10 Non-Fiction Picks for Your Book Club
They say that truth is stranger than fiction. Now we can’t say for sure if that’s true, but what we can confirm is that our picks for the latest in non-fiction hold their own when it comes to plot twists, larger-than-life characters, and worlds unlike any other.
Get ready to gab about riveting memoirs, engrossing true crime, and poignant culture analysis and journalism. Your book club won’t know what hit ’em.
London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe
From the bestselling, prize-winning author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, a spellbinding account of a family devastated by the sudden death of their nineteen-year-old son, only to discover that he had a secret life in the criminal underworld that lies beneath London’s glittering surface.
In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man by Tom Junod
From two-time National Magazine Award winner Tom Junod, a searching, brilliantly stylized memoir about a charismatic, philandering father who tried to mold his son in his image, the many secrets he hid, the son’s obsessive quest to uncover them, and ultimately, the true meaning of manhood.
When It All Burns by Jordan Thomas
A gripping firsthand account of a record-setting fire season, from a cultural anthropologist who spent a year working as a hotshot firefighter, exploring the history and future of fire in America.
Educated by Tara Westover
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. When one of her brothers got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
We Survived the Night by Julian Brave Noisecat
Drawing from five years of on-the-ground reporting, We Survived the Night paints a profound and unforgettable portrait of contemporary Indigenous life, survival, and love alongside an intimate and deeply powerful reckoning between a father and a son.
Paper Girl by Beth Macy
From Beth Macy, one of our most acclaimed chroniclers of the forces eroding America’s social fabric, her most personal and powerful work: a reckoning with the changes that have rocked her own beloved small Ohio hometown.
Someone Like Me edited by Clem Bastow and Jo Case
In Someone Like Me twenty-five Autistic gender-diverse and women writers explore their experiences and explode stereotypes. This groundbreaking anthology ranges from sex, living room dance parties, and the natural world to eating disorders, all-encompassing passions, and religion.
Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert
What happened to feminism in the twenty-first century? This question feels increasingly urgent in a moment of cultural and legislative backlash, when widespread uncertainty about the movement’s power, focus, and currency threatens decades of progress. In Girl on Girl, Sophie Gilbert delivers a blistering indictment of the matrix of misogyny that undergirded the cultural production of the early twenty-first century, and continues to shape our world today.
Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
Raising Hare chronicles the journey Chloe Dalton and a newborn wild hare take together while also doing a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore. We witness firsthand the joy at this extraordinary relationship between human and animal, which serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, arise when we least expect them.
Sharks Don’t Sink by Jasmin Graham
How do sharks, which are denser than water, stay afloat? They keep moving. When Jasmin Graham, an award-winning young shark scientist, started to feel that the traditional path to becoming a marine biologist was pulling her under, she remembered this important lesson: keep moving forward. Sharks Don’t Sink is a riveting, moving, and ultimately triumphant memoir at the intersection of science and social justice: a guidebook to how we can all learn to respect and protect some of nature’s most misunderstood creatures, and grant the same grace to ourselves.
