Best Books to Gift 2025 - Adult Nonfiction

We have a book for everyone on your list. You might want a few for yourself, too!

Updated November 26, 2025
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
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...
Bread of angels
Smith, Patti
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A radiant new memoir from artist and writer Patti Smith, author of the National Book Award winner Just Kids A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME, NPR, THE NEW YORKER "God whispers through a crease in the...
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...
Mother Mary comes to me
Roy, Arundhati
Paper Book
Named One of the New York Times Book Review's Top Ten Books of 2025 Finalist for the Kirkus Prize A raw and deeply moving memoir from the legendary author of The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness that traces her...
The uncool a memoir
Crowe, Cameron, 1957- author.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "Cameron has written a book that feels like music, an intimate souvenir, like a song you can't stop listening to." --Stevie Nicks * "A delicious tale of a devotee who worships at the altar of rock and roll....It's a love letter to fandom, sealed with...
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...
The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind
Winchester, Simon
Paper Book
New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester returns with a thought-provoking history of the wind, written in his edifying and entertaining style. What is going on with our atmosphere? The headlines are filled with news of devastating hurricanes, murderous tornadoes, and cataclysmic...
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...
Motherland a feminist history of modern Russia, from revolution to autocracy
Ioffe, Julia
Paper Book
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD Acclaimed journalist Julia Ioffe tells the story of modern Russia through the history of its women, from revolution to utopia to autocracy. In 1990, seven-year-old Julia Ioffe and her family fled the Soviet Union. Nearly...
1929 inside the greatest crash in Wall Street history-- and how it shattered a nation
Sorkin, Andrew Ross
Paper Book
INSTANT 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 * Named a BEST BOOK OF 2025 by TIME, The Economist, and Bloomberg
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 finest hotel in Kabul : a people's history of Afghanistan
Doucet, Lyse
Paper Book
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE The story of a hotel. The story of a nation. When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan's first luxury hotel symbolised a dream of a modernising country connected to the world.
Chasing evil : shocking crimes, supernatural forces, and an FBI agent's search for hope and justice
Edward, John
Paper Book
How a skeptical FBI agent reached out to a famous psychic for help on a baffling case - and the twenty-five-year crime-solving journey that followed In the summer of 1998, FBI agent Bob Hilland reluctantly picked up the phone to call the famous psychic John Edward. Bob didn't...
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 Forbes, NPR, and LitHub * A finalist for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction "Scorching, seductive . . . A superb and disturbing vivisection of our...
The tragedy of true crime : four guilty men and the stories that define us
Lennon, John J.
Paper Book
In 2001, John J. Lennon killed a man on a Brooklyn Street. Now he's a journalist, working from behind bars, trying to make sense of it all. The Tragedy of True Crime is a first-person journalistic account of the lives of four men who have killed, written by a man who...
Forest euphoria : the abounding queerness of nature
Kaishian, Patricia Ononiwu
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * 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 thrilling book about the abounding queerness of the...
The Genius of Trees : How They Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World
Rix, Harriet
Paper Book
A mind-expanding exploration of how trees learned to shape our world by manipulating the elements, plants, animals, and even humankind, possessing agency beyond anything we might have imagined "Astounding . . . a true masterpiece . . . Rix refuses to put herself much in the picture,...
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...
Life on a Little-Known Planet: Dispatches from a Changing World
Kolbert, Elizabeth
Paper Book
A landmark collection of Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert's most important pieces about climate change and the natural world A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth," Rolling Stone has advised,...
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...
The science of pets
Ingram, Jay
Paper Book
In the tradition of The Inside of a Dog, top science writer and TV personality Jay Ingram shares new insights into the hearts, minds, and bodies of the animals who love us (or do they?). More than one billion pets live in homes around the world, sleeping on dog beds,...
Dead and alive essays
Smith, Zadie
Paper Book
A TIME Best Book of 2025 "Smart, somber . . . There's pleasure in watching a novelist wired to see all sides at once wrangle with her own dynamic subjectivity." - The New York Times Book Review A profound and unparalleled literary voice, Zadie Smith...
How about Now: Poems
Baer, Kate
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Kate Baer's poems are so full of life--life as it is now, that I can hear them breathing. I loved this book."--Emma Straub "How About Now is a balm, a banister, and a battering ram. Her very best yet."--Catherine Newman ...
The Idea of an Entire Life: Poems
Belcourt, Billy-Ray
Paper Book
One of Time's 100 Must-Read Books of 2025 From award-winning Driftpile Cree poet Billy-Ray Belcourt, a dazzling exploration of love, anguish, queerness, and Indigenous resistance in the 21st century Queer Indigenous poet Billy-Ray Belcourt offers up a...
John & Paul : a love story in songs
Leslie, Ian
Paper Book
*INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* "We think we know everything, but author Ian Leslie proves otherwise. His new book, 'John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs,' is, astonishingly, one of the few to offer a detailed narrative of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's...
Little woodchucks : Offerman woodshop's guide to tools and tomfoolery
Offerman, Nick
Paper Book
*Instant New York Times Bestseller!* From New York Times bestselling author, Emmy-winning actor, and charismatically carnivorous woodworker Nick Offerman and his fellow champion creator Lee Buchanan (who is also not averse to delicious meats), an illustrated woodworking...
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...
Tiny experiments : how to live freely in a goal-obsessed world
Le Cunff, Anne-Laure
Paper Book
A transformative guide to rethinking our approach to goals, creativity, and life itself from a neuroscientist and entrepreneur, and the creator of the popular Ness Labs newsletter "I loved this profound, practical, and generous book."--Oliver Burkeman "A thought...
Good things : recipes and rituals to share with people you love
Nosrat, Samin
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat--and one of America's most beloved chefs and teachers--125 meticulously tested, flavor-forward, soul-nourishing recipes that bring joy and a sense of communion A NEW YORKER AND NEW YORK...
Something from Nothing: A Cookbook
Roman, Alison
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Something from Nothing is Alison Roman's latest book featuring over 100 deceptively simple, casually stylish, impossibly delicious recipes that make the most of your pantry. AN NPR AND ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR ...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.