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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"I heard you paint houses" : Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran and the inside story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the last ride of Jimmy Hoffa
Brandt, Charles.
Paper Book
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AS I HEARD YOU PAINT HOUSES New York Times Bestseller Now a major motion picture directed by Academy Award® winner Martin Scorsese, starring Academy Award® winners Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Anna Paquin, and Academy Award® nominee...
Acid for the children : a memoir
Flea (Musician)
Paper Book
With "virtuosic vulnerability" (The Atlantic), the iconic bassist and Red Hot Chili peppers co-founder pens a love letter to a youth spent wild in Los Angeles in his raw and riveting coming-of-age memoir. In Acid for the Children, Flea...
American predator : the hunt for the most meticulous serial killer of the 21st century
Callahan, Maureen (Journalist)
Paper Book
Israel Keyes was one of the most ambitious and terrifying serial killers in modern history. The FBI considered his behavior unprecedented. Over the course of fourteen years, Keyes would fly to a city, rent a car, and drive thousands of miles in order to kill. He would break into a stranger's house,...
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 <...
Bombshell : the night Bobby Kennedy killed Marilyn Monroe
Rothmiller, Mike
Paper Book
'Bobby called. He's coming to California. He wants to see me.' Drawing on secret police files, Marilyn Monroe's private diary and never before published first-hand testimony, this book proves that Robert Kennedy was directly responsible for her death. It details the legendary star's...
Bring the war home : the white power movement and paramilitary America
Belew, Kathleen
Audiobook
The white power movement in America wants a revolution. It has declared all-out war against the federal government and its agents, and has carried out-with military precision-an escalating campaign of terror against the American public. Its soldiers are not lone wolves but are highly organized...
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee : an Indian history of the American West
Brown, Dee
Paper Book
The landmark, bestselling account of the crimes against American Indians during the 19th century, now on its 50th Anniversary. First published in 1970, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown's eloquent, meticulously documented account of the systematic destruction...
Buses are a comin' : memoir of a freedom rider
Person, Charles
Paper Book
A firsthand exploration of the cost of boarding the bus of change to move America forward--written by one of the Civil Rights Movement's pioneers. At 18, Charles Person was the youngest of the original Freedom Riders, key figures in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement...
Catch and kill : lies, spies, and a conspiracy to protect predators
Farrow, Ronan
Paper Book
Now an HBO documentary series streaming on HBO Max.  In this instant New York Times bestselling account of violence and espionage, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow exposes serial abusers and a cabal of powerful interests...
Chaos : Charles Manson, the CIA, and the secret history of the sixties
O'Neill, Tom
Paper Book
A journalist's twenty-year fascination with the Manson murders leads to "gobsmacking" (The Ringer) new revelations about the FBI's involvement in this "kaleidoscopic" (The New York Times) reassessment of an infamous case in American history.   Over two grim nights...
The church of baseball : the making of Bull Durham : home runs, bad calls, crazy fights, big swings, and a hit
Shelton, Ron
Paper Book
LA TIMES BESTSELLER * From the award-winning screenwriter and director of cult classic Bull Durham, the extremely entertaining behind-the-scenes story of the making of the film, and an insightful primer on the art and business of moviemaking. "This book...
Cinema speculation
Tarantino, Quentin
Paper Book
Instant New York Times bestseller The long-awaited first work of nonfiction from the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: a deliriously entertaining, wickedly intelligent cinema book as unique and creative as anything by Quentin...
The disaster artist : my life inside The room, the greatest bad movie ever made
Sestero, Greg
Ebook
Dopesick : dealers, doctors, and the drug company that addicted America
Macy, Beth
Paper Book
A Hulu limited series inspired by the New York Times bestselling book by Beth Macy.  Journalist Beth Macy's definitive account of America's opioid epidemic "masterfully interlaces stories of communities in crisis with dark histories of corporate...
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
Empire of pain : the secret history of the Sackler dynasty
Keefe, Patrick Radden
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR * A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. From...
Empire of the summer moon : Quanah Parker and the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history
Gwynne, S. C.
Paper Book
The Epic New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award A New York Times Notable Book Winner of the Texas Book Award Winner of the Oklahoma Book Award...
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
The Roaring Twenties - the Jazz Age - has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in...
The first war of physics : the secret history of the atom bomb, 1939-1949
Baggott, J. E.
Paper Book
Rich in personality, action, confrontation, and deception, The First War of Physics is the first fully realized popular account of the race to build humankind's most destructive weapon. The book draws on declassified material, such as MI6's Farm Hall transcripts, coded soviet messages cracked by...
Five days at Memorial : life and death in a storm-ravaged hospital
Fink, Sheri
Paper Book
One of the New York Times's Best Ten Books of the Year Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Winner of the 2014 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize,...
Forget the Alamo : the rise and fall of an American myth
Burrough, Bryan
Paper Book
Every nation needs a creation myth, and Texas's myths bite deep. In the past forty-some years, waves of revisionists have come at this topic, and at times have made real progress toward a more nuanced and inclusive story that doesn't alienate anyone. The fight over the Alamo's meaning has become...
Gory details : adventures from the dark side of science
Engelhaupt, Erika
Ebook
Using humour and real science in the tradition of Mary Roach, this groovy narrative from the author of National Geographic's popular Gory Details blog illuminates the gross, strange, morbid, and outright absurd realities of our bodies, our earth, and our universe. Filled to the...
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...
Hollywood Park : a memoir
Jollett, Mikel
Paper Book
**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** "A Gen-X This Boy's Life...Music and his fierce brilliance boost Jollett; a visceral urge to leave his background behind propels him to excel... In the end, Jollett shakes off the past to become the captain...
Homegrown : Timothy McVeigh and the rise of right-wing extremism
Toobin, Jeffrey
Paper Book
The definitive account of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the enduring legacy of Timothy McVeigh, leading to the January 6 insurrection--from acclaimed journalist Jeffrey Toobin. Timothy McVeigh wanted to start a movement. Speaking to his lawyers days after the...
I'm glad my mom died
McCurdy, Jennette
Paper Book
* #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER * MORE THAN 2 MILLION COPIES SOLD! A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor--including eating...
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...
In defense of witches : the legacy of the witch hunts and why women are still on trial
Chollet, Mona
Audiobook
Kill anything that moves : the real American war in Vietnam
Turse, Nick.
Paper Book
Based on classified documents and first-person interviews, a startling history of the American war on Vietnamese civilians Americans have long been taught that events such as the notorious My Lai massacre were isolated incidents in the Vietnam War, carried out by "a few bad...
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...
Know my name : a memoir
Miller, Chanel
Paper Book
Universally acclaimed, rapturously reviewed, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography, and an instant New York Times bestseller, Chanel Miller's breathtaking memoir "gives readers the privilege of knowing her not just as Emily Doe, but as Chanel Miller the writer,...
Lafayette in the somewhat United States
Vowell, Sarah
Paper Book
From the bestselling author of Assassination Vacation and Unfamiliar Fishes, a humorous and insightful account of the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette - the one Frenchman we could all agree on - and an insightful portrait of a nation's idealism and its reality.
Last call : a true story of love, lust, and murder in queer New York
Green, Elon
Paper Book
**WINNER OF THE EDGAR® AWARD FOR BEST FACT CRIME** A "terrific, harrowing, true-crime account of an elusive serial killer who preyed upon gay men in the 1990s." -The New York Times (Editor's Pick) "In this astonishing and powerful work of...
Last call : the rise and fall of Prohibition
Okrent, Daniel
Paper Book
A brilliant, authoritative, and fascinating history of America's most puzzling era, the years 1920 to 1933, when the U.S. Constitution was amended to restrict one of America's favorite pastimes: drinking alcoholic beverages. From its start, America has been awash in drink. The...
The last honest man : the CIA, the FBI, the mafia, and the Kennedys--and one senator's fight to save democracy
Risen, James
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER  |  "Timely and long overdue... This book should be required reading."―Tom O'Neill, author of Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties In this "gripping . . ....
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...
A little devil in America : notes in praise of black performance
Abdurraqib, Hanif
Paper Book
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST * A sweeping, genre-bending "masterpiece" (Minneapolis Star Tribune) exploring Black art, music, and culture in all their glory and complexity--from Soul Train, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Whitney...
Madhouse at the end of the Earth : the Belgica's journey into the dark Antarctic night
Sancton, Julian
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The "exquisitely researched and deeply engrossing" (The New York Times) true survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly awry--with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winter ...
Manson : the life and times of Charles Manson
Guinn, Jeff.
Paper Book
The most authoritative account ever written of how an ordinary juvenile delinquent named Charles Manson became the notorious murderer whose crimes still shock and horrify us today. More than forty years ago Charles Manson and his mostly female commune killed nine people, among...
Missoula : rape and the justice system in a college town
Krakauer, Jon.
Paper Book
From bestselling author Jon Krakauer, a stark, powerful, meticulously reported narrative about a series of sexual assaults at the University of Montana -- stories that illuminate the human drama behind the national plague of campus rape Missoula, Montana, is a typical college...
The nineties : a book
Klosterman, Chuck
Paper Book
In The Nineties, cult author Chuck Klosterman makes a home in every element of 90s culture: the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the politics, the changes regarding race and class and sexuality, the yin/yang of Oprah and Alan Greenspan. In perhaps no other book ever written could the sentence,...
Parting the waters : America in the King years, 1954-63
Branch, Taylor.
Paper Book
Hailed as the most masterful story ever told of the American civil rights movement, Parting the Waters is destined to endure for generations. Moving from the fiery political baptism of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the corridors of Camelot where the Kennedy brothers weighed demands for justice against...
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 strychnine, the one used in rat poison--was...
The road to Jonestown : Jim Jones and Peoples Temple
Guinn, Jeff
Paper Book
Rogues : true stories of grifters, killers, rebels and crooks
Keefe, Patrick Radden
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the award-winning author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing--and one of the most decorated journalists of our time--twelve enthralling true stories of skulduggery and intrigue "An excellent collection of Keefe's detective...
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 were shot and killed. Nine years on, parents of the young victims are being accosted on the street and harassed online. Conspiracy theorists have asked them to defend that the event even occurred. At the centre of conspiracy theorists'...
Secret city : the hidden history of gay Washington
Kirchick, James
Paper Book
The New York Times Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 Named one of Vanity Fair's "Best Books of 2022" "Not since Robert Caro's Years of Lyndon Johnson have I been so riveted by a work of history. Secret...
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...
Silent spring revolution : John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the great environmental awakening
Brinkley, Douglas
Paper Book
New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed presidential historian Douglas Brinkley chronicles the rise of environmental activism during the Long Sixties (1960-1973), telling the story of an indomitable generation that saved the natural world under the leadership of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon...
Slenderman : online obsession, mental illness, and the violent crime of two midwestern girls
Hale, Kathleen
Ebook
Trust the plan : the rise of QAnon and the conspiracy that unhinged America
Sommer, Will
Paper Book
"Punchy and well-reported....Sommer is the perfect person to tell this story." --New York Times "A story so bizarre, only Will Sommer could report it." --Molly Jong-Fast The definitive book on QAnon from the reporter knows them best; Will Sommer explains what it is, how it has...
Waco : David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and a legacy of rage
Guinn, Jeff
Paper Book
"Impressively researched and written with storytelling verve" (The Wall Street Journal), this is the definitive account of the disastrous siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, featuring never-before-seen documents, photographs, and interviews, from former...
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...
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 don't know ourselves : a personal history of modern Ireland
O'Toole, Fintan
Paper Book
Fintan O'Toole was born in the year the revolution began. It was 1958, and the Irish government--in despair, because all the young people were leaving--opened the country to foreign investment and popular culture. So began a decades-long, ongoing experiment with Irish national identity. In We Don...
We keep the dead close : a murder at Harvard and a half century of silence
Cooper, Becky
Paper Book
FINALIST FOR THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS BOOK PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION NATIONAL BESTSELLER Named One of The Best Books of 2020 by NPR's Fresh Air * Publishers Weekly * Marie Claire *...

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