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
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Greater Victoria Public Library Greater Victoria Public Library
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Best Books to Gift 2025 - Adult Nonfiction

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

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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...
Bread of Angels: A Memoir
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 TIME AND NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "God whispers through a crease in the wallpaper," writes Patti...
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 * "Brilliant...A high-spirited, exhilarating memoir." --The Wall Street Journal * "In Joyride, the takeaway often has as much to do with the art of living as the art of writing." --Elle * "Wise and exuberant...It's funny, as well. Just...
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 NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2025 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, NPR, VOGUE, TIME MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORKER, AND MORE "This is nonfiction that reads like fiction - the best kind....
Mother Mary Comes to Me
Roy, Arundhati
Paper Book
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 complex relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, a fierce and formidable force who shaped...
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 art spy : the extraordinary untold tale of WWII resistance hero Rose Valland
Young, Michelle
Paper Book
* Publishers Weekly Best Books of Summer 2025 * Bookbub Best Non-Fiction Release of the Season * MSNBC/Afar Magazine 10 Best Books for the Summer Traveler * Newsday's Top Must-Read Book for Summer * Christian Science Monitor Best Book of May 2025 * Longlisted for...
Between two rivers : ancient Mesopotamia and the birth of history
Al-Rashid, Moudhy N.
Paper Book
Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time. What they left behind, in a vast region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a...
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...
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...
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...
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 "No one has opened up the CIA to us like Weiner has, and The Mission deserves to win Weiner a second Pulitzer." --The Guardian A masterpiece of reporting based on-the-record...
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 and NPR * A finalist for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction "Scorching, seductive . . . A superb and disturbing vivisection of our darkest urges." -...
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...
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* "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...
Writing Creativity and Soul
Kidd, Sue Monk
Paper Book
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER * From the bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Book of Longings: an intimate work on the mysteries, frustrations, and triumphs of being a writer, and an instructive guide to awakening the soul. When Sue Monk Kidd...
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...
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<...
Moral ambition : stop wasting your talent and start making a difference
Bregman, Rutger
Paper Book
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER | Bloomberg Businessweek's Best Business Books of the Year From the author of the New York Times bestsellers Humankind and Utopia for Realists--"a more politically radical Malcolm Gladwell" (The New York...
The Anthony Bourdain Reader : New Classic, and Rediscovered Writing
Bourdain, Anthony/ Keefe, Patrick Radden (INT)/ Witherspoon, Kimberly (EDT)
Paper Book
The definitive, career-spanning collection of writing from Anthony Bourdain, assembled for the first time in book form Anthony Bourdain represented many things to many people--and he had many sides. But no part of his identity was more important to him, and more long-lasting, than that of...
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 YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST...
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 ...
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