2025 Best Books to Gift - Adult Nonfiction

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Updated December 11, 2025
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Book of lives : a memoir of sorts
Atwood, Margaret
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * How does the greatest writer of our time tell her own story? NAMED A NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE WASHINGTON POST "The most spectacular, hilarious, and...
Finding my way : a memoir
Yousafzai, Malala
Paper Book
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! | A USA TODAY MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK "A remarkably intimate and insistently human chronicle of a moral authority's coming of age." --The New York Times This is not the story you think you know...
Future boy : Back to the Future and my journey through the space-time continuum
Fox, Michael J.
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A poignant, heartfelt, and funny memoir about how, in 1985, Michael J. Fox brought to life two iconic roles simultaneously--Alex P. Keaton in Family Ties and Marty McFly in Back to the Future. An amazing true story as only...
Joyride : a memoir
Orlean, Susan
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, TIME, OPRAH DAILY, KIRKUS REVIEWS, GOODREADS, AND MORE "Brilliant...A high-spirited, exhilarating memoir." --The Wall Street Journal * "In Joyride, the takeaway often has as...
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...
We did ok, kid : a memoir
Hopkins, Anthony
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Academy Award-winning actor Sir Anthony Hopkins delves into his illustrious film and theater career, difficult childhood, and path to sobriety in his honest, moving, and long-awaited memoir. Born and raised in Port...
Between two rivers : ancient Mesopotamia and the birth of history
Al-Rashid, Moudhy N.
Paper Book
One of Library Journal's Best Books of 2025 Humanity's earliest efforts at recording and drawing meaning from history reveal how lives millennia ago were not so different from our own. Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia,...
Dinner with King Tut : how rogue archaeologists are re-creating the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of lost civilizations
Kean, Sam
Paper Book
LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER | INDIE BESTSELLER | The New Yorker's Best Books of 2025 From "one of America's smartest and most charming writers" (NPR), an archaeological romp through the entire history of humankind--and through all five senses--from...
The Golden Road : how ancient India transformed the world
Dalrymple, William
Paper Book
The internationally bestselling author of The Anarchy returns with a sparkling, soaring history of ideas, tracing South Asia's under-recognized role in producing the world as we know it. For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse...
The place of tides
Rebanks, James
Paper Book
A National Bestseller "A modern classic, one we very much need right now." -George Saunders From the acclaimed author of The Shepherd's Life, a magical work of nonfiction in which James Rebanks reflects on a life-changing summer spent on a remote island off the coast of Norway,...
Enshittification : why everything suddenly got worse and what to do about it
Doctorow, Cory
Paper Book
Enshittification: it's not just you--the internet sucks now. Here's why, and here's how we can disenshittify it. We're living through the Enshittocene, the Great Enshittening, a time in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit...
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...
More everything forever : AI overlords, space empires, and Silicon Valley's crusade to control the fate of humanity
Becker, Adam
Paper Book
This "smart and wonderfully readable" (New York Times) exposé shows why Silicon Valley's heartless, baseless, and foolish obsessions--with escaping death, building AI tyrants, and creating limitless growth--are about oligarchic power, not preparing for the future ...
Murderland : crime and bloodlust in the time of serial killers
Fraser, Caroline
Paper Book
A National Bestseller * A Washington Post Notable Book * Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Forbes, NPR, Vulture, Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Slate, LitHub, Kirkus Reviews, and The Nerve * A finalist...
Is a river alive?
Macfarlane, Robert
Paper Book
Hailed in the New York Times as "a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler," Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reportage, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an...
Replaceable you : adventures in human anatomy
Roach, Mary
Paper Book
The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what's available--sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet...
John & Paul : a love story in songs
Leslie, Ian
Paper Book
Instant New York Times bestseller * A New York Times Notable Book of 2025 * Named a Best Book of 2025 by NPR, Kirkus Reviews, The Economist, and The Financial Times "We think we know everything, but author Ian Leslie proves otherwise. His new...
Aflame : learning from silence
Iyer, Pico
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Reading Aflame may help many to lead lives of greater compassion and deeper peace of mind." --His Holiness the Dalai Lama From the bestselling author of The Art of Stillness, a revelatory exploration of the abiding clarity and calm to...
Becoming Yourself: Teachings on the Zen Way of Life
Suzuki, Shunryu
Paper Book
From the beloved author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind comes a new book of teachings on the essence of Zen practice "I felt a burden being lifted from my shoulders just by reading this remarkable book." --Oliver Burkeman "Our way of sitting is for you to become...
The book of alchemy : a creative practice for an inspired life
Jaouad, Suleika
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A guide to the art of journaling--and a meditation on the central questions of life--by the bestselling author of Between Two Kingdoms, with contributions from Hanif Abdurraqib, Jon Batiste, Salman Rushdie, Gloria Steinem, George Saunders, and many more<...
Strong ground : the lessons of daring leadership, the tenacity of paradox, and the wisdom of the human spirit
Brown, Brené
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Brené Brown returns with an urgent call to reimagine the essentials of courageous leadership. In a time when uncertainty runs deep and bluster, hubris, and even cruelty are increasingly framed as acceptable leadership, Brown delivers practical, actionable...

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