Nonfiction Best Bets

A librarian’s picks for curious readers. As shared at the 2026 Vancouver Island Library Staff Conference (VILSC).

Updated May 8, 2026
G
Greater Victoria Public Library Greater Victoria Public Library
This is your list in printable form. Simply print this page using your browser's print command.

Nonfiction Best Bets

A librarian’s picks for curious readers. As shared at the 2026 Vancouver Island Library Staff Conference (VILSC).

Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
An astronaut's guide to life on earth
Hadfield, Chris
Paper Book
As Commander of the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield captivated the world with stunning photos and commentary from space. Now, in his first book, Chris offers readers extraordinary stories from his life as an astronaut, and shows how to make the impossible a reality.  ...
Becoming a Matriarch : A Memoir
Knott, Helen
Paper Book
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER The bestselling follow-up to the award-winning, bestselling debut, In My Own Moccasins: When matriarchs begin to disappear, there is a choice to either step into the places they left behind, or to craft a new space. Helen Knott's debut...
Book of Lives : A Memoir of Sorts
Atwood, Margaret.
Paper Book
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD How does the greatest writer of our time tell her own story?...
Born a crime : stories from a South African childhood
Noah, Trevor
Paper Book
The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime New York Times bestseller about one man's coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.   Trevor Noah's unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of...
Ducks : two years in the oil sands
Beaton, Kate
Paper Book
A New York Times Notable book! One of Barack Obama's favorite books of 2022! Winner of Canada Reads 2023! "An exceptionally beautiful book about loneliness, labor, and survival."--Carmen Maria Machado Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times...
Educated : a memoir
Westover, Tara
Paper Book
For readers of The Glass Castle and Wild, a stunning new memoir about family, loss and the struggle for a better future #1 International Bestseller Tara Westover was seventeen when she first set foot in a classroom. Instead of traditional lessons, she grew up learning...
Spare
Harry, Prince, Duke of Sussex
Paper Book
It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow--and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and...
A Truce That Is Not Peace
Toews, Miriam
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * FINALIST FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION * FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY * TIME's 10 Best Books of 2025 * Named a Best Book of 2025 by The Globe and Mail * CBC * The New Yorker * The Guardian...
In defense of food : an eater's manifesto
Pollan, Michael
Paper Book
#1 New York Times Bestseller from the author of How to Change Your Mind, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Food Rules  Food. There's plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it? Because in the so...
Salt : a world history
Kurlansky, Mark
Paper Book
From the award-winning and bestselling author of Cod comes the dramatic, human story of a simple substance, an element almost as vital as water, that has created fortunes, provoked revolutions, directed economies and enlivened our recipes. Salt is common, easy to obtain and...
Save me the plums : my Gourmet memoir
Reichl, Ruth.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "A delicious insider account of the gritty, glamorous world of food culture."--Vanity Fair In this "poignant and hilarious" (The New York Times Book Review) memoir, trailblazing food writer and beloved restaurant critic Ruth...
Into the silence : the Great War, Mallory, and the conquest of Everest
Davis, Wade
Paper Book
A magnificent work of history, biography and adventure. If the quest for Mount Everest began as a grand imperial gesture, as redemption for an empire of explorers that had lost the race to the Poles, it ended as a mission of regeneration for a country and a people bled white by war. Of...
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 big short : inside the doomsday machine
Lewis, Michael
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestseller: a brilliant account--character-rich and darkly humorous--of how the U.S. economy was driven over the cliff. When the crash of the U. S. stock market became public knowledge in the fall of 2008, it was already old news. The real crash, the...
Fire Weather : The Making of a Beast
Vaillant, John
Paper Book
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Winner of the 2024 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing * Winner of the Baillie Gifford prize for Nonfiction * Winner of the 2024 J.W. Dafoe Book Prize * Winner of the 2024 Hubert Evans Nonfiction Prize * Finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust...
Seven fallen feathers : racism, death, and hard truths in a northern city
Talaga, Tanya.
Paper Book
Winner, 2017 Shaughnessy Cohen Writers' Trust Prize for Political Writing Winner, 2017 RBC Taylor Prize Winner, 2017 First Nation Communities Read: Young Adult/Adult Winner, 2024 Blue Metropolis First Peoples Prize, for the whole of her work Finalist, 2017 Hilary Weston...
Dead wake : the last crossing of the Lusitania
Larson, Erik
CD
#1 New York Times BestsellerFrom the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed...
Hidden figures : the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race
Shetterly, Margot Lee.
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestseller The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America's greatest achievements in space--a powerful, revelatory history essential to our understanding of race,...
Knowing what we know : the transmission of knowledge : from ancient wisdom to modern magic
Winchester, Simon
Paper Book
From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes--this is award winning writer Simon Winchester's brilliant and all-encompassing narrative nonfiction look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how...
Framed : astonishing true stories of wrongful convictions
Grisham, John
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "The master of the legal thriller" (Associated Press) teams up with "the godfather of the innocence movement" (Texas Monthly) to share ten harrowing true stories of wrongful convictions. "Each of these stories is told with astonishing...
In Cold Blood
Capote, Truman
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The most famous true crime novel of all time "chills the blood and exercises the intelligence" (The New York Review of Books)--and haunted its author long after he finished writing it. On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb,...
Killers of the Flower Moon : the Osage murders and the birth of the FBI
Grann, David
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, from the author of The Wager and The Lost City of Z, "one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."--New York...
Say nothing : a true story of murder and memory in Northern Ireland
Keefe, Patrick Radden
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NOW AN FX LIMITED SERIES STREAMING ON HULU * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * From the author of Empire of Pain--a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions. One...
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...
An immense world : how animal senses reveal the hidden realms around us
Yong, Ed
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE NAMED A TOP TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times ● The Wall Street Journal ● TIME ● People ● Slate ●...
Astrophysics for people in a hurry
Tyson, Neil deGrasse
Paper Book
Over a year on the New York Times bestseller list and more than a million copies sold. The essential universe, from our most celebrated and beloved astrophysicist. What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit...
Braiding sweetgrass
Kimmerer, Robin Wall.
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Bestseller Named a "Best Essay Collection of the Decade" by Literary Hub As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member...
Finding the mother tree : discovering the wisdom of the forest
Simard, S.
Paper Book
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *WINNER of the 2021 Banff Mountain Book Prize in Mountain Environment and Natural History* *WINNER of the National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature* ...
The rise and fall of the dinosaurs : a new history of a lost world
Brusatte, Stephen.
Paper Book
"THE ULTIMATE DINOSAUR BIOGRAPHY," hails Scientific American: A thrilling new history of the age of dinosaurs, from one of our finest young scientists. "A masterpiece of science writing." --Washington Post A New York Times Bestseller * Goodreads Choice Awards ...
The library book
Orlean, Susan
Paper Book
A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK A WASHINGTON POST TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER and NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 "A constant pleasure to read...Everybody who loves books...
The odyssey
Homer
Paper Book
If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of an everyman's journey through life. Odysseus' reliance on wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after...
The year of magical thinking
Didion, Joan
CD
Didion's journalistic skills are displayed as never before in this story of a year in her life that began with her daughter in a medically induced coma and her husband unexpectedly dead due to a heart attack. This powerful and moving work is Didion's "attempt to make sense of the weeks and then...
Find this list online

https://librarian.syndetics.com/syndeticsunbound/lp/352.580/list/7914

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