2025 Round Up: Favourite Nonfiction

Ideas, people, places. Here are the top titles that resonated with us in 2025.

Updated January 9, 2026
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1929 : Inside the Greatest Crash in History--and How It Shattered a Nation
Sorkin, Andrew Ross
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "It is one of the best narrative histories I've read." --The Wall Street Journal A New York Times Notable Book of 2025 * One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2025 * Named a BEST BOOK OF 2025 by The Washington...
Apple in China : the capture of the world's greatest company
McGee, Patrick (Reporter)
Ebook
The art spy : the extraordinary untold tale of WWII resistance hero Rose Valland
Young, Michelle
Paper Book
A riveting and stylish saga set in Paris during World War II, THE ART SPY uncovers how an unlikely heroine infiltrated the Nazi leadership to save the cultural legacy of the West. On August 25, 1944, Rose Valland, a woman of quiet daring, found herself in a desperate position...
Between two rivers : ancient Mesopotamia and the birth of history
Al-Rashid, Moudhy N.
Paper Book
Careless people : a story of where I used to work
Wynn-Williams, Sarah
Paper Book
The instant Sunday Times bestseller No. 1 New York Times bestseller 'How else to put this? Bloody hell' - The Guardian 'Devastating . . . Funny . . . Highly enjoyable' - The Times 'Jaw-dropping . . . A tell-all tome' - Financial...
Dead And Alive: ; Essays
Smith, Zadie.
Paper Book
An illuminating new essay collection from one of the most distinctive, exciting and acclaimed writers of her generation, Zadie Smith 'Zadie Smith is a wonderful essayist. She is a natural. She writes as she thinks, and she thinks crisply and exactly' - Tessa Hadley,...
The Dry Season : A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex
Febos, Melissa
Paper Book
From Melissa Febos, the national bestselling author of Girlhood, comes an examination of the solitude, freedoms, and feminist heroes she discovered during a year of celibacy and a wise and transformative look at relationships and self-knowledge. "Only Melissa Febos could...
Empire Of Ai: Inside The Reckless Race For Total Domination
Hao, Karen.
Paper Book
When longtime AI expert and journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, it was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely market forces. ...
Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About It
Doctorow, Cory.
Paper Book
Everything is tuberculosis : the history and persistence of our deadliest infection
Green, John
Paper Book
#1 New York Times bestseller * #1 Washington Post bestseller * #1 Indie Bestseller * USA Today Bestseller John Green, award-winning author and passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world's...
A flower traveled in my blood : the incredible true story of the grandmothers who fought to find a stolen generation of children
Cohen Gilliland, Haley
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2025 * THE WASHINGTON POST'S 5 BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF 2025 * THE ATLANTIC'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2025 * THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S BEST BOOKS OF 2025 * TIME MAGAZINE'S BEST BOOKS OF 2025 * NPR'S BEST BOOKS...
Forest euphoria : the abounding queerness of nature
Kaishian, Patricia Ononiwu
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * VANITY FAIR BEST BOOKS OF 2025 * TIME 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2025 "An antidote to the loneliness of our species."--ROBIN WALL KIMMERER "A master class in how to love the world."--MARGARET RENKL A...
Girl on Girl : How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves
Gilbert, Sophie.
Paper Book
A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book * Named one of the Best Books of the Year by TIME, NPR, Elle, and The Boston Globe "Searing... rigorously researched but never stuffy... Gilbert has compiled perhaps the first comprehensive...
The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World
Dalrymple, William.
Paper Book
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A Waterstones and TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR A SPECTATOR and History Today BOOK OF THE YEAR A revolutionary new history of the diffusion of Indian ideas...
The haves and have-yachts : dispatches on the ultrarich
Osnos, Evan
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and The Times (London) From National Book Award-winning author Evan Osnos comes a "sharp...charming...regrettably timely" (The Washington Post)...
Here comes the sun : a last chance for the climate and a fresh chance for civilization
McKibben, Bill
Paper Book
Our climate, and our democracy, are melting down. But Bill McKibben, one of the first to sound the alarm about the climate crisis, insists the moment is also full of possibility. Energy from the sun and wind is suddenly the cheapest power on the planet and growing faster than any energy source in...
Is A River Alive?
Macfarlane, Robert
Paper Book
At its heart is a single, transformative idea- that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings - who should be recognized as such in both imagination and law. Inspired by the activists, artists and lawmakers of the young 'Rights of Nature' movement, Macfarlane takes the reader on an...
John Candy : a life in comedy
Myers, Paul
Paper Book
The definitive biography of John Candy--a heartwarming portrait of one of comedy's most beloved and enduring stars. INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Vulture's #1 Comedy Book of 2025 * A Globe and Mail, National Post, and CBC Best Book of 2025 "Reading this book was like...
King Of Kings: The Fall Of The Shah, The 1979 Iranian Revolution And The Unmaking Of The Modern Middle East
Anderson, Scott.
Paper Book
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NEW STATESMAN, ATLANTIC AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BOOK OF THE YEAR 'If you want to understand the turmoil in Gaza, Syria and beyond, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 is a good place to start.' The...
A marriage at sea : a true story of love, obsession, and shipwreck
Elmhirst, Sophie
Paper Book
THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER & ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025 A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2025 ALSO NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2025 BY NPR, VOGUE, TIME MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORKER, AND MORE "This is nonfiction that...
The Mind Electric: ; Stories of the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains
Anand, Pria.
Paper Book
The mission : the CIA in the 21st century
Weiner, Tim
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller * A New Yorker Best Book of 2025 * A New York Times Editors' Choice * A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year "No one has opened up the CIA to us like Weiner has, and The Mission deserves to win Weiner a second...
Motherland: A Feminist History Of Modern Russia, From Revolution To Autocracy
Ioffe, Julia.
Paper Book
'A fresh, unexpected, and revealing portrait of Russia' ANNE APPLEBAUM, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag and Red Famine 'A century of Russian history told through the women who lived it, shaped it, and survived it' NADYA TOLOKONNIKOVA, founder of Pussy Riot Award...
Mother Mary comes to me
Roy, Arundhati
Paper Book
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER FOYLES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 AUDIBLE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 BLACKWELL'S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 WINNER OF THE GOOGLE PLAY BEST OF 2025 AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025
Nobody's girl : a memoir of surviving abuse and fighting for justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The unforgettable memoir by the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the woman who dared to take on Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell "Make no mistake: this is a book about power, corruption, industrial-scale sex abuse and the way in which...
No more tears : the dark secrets of Johnson & Johnson
Harris, Gardiner
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER . An explosive, deeply reported expose of Johnson & Johnson, one of America's oldest and most trusted pharmaceutical companies-from an award-winning investigative journalist "A damning portrait."-Associated Press "A page-turning...
One day, everyone will have always been against this
El Akkad, Omar
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * PALESTINE BOOK AWARD WINNER * LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR CRITICISM * From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful...
The Serviceberry: An Economy of Gifts and Abundance
Kimmerer, Robin Wall.
Paper Book
'This book will nourish your soul, heart, and mind' Anthony Doerr As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy....
The sirens' call : how attention became the world's most endangered resource
Hayes, Christopher
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times Bestseller * One of Barack Obama's Summer Reading List Picks From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and MSNBC and podcast host, a powerful wide-angle reckoning with how the assault from attention capitalism on our minds and our hearts has...
Wellwater
Solie, Karen.
Paper Book
Shortlisted for the 2025 Forward Prize for Best Collection 'Karen Solie should be read wherever English is spoken' - Michael Hofmann, LRB 'Half-expertise and half-magic . . . Wellwater is a terrifying book - and a masterly one. Solie is as good as poetry...

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