2025 Best Books to Gift - Adult Nonfiction

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

Updated December 11, 2025
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Greater Victoria Public Library Greater Victoria Public Library
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2025 Best Books to Gift - 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
'Fat and satisfying' Observer * 'I loved it' Dua Lipa * 'Deliciously naughty' iNews * 'Beautifully told' Woman & Home * 'Spellbinding' FT * Book of the Year Guardian, Financial Times, Observer, Belfast Telegraph ...
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...
Future boy : Back to the Future and my journey through the space-time continuum
Fox, Michael J.
Paper Book
Joyride: ; A Memoir
Orlean, Susan.
Paper Book
From the beloved New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, Joyride is a masterful memoir of finding her creative calling and purpose.
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
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
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
The breath of the gods : the history and future of the wind
Winchester, Simon
Paper Book
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 | Smithsonian's Top 10 Science Books of the Year | Washington Independent Review of Books's 51 Favorite Books of 2025 | Amazon's Best Books of the Year | Longlisted for the Non-Obvious...
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 place of tides
Rebanks, James
Paper Book
We are all in need of lights to follow. One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that...
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
'No one has opened up the CIA to us like Weiner has, and The Mission deserves to win him a second Pulitzer' JOHN SIMPSON, GUARDIAN The epic successor to Tim Weiner's National Book Award-winning classic, Legacy of Ashes: a gripping and revelatory history of the CIA in...
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 ...
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 The New Yorker, Forbes, NPR, Vulture, Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Slate, LitHub, Kirkus Reviews, and The Nerve * A finalist...
The tragedy of true crime : four guilty men and the stories that define us
Lennon, John J.
Paper Book
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 has killed. Lennon entered the New York prison system with a sentence of 28 years to life. Later, he stepped into a writing workshop at Attica, and his whole life...
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...
The Genius of Trees: How trees mastered the elements and shaped the world
Rix, Harriet.
Paper Book
'Sublime ... It is a true masterpiece' DAILY TELEGRAPH, ***** 'Mind-blowing' GUARDIAN 'Wondrous. Gives us trees as we've never seen them before' ISABELLA TREE, author of Wilding **A TELEGRAPH AND CRITIC BEST BOOK OF...
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...
The mind electric : stories of the strangeness and wonder of our brains
Anand, Pria.
Paper Book
Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy
Roach, Mary.
Paper Book
Dead and alive: essays
Smith, Zadie.
Paper Book
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...
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...
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<...
Moral ambition : stop wasting your talent and start making a difference
Bregman, Rutger
Paper Book
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER - FROM THE 2025 BBC REITH LECTURER A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE SUMMER 2025 'Gives us hope, humour and guidance at a time when all are in short supply' TIMOTHY SNYDER 'The rare read that might...
Strong ground : the lessons of daring leadership, the tenacity of paradox, and the wisdom of the human spirit
Brown, Brené
Paper Book
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
Good things : recipes to share with people you love
Nosrat, Samin
Paper Book
Once I hand them off to you, these recipes are no longer mine. They're yours, to do with as you please. And maybe, in the act of receiving, a little thread of connection will be woven between me and each of you. How can a recipe express the joy of sharing a meal in...
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