Best Books to Gift 2025 - Adult Nonfiction

We have a book for everyone on your list. You might want a few for yourself, too!

Updated November 26, 2025
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Greater Victoria Public Library Greater Victoria Public Library
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Best Books to Gift 2025 - Adult Nonfiction

We have a book for everyone on your list. You might want a few for yourself, too!

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Book of Lives : A Memoir of Sorts
Atwood, Margaret.
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR FROM NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, THE CHIGACO TRIBUNE, TIME MAGAZINE, PEOPLE, NEW YORK MAGAZINE, GOODREADS, LITHUB, AND MORE How does the greatest writer of our time tell her own story? ...
Bread of Angels : A Memoir
Smith, Patti.
A radiant new memoir from beloved artist and writer Patti Smith, author of the National Book Award winner Just Kids God whispers through a crease in the wallpaper, writes Patti Smith in this indelible account of her life as an artist. A post-World War II childhood...
Finding my way : a memoir
Yousafzai, Malala
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! | A USA TODAY MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK "A remarkably intimate and insistently human chronicle of a moral authority's coming of age." --The New York Times This is not the story you think you know...
Future boy : Back to the Future and my journey through the space-time continuum
Fox, Michael J.
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A poignant, heartfelt, and funny memoir about how, in 1985, Michael J. Fox brought to life two iconic roles simultaneously--Alex P. Keaton in Family Ties and Marty McFly in Back to the Future. An amazing true story as only...
Joyride : a memoir
Orlean, Susan
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, TIME, OPRAH DAILY, KIRKUS REVIEWS, GOODREADS, AND MORE "Brilliant...A high-spirited, exhilarating memoir." --The Wall Street Journal * "In Joyride, the takeaway often has as...
A marriage at sea a true story of love, obsession, and shipwreck
Elmhirst, Sophie
THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER & ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025 NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2025 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, NPR, VOGUE, TIME MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORKER, AND MORE "This is nonfiction that reads like fiction - the best kind....
The migrant rain falls in reverse : a memoir
Nguyen, Vinh (Associate professor)
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Finalist for the Toronto Books Awards Finalist for the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction Finalist for the Hilary Weston-Writers' Trust Prize for Non-Fiction An inventive memoir about one family's escape from Vietnam and the father's...
Mother Mary comes to me
Roy, Arundhati
Finalist for the Kirkus Prize A raw and deeply moving memoir from the legendary author of The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness that traces her complex relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, a fierce and formidable force who shaped...
The uncool a memoir
Crowe, Cameron, 1957- author.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "Cameron has written a book that feels like music, an intimate souvenir, like a song you can't stop listening to." --Stevie Nicks * "A delicious tale of a devotee who worships at the altar of rock and roll....It's a love letter to fandom, sealed with...
We did ok, kid : a memoir
Hopkins, Anthony
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Academy Award-winning actor Sir Anthony Hopkins delves into his illustrious film and theater career, difficult childhood, and path to sobriety in his honest, moving, and long-awaited memoir. Born and raised in Port...
Between two rivers : ancient Mesopotamia and the birth of history
Al-Rashid, Moudhy N.
Paper Book
Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time. What they left behind, in a vast region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a...
Dinner with King Tut : how rogue archaeologists are re-creating the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of lost civilizations
Kean, Sam
Paper Book
LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER | INDIE BESTSELLER | The New Yorker's Best Books of 2025 From "one of America's smartest and most charming writers" (NPR), an archaeological romp through the entire history of humankind--and through all five senses--from...
The Golden Road : how ancient India transformed the world
Dalrymple, William
Paper Book
The internationally bestselling author of The Anarchy returns with a sparkling, soaring history of ideas, tracing South Asia's under-recognized role in producing the world as we know it. For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse...
Motherland a feminist history of modern Russia, from revolution to autocracy
Ioffe, Julia
Paper Book
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD Acclaimed journalist Julia Ioffe tells the story of modern Russia through the history of its women, from revolution to utopia to autocracy. In 1990, seven-year-old Julia Ioffe and her family fled the Soviet Union. Nearly...
The place of tides
Rebanks, James
Paper Book
A National Bestseller "A modern classic, one we very much need right now." -George Saunders From the acclaimed author of The Shepherd's Life, a magical work of nonfiction in which James Rebanks reflects on a life-changing summer spent on a remote island off the coast of Norway,...
Vanished Beyond the Map : The Mystery of Lost Explorer Hubert Darrell
Shoalts, Adam.
In November 1910, explorer Hubert Darrell vanished in the uncharted wilds of the Northwest Territories. A prospector who had been swept up in the Klondike Gold Rush, Darrell later made his name as an expert guide, trapper, and restless wanderer who ventured where few others dared. At a time when...
1929 inside the greatest crash in Wall Street history-- and how it shattered a nation
Sorkin, Andrew Ross
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "It is one of the best narrative histories I've read." --The Wall Street Journal Named a BEST BOOK OF 2025 by TIME, The Economist, and Bloomberg From the bestselling author of Too...
Against the Grain : Defiant Giants Who Changed the World
O'Reilly, Terry.
New from the bestselling author and host of CBC Radio's Under the Influence In Terry's bestselling book, My Best Mistake, he uncovers the surprising power of screwing up. Now, he turns his incredible eye to the mavericks who go "against the grain" in their work to see what makes them tick...
Enshittification : why everything suddenly got worse and what to do about it
Doctorow, Cory
Paper Book
Enshittification: it's not just you--the internet sucks now. Here's why, and here's how we can disenshittify it. We're living through the Enshittocene, the Great Enshittening, a time in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit...
The finest hotel in Kabul : a people's history of Afghanistan
Doucet, Lyse
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER The story of a hotel. The story of a nation. When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan's first luxury hotel symbolised a dream of a modernising country connected to the world. More than fifty years on, the ...
The mission : the CIA in the 21st century
Weiner, Tim
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller * A New Yorker Best Book of 2025 * A New York Times Editors' Choice "No one has opened up the CIA to us like Weiner has, and The Mission deserves to win Weiner a second Pulitzer." --The Guardian A masterpiece of reporting based on-the-record...
Chasing evil : shocking crimes, supernatural forces, and an FBI agent's search for hope and justice
Edward, John
Paper Book
How a skeptical FBI agent reached out to a famous psychic for help on a baffling case - and the twenty-five-year crime-solving journey that followed In the summer of 1998, FBI agent Bob Hilland reluctantly picked up the phone to call the famous psychic John Edward. Bob didn't...
Murderland : crime and bloodlust in the time of serial killers
Fraser, Caroline
Paper Book
A National Bestseller * A Washington Post Notable Book * Named a Best Book of the Year by Forbes and NPR * A finalist for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction "Scorching, seductive . . . A superb and disturbing vivisection of our darkest urges." -...
The tragedy of true crime : four guilty men and the stories that define us
Lennon, John J.
In 2001, John J. Lennon killed a man on a Brooklyn Street. Now he's a journalist, working from behind bars, trying to make sense of it all. The Tragedy of True Crime is a first-person journalistic account of the lives of four men who have killed, written by a man who...
Forest euphoria : the abounding queerness of nature
Kaishian, Patricia Ononiwu
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * TIME 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2025 "An antidote to the loneliness of our species."--ROBIN WALL KIMMERER "A master class in how to love the world."--MARGARET RENKL A thrilling book about the abounding queerness of the...
The Genius of Trees : How They Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World
Rix, Harriet.
The mesmerizing, mind-expanding global story of how trees have learned to use the soil, air, water, plants, fungi, fire, animals and people around them to shape our world--possessing an agency beyond anything we might have imagined. Taking us on an awe-inspiring journey through...
Is a river alive?
Macfarlane, Robert
Paper Book
From the celebrated writer, observer and naturalist Robert Macfarlane comes a brilliant, perspective-shifting new book, which answers a resounding "yes" to the question of its title. At the heart of Is a River Alive? is a single, transformative idea: that rivers...
Replaceable you : adventures in human anatomy
Roach, Mary
Paper Book
The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what's available--sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet...
Revered roots : ancestral teachings and wisdom of wild, edible, and medicinal plants
Bird, LoriAnn
Paper Book
With Indigenous Métis herbalist LoriAnn Bird as your guide, connect with the ancestral wisdom of over 90 wild edible and medicinal plants from across North America.  A purposeful and powerful reference to the lessons, nourishment, healing, and history of our "plant teachers,...
The science of pets
Ingram, Jay
In the tradition of The Inside of a Dog, top science writer and TV personality Jay Ingram shares new insights into the hearts, minds, and bodies of the animals who love us (or do they?). More than one billion pets live in homes around the world, sleeping on dog beds,...
Theory of water : Nishnaabe maps to the times ahead
Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE 2025 WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION Acclaimed Nishnaabeg writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson takes a revolutionary look at that most elemental force, water, and suggests a powerful path for the future. For many years, Leanne...
Dead and Alive : Essays
Smith, Zadie
A TIME Best Book of 2025 "Smart, somber . . . There's pleasure in watching a novelist wired to see all sides at once wrangle with her own dynamic subjectivity." - The New York Times Book Review A profound and unparalleled literary voice, Zadie Smith...
How about Now: Poems
Baer, Kate
Paper Book
"Kate Baer's poems are so full of life--life as it is now, that I can hear them breathing. I loved this book."--Emma Straub "How About Now is a balm, a banister, and a battering ram. Her very best yet."--Catherine Newman The third full length poetry collection...
John & Paul : a love story in songs
Leslie, Ian
Paper Book
*INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* "We think we know everything, but author Ian Leslie proves otherwise. His new book, 'John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs,' is, astonishingly, one of the few to offer a detailed narrative of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's...
Writing Creativity and Soul
Kidd, Sue Monk.
From the bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Book of Longings, a book about the wellsprings of the inner life and the creative genius that lies in the unconscious: an inspiring and unforgettable guide to awakening the soul. Part memoir, part...
The book of alchemy : a creative practice for an inspired life
Jaouad, Suleika
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A guide to the art of journaling--and a meditation on the central questions of life--by the bestselling author of Between Two Kingdoms, with contributions from Hanif Abdurraqib, Jon Batiste, Salman Rushdie, Gloria Steinem, George Saunders, and many more<...
Moral ambition : stop wasting your talent and start making a difference
Bregman, Rutger
Paper Book
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER | Bloomberg Businessweek's Best Business Books of the Year From the author of the New York Times bestsellers Humankind and Utopia for Realists--"a more politically radical Malcolm Gladwell" (The New York...
Strong ground : the lessons of daring leadership, the tenacity of paradox, and the wisdom of the human spirit
Brown, Brené
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Brené Brown returns with an urgent call to reimagine the essentials of courageous leadership. In a time when uncertainty runs deep and bluster, hubris, and even cruelty are increasingly framed as acceptable leadership, Brown delivers practical, actionable...
The Anthony Bourdain Reader : New Classic, and Rediscovered Writing
Bourdain, Anthony/ Keefe, Patrick Radden (INT)/ Witherspoon, Kimberly (EDT)
Paper Book
The definitive, career-spanning collection of writing from Anthony Bourdain, assembled for the first time in book form Anthony Bourdain represented many things to many people--and he had many sides. But no part of his identity was more important to him, and more long-lasting, than that of...
Good things : recipes and rituals to share with people you love
Nosrat, Samin
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat--and one of America's most beloved chefs and teachers--125 meticulously tested, flavor-forward, soul-nourishing recipes that bring joy and a sense of communion A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST...
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