I Can't Believe It's Non-Fiction!

This ain't your grandparent's non-fiction.

Narrative and deeply engrossing non-fiction to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Updated August 11, 2023
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The Anthropocene reviewed : essays on a human-centered planet
Green, John
Paper Book
Goodreads Choice winner for Nonfiction 2021 and instant #1 bestseller! A deeply moving collection of personal essays from John Green, the author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down. "The perfect book for right now." -People <...
Bring the war home : the white power movement and paramilitary America
Belew, Kathleen
Paper Book
"Belew's book helps explain how we got to today's alt right."―Terry Gross, Fresh Air The white power movement in America wants a revolution. Its soldiers are not lone wolves but highly organized cadres motivated by a coherent and deeply troubling worldview made up of...
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee : an Indian history of the American West
Brown, Dee
Paper Book
Now a special 30th-anniversary edition in both hardcover and paperback, the classic bestselling history "The New York Times" called "Original, remarkable, and finally heartbreaking...Impossible to put down" "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" is Dee Brown's eloquent, fully documented account of the...
Catch and kill : lies, spies, and a conspiracy to protect predators
Farrow, Ronan
Paper Book
Now an HBO documentary series streaming on HBO Max.  One of the Best Books of the Year   Time * NPR * Washington Post * Bloomberg News * Chicago Tribune *...
Dopesick : dealers, doctors, and the drug company that addicted America
Macy, Beth
Paper Book
Journalist Beth Macy's definitive account of America's opioid epidemic "masterfully interlaces stories of communities in crisis with dark histories of corporate greed and regulatory indifference" (New York Times) -- from the boardroom to the courtroom and into the living rooms...
Five days at Memorial : life and death in a storm-ravaged hospital
Fink, Sheri
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The award-winning book that inspired an Apple Original series from Apple TV+ * A landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina--and the suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice--from a...
Forget the Alamo : the rise and fall of an American myth
Burrough, Bryan
Paper Book
A New York Times bestseller! "Lively and absorbing. . ." - The New York Times Book Review "Engrossing." -Wall Street Journal "Entertaining and well-researched . . . " -Houston Chronicle Three noted Texan...
Gotham : a history of New York City to 1898
Burrows, Edwin G.
Paper Book
To European explorers, it was Eden, a paradise of waist-high grasses, towering stands of walnut, maple, chestnut, and oak, and forests that teemed with bears, wolves, raccoons, beavers, otters, and foxes. Today, it is the site of Broadway and Wall Street, the Empire State Building and the Statue of...
Hotbed : bohemian Greenwich Village and the secret club that sparked modern feminism
Scutts, Joanna
Paper Book
The dazzling story of the Greenwich Village feminists who blazed the trail for the movement's most radical ideas On a Saturday in New York City in 1912, around the wooden tables of a popular Greenwich Village restaurant, a group of women gathered, all of them convinced that they...
The icepick surgeon : murder, fraud, sabotage, piracy, and other dastardly deeds perpetrated in the name of science
Kean, Sam
Paper Book
From a New York Times bestselling author comes the gripping, untold history of science's darkest secrets, "a fascinating book [that] deserves a wide audience" (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Science is a force for good in the world--at least...
It was vulgar & it was beautiful : how AIDS activists used art to fight a pandemic
Lowery, Jack (Writer)
Paper Book
Shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Prize The story of art collective Gran Fury--which fought back during the AIDS crisis through direct action and community-made propaganda--offers lessons in love and grief.
Nixonland : the rise of a president and the fracturing of America
Perlstein, Rick
Paper Book
'Nixonland' is a new account of the Nixon era, from his 1968 election to his spectacular 1974 demise.
Orientalism
Said, Edward W.
Paper Book
A groundbreaking critique of the West's historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East that is--decades after its first publication--one of the most important books written about our divided world.  "Intellectual history on a high order ... and very exciting." ...
Parting the waters : America in the King years, 1954-63
Branch, Taylor.
Paper Book
In Parting the Waters, the first volume of his essential America in the King Years series, Pulitzer Prize winner Taylor Branch gives a "compelling...masterfully told" (The Wall Street Journal) account of Martin Luther King's early years and rise to greatness. Hailed...
Quackery : a brief history of the worst ways to cure everything
Kang, Lydia
Paper Book
What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth? Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine--yes, that...
Sandy Hook : an American tragedy and the battle for truth
Williamson, Elizabeth (Journalist)
Paper Book
On December 14, 2012, 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., including 20 children barely older than toddlers, were shot and killed. It felt like a line in the sand, on gun violence and safety. Instead, nine years on, Sandy Hook has become a foundational story, and a symbol: of...
She said : breaking the sexual harassment story that helped ignite a movement
Kantor, Jodi
Paper Book
The instant New York Times bestseller. "An instant classic of investigative journalism...'All the President's Men' for the Me Too era." -- Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post From the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters who broke the news of Harvey Weinstein's...
Slenderman : online obsession, mental illness, and the violent crime of two midwestern girls
Hale, Kathleen
Paper Book
The first full account of the Slenderman stabbing, a true crime narrative of mental illness, the American judicial system, the trials of adolescence, and the power of the internet On May 31, 2014, in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin, two twelve-year-old girls attempted to...
Watergate : a new history
Graff, Garrett M.
Paper Book
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "Do we need still another Watergate book? The answer turns out to be yes--this one." --The Washington Post * "Dazzling." --The New York Times Book Review From the...
We keep the dead close : a murder at Harvard and a half century of silence
Cooper, Becky
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Named One of The Best Books of 2020 by NPR's Fresh Air * Publishers Weekly * Marie Claire * Redbook * Vogue * Kirkus Reviews * Book Riot * Bustle A Recommended Book by The New York Times * The Washington...

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