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
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Greater Victoria Public Library Greater Victoria Public Library
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Nonfiction Best Bets

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

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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
Born a crime : stories from a South African childhood
Noah, Trevor
Ebook
Ducks : two years in the oil sands
Beaton, Kate
Paper Book
*WINNER OF THE EISNER AWARDS FOR BEST MEMOIR AND BEST WRITER/ARTIST* 'A vast and complex tapestry that captures the humanity of people... it shimmers with grace' ALISON BECHDEL, author of FUN HOME Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling...
Educated: A Memoir
Westover, Tara
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * One of the most acclaimed books of our time: an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University ...
King : a life
Eig, Jonathan
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *SELECTED AS ONE OF  BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2023* Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig's King is the first major biography in decades...
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 Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling - and how...
Dirt : adventures in Lyon as a chef in training, father, and sleuth looking for the secret of French cooking
Buford, Bill
Paper Book
Bill Buford turns his inimitable attention from Italian cuisine to the food of France. Baffled by the language, but convinced that he can master the art of French cooking--or at least get to the bottom of why it is so revered-- he begins what becomes a five-year odyssey by shadowing the esteemed...
Save me the plums : my Gourmet memoir
Reichl, Ruth
Paper Book
A New York Times BestsellerAn Indie Next PickWhen Condé Nast offered Ruth Reichl the top position at America's oldest epicurean magazine, she declined. She was a writer, not a manager, with no inclination to be anyone's boss. Yet Reichl had read Gourmet since she was eight; it had inspired her...
A marriage at sea : a true story of love, obsession, and shipwreck
Elmhirst, Sophie
1929 : inside the greatest crash in Wall Street history-- and how it shattered a nation
Sorkin, Andrew Ross
In 1929, the world watched in shock as the unstoppable Wall Street bull market went into a freefall, wiping out fortunes and igniting a depression that would reshape a generation. But behind the flashing ticker tapes and panicked traders, another drama unfolded-one of visionaries and fraudsters,...
Careless people : a cautionary tale of power, greed, and lost idealism
Wynn-Williams, Sarah
Paper Book
The instant Sunday Times bestseller No. 1 New York Times bestseller 'How else to put this? Bloody hell' - The Guardian 'Devastating . . . Funny . . . Highly enjoyable' - The Times 'Jaw-dropping . . . A tell-all tome' - Financial...
Empire of AI : dreams and nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI
Hao, Karen
Paper Book
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award 2025Longlisted for the 2025 Financial Times & Schroders Business Book of the Year A Financial Times Book of the Year 2025 Shortlisted for Foyles Non Fiction Book of the Year 2025 A New York Times...
Everything is tuberculosis : the history and persistence of our deadliest infection
Green, John
Paper Book
Instant #1 New York Times bestseller! . #1 Washington Post bestseller! . #1 Indie Bestseller! . USA Today Bestseller! 'Earnest and empathetic.' - New York Times Tuberculosis has been entwined with hu-manity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of...
An African history of Africa : from the dawn of humanity to independence
Badawi, Zeinab
Paper Book
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO BOOK AWARDS 2024 AND THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS 2025* *An instant Sunday Times bestseller, Radio 4 Book of the Week and Guardian Best Summer Read* Selected as a book to look out for by the Guardian and The Rest is...
The finest hotel in Kabul : a people's history of Afghanistan
Doucet, Lyse
The art spy : the extraordinary untold tale of WWII resistance hero Rose Valland
Young, Michelle
Ebook
Dead wake : the last crossing of the Lusitania
Larson, Erik
Ebook
Hidden figures : the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race
Shetterly, Margot Lee
Ebook
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...
Framed : astonishing true stories of wrongful convictions
Grisham, John
Paper Book
A fundamental principle of the American legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty there is very little room to prove doubt.Framed shares ten true stories of men who were innocent but found guilty and forced to sacrifice friends, families, wives, and decades...
In cold blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
Capote, Truman
Ebook
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...
Prisoners of the castle : an epic story of survival and escape from Colditz, the Nazis' fortress prison
Macintyre, Ben
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The "entertaining [and] often-moving account" (The Wall Street Journal) of the remarkable POWs whose relentlessly creative attempts to escape a notorious Nazi prison embodied the spirit of resistance against fascism, from the author of The Spy and...
Say nothing : a true story of murder and memory in Northern Ireland
Keefe, Patrick Radden
Ebook
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY Now an FX TV series streaming on DISNEY+ 'Unquestionably one of the greatest literary achievements of the 21st century' Nick Hornby From the author of Empire of Pain - a stunning, intricate...
The Wager : a tale of shipwreck, mutiny, and murder
Grann, David
Paper Book
From the international bestselling author of KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE LOST CITY OF Z, a mesmerising story of shipwreck, mutiny and murder, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. On 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of...
An immense world : how animal senses reveal the hidden realms around us
Yong, Ed
Paper Book
'Wonderful, mind-broadening... a journey to alternative realities as extraordinary as any you'll find in science fiction' The Times, Book of the Week 'Magnificent' Guardian Enter a new dimension - the world as it is truly...
Braiding sweetgrass
Kimmerer, Robin Wall.
Paper Book
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of...
A city on Mars : can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through?
Weinersmith, Kelly
Finding the mother tree : discovering the wisdom of the forest
Simard, S.
Paper Book
No one has done more to transform our understanding of trees than the world-renowned scientist Suzanne Simard. Now she shares the secrets of a lifetime spent uncovering startling truths about trees: their cooperation, healing capacity, memory, wisdom and sentience. Raised in the...
Fuzz : when nature breaks the law
Roach, Mary
Paper Book
What's to be done about a drunken elephant? A monkey caught mugging passers-by? A trespassing squirrel? Mary Roach delves into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet. 'Delightful' Ed Yong, author of An Immense World Follow Mary Roach as she investigates laser...
The mind electric : a neurologist on the strangeness and wonder of our brains
Anand, Pria
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World
Brusatte, Steve
Paper Book
Dead and alive : essays
Smith, Zadie
Paper Book
An illuminating new essay collection from one of the most distinctive, exciting and acclaimed writers of her generation, Zadie Smith 'Zadie Smith is a wonderful essayist. She is a natural. She writes as she thinks, and she thinks crisply and exactly' - Tessa Hadley,...
The library book
Orlean, Susan
Ebook
A New York Times Book of the Year, 2018 A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK A dazzling love letter to a beloved institution - our libraries. After moving to Los Angeles, Susan...
The Odyssey
Homer
Paper Book
'Muse, tell me of a man: a man of much resource, who was made to wander far and long, after he had sacked the sacred city of Troy. Many were the men whose lands he saw and came to know their thinking: many too the miseries at sea which he suffered in his heart, as he sought to win his own life...
The year of magical thinking
Didion, Joan.
Ebook
From one of America's iconic writers, a portrait of a marriage and a life - in good times and bad - that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. A stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience:...
You could make this place beautiful : a memoir
Smith, Maggie
Ebook
In her long-awaited debut memoir, award-winning poet Maggie Smith explores in lyrical vignettes the end of her marriage and the beginning of a surprising new life. It is a story about a mother's fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman's love and regard for herself. ...
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