Texas Topaz Nonfiction List for Adults

Here are recommendations for adults from the 2024 Texas Topaz Nonfiction Reading List! The purpose of the Texas Topaz Reading List is to provide children, teens, and adults with recommended nonfiction titles that stimulate reading for pleasure and personal learning. Visit txla.org/topaz for the full list and lists from previous years.


Updated January 31, 2024
Lewisville Public Library
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Banana ball : the unbelievably true story of the Savannah Bananas
Cole, Jesse
Paper Book
The Savannah Bananas have peeled back the game of baseball and made it fun again. This is their story. For his entire childhood, Jesse Cole dreamed of pitching in the Majors. Now, he has a life in baseball that he could have only imagined- he met the love of...
The light we carry : overcoming in uncertain times
Obama, Michelle
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER * In an inspiring follow-up to her acclaimed memoir Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced in today's highly uncertain world.<...
Atlas of the heart : mapping meaningful connection and the language of human experience
Brown, Brené
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown writes, "If we want to find the way back to ourselves and one another, we need language and the grounded confidence to both tell our stories and be stewards of the stories that we hear. This is the framework for...
The art thief : a true story of love, crime, and a dangerous obsession
Finkel, Michael
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first century * "The Art Thief, like its title character, has confidence, élan, and a great sense of timing."--The New Yorker A...
The forever witness : how DNA and genealogy solved a cold case double murder
Humes, Edward
Paper Book
"Thought-provoking true-crime thriller...the book raises urgent questions of balancing public and private good that we'll likely be dealing with as long as the title implies."-Wall Street Journal A relentless detective and a civilian genealogist solve a haunting cold case...
Brave hearted : the women of the American west 1836-1880
Hickman, Katie
Paper Book
*WINNER OF THE WOMEN WRITING THE WEST 2023 WILLA LITERARY AWARD* Brave Hearted is not just history, it is an incredibly intense page-turning experience. To read what these women endured is to be transported into another universe of courage, loss, pain, and occasionally victory. This book...
Cobalt red : how the blood of the Congo powers our lives
Kara, Siddharth
Paper Book
The revelatory Pulitzer Prize finalist for General Nonfiction, New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller, shortlisted for the Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year Award. An unflinching investigation reveals the human rights...
Waco rising : David Koresh, the FBI, and the birth of America's modern militias
Cook, Kevin
Paper Book
Named one of The New Yorker's "Best Books of 2023" A news-making account of the war between David Koresh's Branch Davidians and the FBI, and how their standoff launched today's militias In 1993, David Koresh and a band of heavily armed evangelical...
A fever in the heartland : the Ku Klux Klan's plot to take over America, and the woman who stopped them
Egan, Timothy
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER . A Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction . An NPR Best Book of the Year . A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year . A Chicago Review of Books Best Book of the Year . A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year . A Goodreads Choice...
Fatty fatty boom boom : a memoir of food, fat, and family
Chaudry, Rabia
Paper Book
"A delicious and mouthwatering book about food and family, the complicated love for both, and how that shapes us into who we are . . . I absolutely loved it!" --Valerie BertinelliRabia Chaudry--known from the podcast Serial and her bestselling book, Adnan's Story, as well as her own wildly popular...
Friends, lovers, and the big terrible thing : a memoir
Perry, Matthew
Paper Book
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER The BELOVED STAR OF FRIENDS takes us behind the scenes of the hit sitcom and his struggles with addiction in this "CANDID, DARKLY FUNNY...POIGNANT" memoir (The New York Times) ...
Go back to where you came from : and other helpful recommendations on how to become American
Ali, Wajahat
Paper Book
This is just one of the many warm, lovely, and helpful tips that Wajahat Ali and other children of immigrants receive on a daily basis. Go back where, exactly? Fremont, California, where he grew up, but is now an unaffordable place to live? Or Pakistan, the country his parents left behind a half...
How to speak whale : a voyage into the future of animal communication
Mustill, Tom
Paper Book
What if animals and humans could speak to one another? Tom Mustill--the nature documentarian who went viral when a thirty‑ton humpback whale breached onto his kayak--asks this question in his thrilling investigation into whale science and animal communication....
How to take over the world : practical schemes and scientific solutions for the aspiring supervillain
North, Ryan
Paper Book
NAMED A BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR BY ESQUIRE "Comic book fans will fall hard for this delightfully daffy guidebook. . . . Exuberant, optimistic, and just plain fun, How to Take Over the World will both surprise and delight." --Esquire A book...
Life in five senses : how exploring the senses got me out of my head and into the world
Rubin, Gretchen
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The author of The Happiness Project discovers a surprising path to a life of more energy, creativity, luck, and love: by tuning in to the five senses. "Life in Five Senses invites us into the seismic shift toward a life grounded...
Now let me fly : a portrait of Eugene Bullard
Wimberly, Ronald
Paper Book
From author Ronald Wimberly, creator of the viral comic Lighten Up, comes a soaring graphic biography that casts new light on the first African-American fighter pilot. On the eve of World War I, Eugene Bullard was a refugee of the Jim Crow South who was determined to...
Over my dead body : unearthing the hidden history of America's cemeteries
Melville, Greg
Paper Book
A lively tour through the history of US cemeteries that explores how, where, and why we bury our dead The summer before his senior year in college, Greg Melville worked at the cemetery in his hometown, and thanks to hour upon hour of pushing a mower over the grassy acres, he came to realize what a...
Rough sleepers
Kidder, Tracy
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The powerful story of an inspiring doctor who made a difference, by helping to create a program to care for Boston's homeless community--by the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Mountains Beyond Mountains "I...
Scenes from my life : a memoir
Williams, Michael Kenneth
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD * A "gripping, revelatory" (NPR) memoir of hard-won success, struggles with addiction, and a lifelong mission to give back--from the late iconic actor beloved for his roles in The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, and...
Tell me everything : the story of a private investigation
Krouse, Erika
Paper Book
Winner of the 2023 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Part memoir and part literary true crime, Tell Me Everything is the mesmerizing story of a landmark sexual assault investigation and the female private...
The Barbizon : the hotel that set women free
Bren, Paulina
Paper Book
A "captivating portrait" (The Wall Street Journal), both "poignant and intriguing" (The New Republic): from award-winning author Paulina Bren comes the remarkable history of New York's most famous residential hotel and the women who stayed there, including Grace Kelly, Sylvia...
The colony : faith and blood in a promised land
Denton, Sally
Paper Book
On the morning of November 4, 2019, an unassuming caravan of women and children was ambushed by masked gunmen on a desolate stretch of road in northern Mexico controlled by the Sinaloa drug cartel. Firing semi-automatic weapons, the attackers killed nine people and gravely injured five more. The...
The great escape : a true story of forced labor and immigrant dreams in America
Soni, Saket
Paper Book
"An eye-opening look at the world of global itinerant workers . . . The Great Escape is a must-read." --The New York Times Book Review The astonishing story of immigrants lured to the United States from India and trapped in forced labor--told by the visionary labor leader who engineered their escape...
The monster's bones : the discovery of T. Rex and how it shook our world
Randall, David K.
Paper Book
In the dust of the Gilded Age Bone Wars, two vastly different men emerge with a mission to fill the empty halls of New York's struggling American Museum of Natural History: Henry Fairfield Osborn, a privileged socialite whose reputation rests on the museum's success, and intrepid Kansas-born...
We should not be friends : the story of a friendship
Schwalbe, Will
Paper Book
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * A warm, funny, irresistible memoir that follows an improbable and life-changing college friendship over the course of forty years--from the best-selling author of The End of Your Life Book Club * "A rare view of male friendship."--NPR ...
You could make this place beautiful : a memoir
Smith, Maggie
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NPR Best Book of the Year * Time Best Book of the Year * Oprah Daily Best Memoir of the Year "A bittersweet study in both grief and joy." ­--Time ...
Beaverland : how one weird rodent made America
Philip, Leila
Paper Book
An intimate and revelatory dive into the world of the beaver--the wonderfully weird rodent that has surprisingly shaped American history and may save its ecological future.  From award-winning writer Leila Philip, Beaverland is a masterful work of narrative science writing,...

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