usually “The Blue of Distance,” in A FIELD GUIDE TO GETTING LOST.

Loving all these new recommendations! Here’s a few of my favorites from the past year or two: – The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning – The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance – Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family – The Cancer Factory: Industrial Chemicals, Corporate Deception, and the Hidden Deaths of American Workers – The Sing Sing Files: One Journalist, Six Innocent Men, and a Twenty-Year Fight for Justice – No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us – Thank You for Your Service – Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum – Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America’s Second Slavery

Caste (Isabel Wilkerson), The Lightmaker’s Manifesto (Karen Walrond), Getting Along (Amy Gallo) and Likeable Badass (Alison Fragale)

Noah’s garden: restoring the ecology of our own backyards – Sara Stein. It’s a personal narrative as well as scientific and I found it very inspiring. The World Without us – Alan wiseman – sobering but also beautiful imagining of what would happen to the earth if we all just disappeared. The omnivore’s dilemma (and Michael Pollan’s other books). The intersection between food / agriculture/ ecology is super interesting to me. I loved this one and also in a similar but more personal vein, Barbara Kingsolver’s animal vegetable miracle and The one Hundred Mile Diet (MacKinnon and smith). All Oliver Sacks’s books too – my favourite was the man who mistook his wife for a hat. Surely you’re joking Mr Feynman – great memoir by Richard Feynman, which I randomly first read at age 10 or so. The physics went over my head and still do but it’s a great read. So many more good ones. I’m excited to read my way through some of this list!

My all time favorites (think I found many of them from COJ): Between Two Kingdoms Open (Andre Agassi) I’ll Show Myself Out No One Will Tell You This But Me You Could Make this Place Beautiful

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry – John Mark Comer The Psychology of Money – The Inner Game of Tennis – Gallwey If You See Them, Young, Unhoused and Alone in America – Sokolik

They publish an anthology of essays every year called The Best American Essays. It’s always such a great mix of nonfiction writing and each year the essays are selected by a different editor. I look forward to pre l-ordering it every year.

You Don’t Belong Here by Elizabeth Becker…about female war correspondents covering the Vietnam War…after reading The Women I wanted to know more…this was a different take and sooo good.

Does this qualify? The Observologist by Giselle Clarkson. This book will change the way you look at the world!

Four non fiction books have stuck with me over the years. In order from most recent: The 1619 Project. We Were Eight Years in Power. Between the World and Me. Six Frigates. The World is Flat(release 3). I have 10 Audible tokens. Need recommendations. I was thinking about Apple in China. On the other hand I’m afraid that book is just gonna make me depressed 😔.

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama A West Bank story by Nathan Thrall Essential

The Fire Next Time- James Baldwin One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This- Omar El Akkad Fat Talk- Virginia Sole-Smith

Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon, and Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against the Apocalypse by Emily Raboteau. Both about parenthood/motherhood but both about so so much more (identity, race, love, climate change, etc.).

Book and Dagger by Elyse Graham. WW2 about academics, librarians, and artists who helped fight against the axis of evil. Great chapters on those who had to flee the N@zis and who helped fight back using their cultural and institutional knowledge.It truly gave me a sense of hope for our current political climate

Late to the party, but didn’t see any of these repped already: All Dorothy Roberts: on medical racism— Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty. on the child welfare system—Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families–and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World Gretchen Sisson’s Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption, and the Privilege of American Motherhood Diane Foster Green’s The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion

I hope no one will need this recommendation, but for sufferers of chronic pain, I’ve found two books especially helpful: Dissolving Pain (Jim Robbins and Les Fehmi) and The Way Out (Alan Gordon and Alon Ziv). Both are accessible, easy reads and have made a big difference for me.

Catch & Kill by Ronan Farrow The Tell by Any Griffith In My Time Of Dying by Sebastian Junger Dryer’s English by Benjamin Dryer (that one’s a wild card – a grammar and style guide by the copy chief at , I think, Random House(

Thanks for the recommendation! I am reading “Heating and Cooling” and what a great book!

Evicted by Matthew Desmond is one of the most heart wrenching stories I’ve read. His book Poverty is also fabulous!

Ohhh, how I love this post! I read a lot and love to sprinkle in a good non-fiction book every so often. I loved Eat a Peach and Save Me the Plums (food memoirs are usually my favorites! The Vanity Fair Diaries was one of my top books of 2024, about the heyday of magazine publishing. I also loved Oscar Wars (a must for anyone who nerds out on the award show) and The Other Significant Others is both fascinating and moving. Happy reading!

Stories From Jonestown by Leigh Fondakowski (who also did The Laramie Project if you’re familiar with Matthew Shepherd’s story). This is narrative nonfiction and has stuck with me for a decade–I still cringe whenever I hear someone say “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.”

«Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves» – Truly wonderful!!

Can I just say that this comments section (751 and counting?!) is cup of jo gold. Thank you for the treasure chest of book recs♥ I think all the avid reader but rare commenters came out in full force.

Here are a few I haven’t seen in the comments yet that I still think about over the years. *To amaze you and make you say WOW! “An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us” by Ed Yong. *To sooth your soul: “The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating” by Elizabeth Bailey *To make you cheer!: “The Boys in the Boat” by Daniel James Brown *The most amazing survival story ever: “Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage” by Alfred Lansing *To make you feel like you’re hanging out with friends ” We Took to the Woods” by Louise Dickenson Rich. and “I Feel Bad About my Neck” by Nora Ephron. *To make you move to the Desert: “Desert Solitaire” by Edward Abbey *To educate you on heavy social issues: “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilderson.

I’m usually more of a reader than a listener, but recently I was so sick, and an audiobook was all I could manage. I ended up with a few from the library – the first being Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber, which I loved it. I lived in Oxford ages ago, and she depicts it so beautifully and vividly. That combined with her poetic memoir of a soul was captivating. Her life and experiences were, in many ways, very different from mine, but her writing was so beautiful that I felt like I was living the story with her.

I realize I forgot to recommend the best non-fiction book I’ve ever read: The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn.

“Poor” by Katriona O’Sullivan- amazing book

So many amazing books listed in these comments. Avid COJ reader but rare commentor, but can not resist sharing some of my favorites/highlights/recent reads too. Excited to check out many others shared. – Empire of Pain; Patrick Radden Keefe – Bad Blood; John Carreyrou – Midnight in Chernobyl; Adam Higginbottham – Poverty, by America; Matthew Desmond – Into the Raging Sea; Rachel Slade – Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets; David Simon – Evicted; Matthew Desmond – Into Thin Air; Jon Krakauer – Door to Door; Edward Humes – Columbine; Dave Cullen – What My Bones Know; Stephanie Foo – All the Living and the Dead; Hayley Campbell – You Could Make This Place Beautiful; Maggie Smith – While You Were Out; Meg Kissinger – So Sorry for Your Loss; Dina Gachman – Strangers to Ourselves; Rachel Aviv – I’m Glad My Mom Died; Jennette McCurdy – Acne; Laura Chinn – Crying in H Mart; Michelle Zauner – The Devil You Know: Encounters in Forensic Psychiatry; Gwen Adshead – Good Morning, Monster; Catherin Gildiner – Somebody’s Daughter; Ashley Ford – The the Dream House; Carmen Maria Machado – Hidden Valley Road; Robert Kolker – Catch and Kill; Ronan Farrow – Trick Mirror; Jia Tolentino – Maybe You Should Talk to Someone; Lori Gottlieb – Smoke Gets In Your Eyes; Caitlin Doughty – Save Me the Plums; Ruth Reichl – Kitchen Confidential; Anthony Bourdain – Under the Banner of Heaven; Jon Krakauer – The Girls of Atomic City; Denise Kiernan – Know My Name; Chanel Miller – Caste; Isabel Wilkerson – Grief is for People; Sloane Crosley – High Noon; Glenn Frankel – When Breath Becomes Air; Paul Kalanithi – Educated; Tara Westover – Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls; T Kira Madden – The Unclaimed; Pamela Prickett – The Best Minds; Jonathan Rosen – The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace; Jeff Hobbs – Garbology; Edward Humes – Learning in Public; Courtney Martin – Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks; Rebecca Skloot

-The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan. I didn’t think this would be one of my top nonfiction recs, but this book is engaging and I learned so much. -Connie: A Memoir by Connie Chung. She reads the audio book, and her story is incredible. -Black Snake: Standing Rock, the Dakota Access Pipeline, and Environmental Justice Katherine Wiltenburg Todrys. Thrilling despite knowing the outcome and heartbreaking. Have you listened to Obama read his book A Promised Land? It’s wonderful to hear him read about his life and I love it when he swears in his measured Obama way.

Barbarian days is a surfing memoir and it’s probably my favorite book ever.

Everything by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and everything by Hanif Abdurraqib. Searching for the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard. All of Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s essays.

Not a book recommendation but for all those who enjoyed/recommended “Say Nothing” by Patrick Radden Keefe, you may enjoy a multi part documentary called “Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland”. Very well done! https://www.pbs.org/show/once-upon-time-northern-ireland/

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer has been life changing for me. Other all-time favorites include: Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay The Color of Water by James McBride Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kaleb What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande is required reading for every human on the face of the planet. Understanding how to die with dignity is something we don’t talk about enough, because it’s uncomfortable and sad. But Dr Gawande makes this the new normal. Highly highly recommend.

Two of the booksellers at my neighborhood bookstore (Phinney Books in Seattle!) had “Woman in the Polar Night” by Christiane Ritter on their best reads of 2024 shelf and it caught my eye. It’s the re-released memoir of a woman who spent a year(ish?) on an island in the arctic in the 1930s and her experiences are WILD! And unique as most accounts of this nature are from men…and a woman’s perspective is, as ever, so valuable and interesting.

– Hijab Butch Blues – Lamya H: memoir by a queer Muslim immigrant – Disability Visibility – ed. Alice Wong: collection of first-person essays by disabled people that covers such a variety of topics and voices – Unnatural Selection – Katrina van Grouw: about selective breeding and evolution. beautifully illustrated by the author – Being Mortal – Atul Gawande: written by a physician whose family is from India. he writes about his father’s death and our modern American medical system, and talks both practically and philosophically about approaches to death. I read this while my grandma was nearing the end of her life 5 years ago and it has stuck with me ever since – The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat – Oliver Sacks: a neurologist who writes beautifully about his patients and what we can learn about the brain and mind from them – Stiff – Mary Roach: did you ever wonder what happens to your body after you die? there are more possibilities than you might think. everything I’ve read by Mary Roach has been funny, and this is my favorite one (maybe because I’m in a profession that deals with death and post-life)

‘The way home’ by Mark Boyle about living entirely free of technology was a life changing book for me. Also ‘diary of a young naturalist’ by Dara mcanulty was so beautifully written about irish nature.

So many great books here. One that I didn’t see on the google spreadsheet that is worth your time: Three Women. It follows three women (duh ;)) with a focus on their sex lives and relationships. Each woman is so vulnerable in what she shares with the journalist that captures each story, and the author really captures the complicated feelings, choices, scenarios we face in life. They also made a limited series from it, but I didn’t watch it yet

Isabel Wilkerson’s Warmth from Other Suns about Black migration in the 1930s, 40s and 50s is my favorite book of all time. Its a must read!

A Primate’s Memoir by Robert Sapolsky. Sapolsky is a neuroscientist and this is the memoir of him studying baboons in Africa for grad school. Part baboon science and part memoir of a kid in Africa. I first read this 20 years ago and have never stopped recommending it.

This comment thread was so exciting. I have $300 worth of books in my Thriftbooks cart now.

Astoria by PeterStark—history written like an adventure novel

I’m excited to peruse this thread. I love non-fiction, and don’t read it as often as I would like. Here are some books I’ve loved. -Say Nothing by Patrick Radan Keefe. His book on the Sackler family was also good. -Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott -We Don’t Know Ourselves: a Personal History of Modern Ireland by Fintan O’Toole I’ve also loved Hermione Lee’s biographies – of Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton and Penelope Fitzgerald.

I finally got into nonfiction this year and wow, what a great big world to learn about and what a delightful post full of pitches on why you will actually be ENTRANCED by a book on eels/a very specific shipwreck/quantum physics. It’s like a personalized version of NPR’s Book Concierge which IMO is one of the great inventions of the past decade! I love a gentle organizing task so I put as many of these recommendations as I could in a spreadsheet for safekeeping/future library holds, in case anyone else would find it useful! https://tinyurl.com/CoJNonfiction

-The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (esp loved the audio version; his voice is very pleasant). -Braiding Sweetgrass (life changing) -Cod (esp great if you are Portuguese, fish, eat fish, or live in New England) -Devil in the White City (esp great if you know Chicago well) -Under the Banner of Heaven -Missoula (will enrage you) -Four Thousand Weeks

-Warmth of Other Suns (incredible) -Just Mercy -Eat the Buddha

As a child, I wasn’t surrounded by books, but my dad was always reading newspapers and magazines – now I am a more voracious reader but find that I can’t read more than one or two novels before needing to pick up non-fiction. Four Favourites In 2025 (so far): – Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman by Niko Stratis – Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein – The Nature of Our Cities by Nadina Galle – How to Make a Slave and Other Essays by Jerald Walker All-Time: – anything by Hanif Abdurraqib but especially There’s Always This Year – Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord – Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga

So many incredible recs here! Adding one I haven’t seen yet: The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea by Jack E Davis. It won the Pullitzer for history five years ago and I picked it up on a whim. It completely altered my understanding of everything from shrimp cocktails to natural disasters. A deep and fascinating history of the Gulf of Mexico that vibrates with reverence for the environment. Highly recommend.

Educated by Tara Westover. I enjoyed it so much, I gave it to five people as a Christmas gift a few years ago, forcibly creating a book club so we could discuss at length the wild ride that this true story is.

A book my mum recommended to me and I pass along to everyone I know, ever, and always: Sharon Blackie’s If Women Rose Rooted. Part memoir, part mythology, all amazing.

Far from the Tree, Andrew Solomon No Visible Bruises, Rachel Louise Snyder A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand I’m Wearing Tunics Now, Wendi Aarons

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson One of the few books I’ve read twice and I’m sure I’ll read it again in the future. Powerful, deeply moving, bring tissues, etc etc…there aren’t enough superlatives.

This is SUCH a great comment section. A few more from me: A couple of books I read from a previous reader comment section on CoJ, maybe 10 years ago? … – ‘Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea’ – Barbara Demick – ‘Stasiland’ – Anna Funder (her most recent book ‘Wifedom’, about George Orwell’s wife is excellent too) And some others from my bookshelf: – ‘On the Map’ and ‘Just My Type’ by Simon Garfield – ‘The Address Book’ by Deirdre Mask In the self-help arena: – ‘Presence’ by Amy Buddy – ‘Grit’ by Angela Duckworth’ – ‘How to be Yourself’ and ‘How to be Enough’ by Ellen Hendrikson I also really enjoyed ‘Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Case of Hugette Clarke and the Loss of One of the World’s Greatest Fortunes’. Fascinating!

If y’all like a good story about puppy pals, When Harry Met Minnie is wonderful. I loved it more than I thought I would! The All Creatures Great and Small series from Yorkshire vet James Herriot is an excellent, heart warming non-fiction choice as well!

Great topic! Now if someone would categorize all of these suggestions, that would be amazing! My favorites: I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Finding Freedom, I’m Glad My Mom Died, Bad Blood

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard Little Labors by Rivka Galchen The Rainbow Comes and Goes by Anderson Cooper Inheritance by Dani Shapiro Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb At Home in the Heart of Appalachia by John O’Brien Changing My Mind by Zadie Smith Strong as a Mother by Kate Rope Bravey by Alexi Pappas The Beauty of What Remains by Steve Leder The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson Self Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen by Joanna Faber

Anything from Patti Smith, Molly Wizenberg, Ruth Reichl are at the top of the list. Also really loved Gabrielle Hamilton’s ‘Blood Bones and Butter’ and anything from Mary Roach or David Sedaris. So excited to read through what others love with the Libby app open!

A few standouts for me are: The Place of Tides by James Rebanks Prague Winter by Madeleine Albright (Feels so relevant right now!) Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont Origins: A Genetic History of the Americas by Jennifer Raff