Staff Picks: Nonfiction (DDL Winter Reading 24-25)

Updated January 5, 2025
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Atomic habits : tiny changes, remarkable results : an easy & proven way to build good habits & break bad ones
Clear, James
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestseller. Over 20 million copies sold! Translated into 60+ languages! Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving--every day. James Clear, one of...
The barn : the secret history of a murder in Mississippi
Thompson, Wright
Paper Book
The instant New York Times bestseller * Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Slate, Vanity Fair, TIME, Buzzfeed, Smithsonian, BookPage, KCUR, Kirkus, and Boston Globe * Nominated for a PEN America...
The body keeps the score : brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma
Van der Kolk, Bessel A.
Paper Book
#1 New York Times bestseller "Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society." --Alexander McFarlane, Director of the Centre for Traumatic Stress Studies A pioneering researcher...
The boys of Riverside : a deaf football team and a quest for glory
Fuller, Thomas (Journalist)
Paper Book
NAMED A BEST BOOK BY BOOK RIOT, AND MORE! . The incredible story of an all-deaf high school football team's triumphant climb from underdog to undefeated, their inspirational brotherhood, a fascinating portrait of deafness in America, and the indefatigable head coach who spearheaded the...
Cabinet of curiosities : a historical tour of the unbelievable, the unsettling, and the bizarre
Mahnke, Aaron
Paper Book
Become captivated by tales of wonderful, astounding, and downright bizarre people, places, and things throughout history. Perfect for trivia aficionados, history readers, or anyone with a thirst for unusual knowledge, Cabinet of Curiosities is full of titillating tidbits and mind...
Challenger : a true story of heroism and disaster on the edge of space
Higginbotham, Adam
Paper Book
Winner of the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction * Winner of the 2024 Kirkus Nonfiction Prize * Shortlisted for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * A New York Times Notable Book of 2024 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "Stunning.....
Cue the sun : the invention of reality TV
Nussbaum, Emily
Paper Book
The rollicking saga of reality television, a "sweeping" (The Washington Post) cultural history of America's most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker writer--"a must-read for anyone interested in television or popular culture"...
The demon of unrest : a saga of hubris, heartbreak, and heroism at the dawn of the Civil War
Larson, Erik
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this "riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult" (Los Angeles Times). ...
The Friday afternoon club : a family memoir
Dunne, Griffin
Paper Book
The instant New York Times bestseller * Named a Best Book of the Year by TIME, NPR, People, Town & Country, and Air Mail "Warm and perceptive." --New York Times "Griffin Dunne knows how to tell a story." --Washington...
Frostbite : how refrigeration changed our food, our planet, and ourselves
Twilley, Nicola
Paper Book
How often do we open the fridge or peer into the freezer with the expectation that we'll find something fresh and ready to eat? It's an everyday act - but just a century ago, eating food that had been refrigerated was cause for both fear and excitement. The introduction of artificial refrigeration...
Grief is for people
Crosley, Sloane
Paper Book
Grief Is for People is a book about loss that is profuse with life. After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend to suicide, Sloane Crosley looks for answers in philosophy and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief. For most of her adult life,...
Grown woman talk : your guide to getting and staying healthy
Malone, Sharon
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "A must-read for anyone who cares about their quality of life . . . Dr. Sharon Malone is the first person I turn to for a whole host of issues, especially my health."--MICHELLE OBAMA A practical guide to aging and health for women who have...
Meditations for mortals : four weeks to embrace your limitations and make time for what counts
Burkeman, Oliver
Paper Book
A map for a liberating journey toward a more meaningful life--a journey that begins where we actually find ourselves, not with a fantasy of where we'd like to be--from the New York Times bestselling author of Four Thousand Weeks ...
Men have called her crazy : a memoir
Tendler, Anna Marie
Paper Book
*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* "This book is so many things I didn't know I needed: a testament to the work of healing, a raw howl of anger, and an indictment of misogyny's insipid, predictable, infuriating reign." --Carmen Maria Machado, author of the National Book Award...
The message
Coates, Ta-Nehisi
Paper Book
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The renowned author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell--and the ones we don't--shape our realities. "Ta-Nehisi Coates always writes with a...
Nexus : a brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI
Harari, Yuval N.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world. "Strikingly original . . . A historian whose arguments operate on the scale of millennia has managed to capture the...
Nuclear war : a scenario
Jacobsen, Annie
Paper Book
The INSTANT New York Times bestseller Instant Los Angeles Times bestseller One of NPR's Books We Love One of Newsweek Staffers' Favorite Books of the Year Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize
Patriot : a memoir
Naval?ny?, Alekse?
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORKER, THE ATLANTIC, NPR * The powerful and moving memoir of a fearless political opposition leader who paid the ultimate price for his beliefs. "...
Polar vortex : a family memoir
Dorrance
Paper Book
What do you do when your mother can't remember who you are? You catch the first flight from your adopted home of London to your original hometown of Cedar Rapids, lowa, where she's hospitalized, injured, and struggling with the swirling disorientation of dementia. You take responsibility for...
Revenge of the tipping point : overstories, superspreaders, and the rise of social engineering
Gladwell, Malcolm
Paper Book
Twenty-five years after the publication of his groundbreaking first book, Malcolm Gladwell returns with "curiosity and humor" in this New York Times bestseller that reframes the lessons of The Tipping Point in a startling and revealing light (Shannon Carlin). ​<...
The secret history of Bigfoot : field notes on a North American monster
O'Connor, John (Journalist)
Paper Book
"A winning portrait of America at its weirdest." -- Publishers Weekly STARRED Review From the shrouded forests of the Pacific Northwest to off-the-wall cryptozoological conventions, one man searches high and low for the answer to the question: real or not, why do we want to believe? ...
The serviceberry : abundance and reciprocity in the natural world
Kimmerer, Robin Wall
Paper Book
An Instant New York Times Bestseller From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world....
Soldiers and kings : survival and hope in the world of human smuggling
De León, Jason
Paper Book
Political instability, poverty, climate change, and the insatiable appetite for cheap labour all fuel clandestine movement across borders. As those borders harden, the demand for smugglers who aid migrants across them increases every year. Yet the real lives and work of smugglers - or coyotes, or...
The Wager : a tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder
Grann, David
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager...
What I ate in one year : (and related thoughts)
Tucci, Stanley
Paper Book
From Stanley Tucci, award-winning actor and New York Times bestselling author, a deliciously unique memoir chronicling a year's worth of meals. "Sharing food is one of the purest human acts." Food has always been an integral part of Stanley Tucci's...
The wide wide sea : imperial ambition, first contact and the fateful final voyage of Captain James Cook
Sides, Hampton
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A "thrilling and superbly crafted" (The Wall Street Journal) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook's death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day....
Woman, life, freedom
Satrapi, Marjane
Paper Book
Winner, ALA ALEX Award An urgent, groundbreaking and visually stunning new collection of graphic storytelling about the present Iranian revolution, using comics to show what would be censored in photos and film in Iran. Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis,...

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