Skip to main content
Lewisville Public Library
All Lists
Genre Guides
Nonfiction that reads like fiction
Unpublished
Share
Enjoy these narrative nonfiction staff picks!
Updated March 8, 2025
RPL Staff
A list cannot be published until it has at least four items.
List was unpublished.
List was published.
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
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...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The boys in the boat : nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Brown, Daniel
Paper Book
Now a Major Motion Picture Directed by George Clooney The #1 New York Times-bestselling story about the American Olympic rowing triumph in Nazi Germany--from the author of Facing the Mountain. For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The world record book of racist stories
Ruffin, Amber
Paper Book
A new collection of hilarious, intergenerational anecdotes full of absurd detail about everyday experiences of racism from the New York Times bestselling authors of You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey, comedian Amber Ruffin and her sister Lacey. ...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
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...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The lost city of Z : a tale of deadly obsession in the Amazon
Grann, David.
Paper Book
A grand mystery reaching back centuries. A sensational disappearance that made headlines around the world. A quest for truth that leads to death, madness or disappearance for those who seek to solve it. The Lost City of Z is a blockbuster adventure narrative about what lies beneath the...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
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
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The man who loved books too much : the true story of a thief, a detective, and a world of literary obsession
Bartlett, Allison Hoover.
Paper Book
Rare book theft is even more widespread that fine art theft. Most thieves, of course, steal for profit - but John Charles Gilkey stole purely for the love of books. In an attempt to understand him better, journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett plunged herself into the world of book lust and discovered...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
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...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
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 ...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Fuzz : when nature breaks the law
Roach, Mary
Paper Book
What's to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The glass castle : a memoir
Walls, Jeannette.
Paper Book
THE BELOVED #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER--FROM THE AUTHOR OF HANG THE MOON The extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, "nothing short of spectacular" (Entertainment Weekly) memoir from one of the world's most gifted storytellers. The Glass Castle...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
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...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Thanks a thousand : a gratitude journey
Jacobs, A. J.
Paper Book
The idea was deceptively simple: New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jacobs decided to thank every single person involved in producing his morning cup of coffee. The resulting journey takes him across the globe, transforms his life, and reveals secrets about how gratitude can make us...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Outliers : the story of success
Gladwell, Malcolm
Paper Book
Explore what sets high achievers apart--from Bill Gates to the Beatles--in this seminal work from "a singular talent" (New York Times Book Review) Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of Blink and The Bomber Mafia and host of the...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The mother of all questions
Solnit, Rebecca
Paper Book
In a timely follow-up to her national bestseller Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit offers indispensable commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more....
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
18 tiny deaths : the untold story of Frances Glessner Lee and the invention of modern forensics
Goldfarb, Bruce
Paper Book
A captivating blend of history, women in science, and true crime, 18 Tiny Deaths tells the story of how one woman changed the face of forensics forever. Frances Glessner Lee, born a socialite to a wealthy and influential Chicago family in the 1870s, was never meant to have a career, let...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
A carnival of snackery : diaries (2003-2020)
Sedaris, David
Paper Book
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice: There's no right way to keep a diary, but if there's an entertaining way, David Sedaris seems to have mastered it. If it's navel-gazing you're after, you've come to the wrong place; ditto treacly...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
A taste for poison : eleven deadly molecules and the killers who used them
Bradbury, Neil
Paper Book
"A fascinating tale of poisons and poisonous deeds which both educates and entertains." --Kathy Reichs A brilliant blend of science and crime, A TASTE FOR POISON reveals how eleven notorious poisons affect the body--through the murders in which they were used.
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
A voyage long and strange : rediscovering the new world
Horwitz, Tony
Paper Book
The bestselling author ofBlue Latitudes takes us on a thrilling and eye-opening voyage to pre-Mayflower America On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz realizes he's mislaid more than a century of American history, from Columbus's sail in 1492 to Jamestown's founding...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
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...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Hidden Valley Road : inside the mind of an American family
Kolker, Robert
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * ONE OF GQ's TOP 50 BOOKS OF LITERARY JOURNALISM IN THE 21st CENTURY * The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The devil in the white city : murder, magic, and madness at the fair that changed America
Larson, Erik
Paper Book
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST * From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile comes the true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Between the world and me
Coates, Ta-Nehisi
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST * ONE OF OPRAH'S "BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH" * NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Behind the beautiful forevers
Boo, Katherine.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY "Inspiring . . . extraordinary . . . [Katherine Boo] shows us how people in the...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Without you, there is no us : my time with the sons of North Korea's elite
Kim, Suki
Paper Book
A haunting account of teaching English to the sons of North Korea's ruling class during the last six months of Kim Jong-il's reign Every day, three times a day, the students march in two straight lines, singing praises to Kim Jong-il and North Korea: Without you, there is no...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The warmth of other suns : the epic story of America's great migration
Wilkerson, Isabel.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY "A brilliant and stirring epic . . . Ms. Wilkerson does for the...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
In cold blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
Capote, Truman
Paper Book
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,...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The orchid thief
Orlean, Susan.
Paper Book
In Susan Orlean's mesmerizing true story of beauty and obsession is John Laroche, a renegade plant dealer and sharply handsome guy, in spite of the fact that he is missing his front teeth and has the posture of al dente spaghetti. In 1994, Laroche and three Seminole Indians were arrested with rare...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The blind side : evolution of a game
Lewis, Michael
Paper Book
The young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story will one day be among the most highly paid athletes in the National Football League. When we first meet him, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday,...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Evicted : poverty and profit in the American city
Desmond, Matthew
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY One of the most acclaimed books of our time, this modern classic "has set a...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The bad-ass librarians of Timbuktu : and their race to save the world's most precious manuscripts
Hammer, Joshua
Paper Book
To save precious centuries-old Arabic texts from Al Qaeda, a band of librarians in Timbuktu pulls off a brazen heist worthy of Ocean's Eleven. In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
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...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Tribe : on homecoming and belonging
Junger, Sebastian
Paper Book
We have a strong instinct to belong to small groups defined by clear purpose and understanding--"tribes." This tribal connection has been largely lost in modern society, but regaining it may be the key to our psychological survival. Decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Skloot, Rebecca
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "The story of modern medicine and bioethics--and, indeed, race relations--is refracted beautifully, and movingly."--Entertainment Weekly NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE * ONE OF THE "MOST...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Hidden figures : the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race
Shetterly, Margot Lee
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestseller -WINNER OF ANISFIELD-WOLF AWARD FOR NONFICTION -WINNER BLACK CAUCUS OF AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION BEST NONFICTION BOOK -WINNER NAACP IMAGE AWARD BEST NONFICTION BOOK -WINNER NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF SCIENCES,...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Being mortal : medicine and what matters in the end
Gawande, Atul
Paper Book
#1 New York Times Bestseller In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending Medicine has triumphed in modern times,...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Friday night lights : a town, a team, and a dream
Bissinger, H. G.
Paper Book
Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa--the winningest high-school football team in Texas history. Odessa is not known to be a town big on dreams, but the Panthers help keep the hopes and dreams of this small, dusty town going. Socially and racially divided,...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
We are never meeting in real life : essays
Irby, Samantha
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * This essay collection from the "bitches gotta eat" blogger, writer on Hulu's Shrill and HBO's And Just Like That, and "one of our country's most fierce and foulmouthed authors" (Amber Tamblyn, Vulture) is sure to make you alternately cackle...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
From scratch : a memoir of love, Sicily, and finding home
Locke, Tembi
Paper Book
Now a limited Netflix series starring Zoe Saldana! **A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK ** NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** A poignant and transporting cross-cultural love story set against the lush backdrop of the Sicilian countryside, where...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Becoming
Obama, Michelle
Paper Book
Now in paperback--the intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States, featuring a new introduction by Michelle Obama, a letter from the author to her younger self, and a book club guide with 20 discussion questions and a 5-question Q&A nbsp; ...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Faster : how a Jewish driver, an American heiress, and a legendary car beat Hitler's best
Bascomb, Neal
Paper Book
Winner of the Motor Press Guild Best Book of the Year Award & Dean Batchelor Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism For fans of The Boys in the Boat and In the Garden of Beasts, a pulse-pounding tale of triumph by an improbable team of...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The dead are arising : the life of Malcolm X
Payne, Les
Paper Book
Les Payne, the renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to interview anyone he could find who had actually known Malcolm X--all living siblings of the Malcolm Little family, classmates, street friends, cellmates, Nation of Islam...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
A night to remember
Lord, Walter
Paper Book
Presents a minute-by-minute account of the collision between the Titanic and an iceberg in the Atlantic ocean, and the luxury ship's subsequent sinking.
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
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...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Orange is the new black : my year in a women's prison
Kerman, Piper.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Ghost soldiers : the forgotten epic story of World War II's most dramatic mission
Sides, Hampton.
Paper Book
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
River of the gods : genius, courage, and betrayal in the search for the source of the Nile
Millard, Candice
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The harrowing story of one of the great feats of exploration of all time and its complicated legacy--from the New York Times bestselling author of The River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR:...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Trailed : one woman's quest to solve the Shenandoah murders
Miles, Kathryn
Paper Book
A riveting, "beautifully written" deep dive into the unsolved murder of two free-spirited young women in the wilderness (John Grisham, #1 New York Times bestselling author), a journalist's obsession--and a new theory of who might have done it. ...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
White hot hate : a true story of domestic terrorism in America's heartland
Lehr, Dick
Paper Book
For fans of I'll Be Gone in the Dark, the thrilling true story of a would-be terrorist attack against a Kansas farming town's immigrant community, and the FBI informant who exposed it. In the spring of 2016, as immigration debates rocked the United States, three men in a...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The escape artist : the man who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world
Freedland, Jonathan
Paper Book
Winner of the National Jewish Book Award · New York Times Bestseller "A brilliant and heart-wrenching book, with universal and timely lessons about the power of information--and misinformation. Is it possible to stop mass murder by telling the truth?" -- Yuval Noah Harari,...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
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...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Blood & ink : the scandalous jazz age double murder that hooked America on true crime
Pompeo, Joe
Paper Book
New York Times Editor's Pick & Best True Crime of 2022 "Blood & Ink is among 2022's best works of true crime." --Washington Post Vanity Fair's Joe Pompeo investigates the notorious 1922 double murder of a high-society minister and his secret mistress, a Jazz Age mega-crime that...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The splendid and the vile : a saga of Churchill, family, and defiance during the Blitz
Larson, Erik
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz--an inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a time of...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The Jersey brothers : a missing naval officer in the Pacific and his family's quest to bring him home
Freeman, Sally Mott
Paper Book
The extraordinary, real-life adventure of three brothers at the center of the most dramatic turning points of World War II and their mad race to change history--and save one of their own. They are three brothers, all Navy men, who end up coincidentally and extraordinarily at the...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The stranger beside me
Rule, Ann.
Paper Book
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Rule, "America's best true-crime writer" (Kirkus Reviews), her unforgettable classic account of the horrifying murders in the Pacific Northwest and her shock when she discovered her friend--Ted Bundy--was not only a suspect but also one...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
American Sherlock : murder, forensics, and the birth of American CSI
Dawson, Kate Winkler
Paper Book
Known as the 'American Sherlock Holmes,' Edward Oscar Heinrich was one of America's greatest forensic scientists, with a skill level that seemed almost supernatural. Heinrich spearheaded the invention of new forensic tools that police still use today, including blood spatter analysis, ballistics,...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The demon of unrest : a saga of hubris, heartbreak, and heroism at the dawn of the Civil War
Larson, Erik
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this "riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult" (Los Angeles Times). ...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
American demon : Eliot Ness and the hunt for America's Jack the Ripper
Stashower, Daniel
Paper Book
Boston had its Strangler. California had the Zodiac Killer. And in the depths of the Great Depression, Cleveland had the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. On September 5th, 1934, a young beachcomber made a gruesome discovery on the shores of Cleveland's Lake Erie: the lower half of a female torso,...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
You'll never believe what happened to Lacey : crazy stories about racism
Ruffin, Amber
Paper Book
*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* *INDIE NEXT PICK* *A LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR* Writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers Amber Ruffin writes with her sister Lacey Lamar with humor and heart to share...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
The wide wide sea : imperial ambition, first contact and the fateful final voyage of Captain James Cook
Sides, Hampton
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIME, THE ECONOMIST, NPR, THE NEW YORKER, THE SMITHSONIAN, AND KIRKUS REVIEWS A "thrilling and superbly crafted" (The Wall Street Journal) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of...
Comment
Save
Cancel
Check Availability
Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or
log in here.