Nonfiction suggestions

[Anonymous]

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor

[Anonymous]

The Red Roulette was very good.

[Anonymous]

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden O'Keefe (reads almost like a novel)
Salt by Mark Kurlansky
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger
How to Be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman
The Big Short by Michael Lewis
Inventing Niagara by Ginger Strand
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman

[Anonymous]

The Secret Life of Groceries
Say Nothing
The Nazi Officer's Wife
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen (graphic format)
Dreamland
The Radium Girls
Smacked: A Story of White Collar....
Paradise: One Town's Struggle...

[Anonymous]

A Castle in Wartime (about a the daughter of a German diplomat who was executed for conspiring to kill Hitler -- the daughter was married to an Italian but was taken north by the Nazis, and their young sons were taken away from them)

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/573437/a-castle-in-wartime-by-catherine-bailey/

Educated (I know people don't like it, but I thought the author's discussions about how she remembered things and how her family saw them were perfect for a historiographer)

Dopesick (I liked her book about the furniture business in SW VA, too)

[Anonymous]

Original poster here. Thank you for all of the great suggestions! I’ve read a bunch of these; actually just finished Destiny of the Republic and it was so good it prompted me to post this question. I’ve also really enjoyed Empire of Pain, Say Nothing, Educated, Mary Roach’s Bonk, The Third Rainbow Girl, The Brilliant Abyss, Devil in the White City, Crying in H Mart, and The Boys in the Cave.
I’m going to start with Braiding Sweetgrass since it got so many recommendations and come back for more ideas later, so please keep them coming.

[Anonymous]

Op again. I also love everything by Jon Krakauer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:-Braiding Sweetgrass (Robin Wall Kimmerer)
- Quiet (Susan Cain)
-Caste (Isabel Wilkerson)
-The Warmth of Other Suns (Isabel Wilkerson)
-Born A Crime (Trevor Noah)

I mostly read fiction. These books are well-written and compelling enough to be near the top of my stack.

I have also enjoyed books by Anne Lamott, especially bird by bird.

Op here. Thanks! I read both the Isabel Wilkerson books and thought they were great! Will try Braiding Sweetgrass.

[Anonymous]

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

[Anonymous]

Behind the Beautiful Forevers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behind_the_Beautiful_Forevers

The best nonfiction book I've ever read (and it won the 2012 National Book Award, so others loved it too).

[Anonymous]

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty

[Anonymous]

Another recommendation for The Genius of Birds. Other nonfiction I've enjoyed in the past few years:

Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
The Buried, by Peter Hessler
The Color of Law, by Richard Rothstein
Why Fish Don't Exist, by Lulu Miller
The Bright Ages, by Matthew Gabriele and David Perry
Children of Ash and Elm, Neil Price
The Road to Unfreedom, Timothy Snyder
Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell
Fuzz, by Mary Roach (her older book, Stiff, is also great)
The Big Burn, by Timothy Egan

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

Love this book. Also..

The Triumph of Seeds by Thor Hanson
Other Minds: the Octopus, the Sea, and the Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith
Behave by Robert Sapolsky

[Anonymous]

Invisible Child (Andrea Elliott) is a great read if you like social history/anthropological-type books and long-form journalism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Empire of Pain, about the opioid epidemic - will make you question everything the FDA approves

Madame Secretary - Madeleine Albright's autobiography

The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulright - probably my favorite nonfiction ever. Takes the daily diary of a woman from colonial New England who was a midwife and extrapolates all kinds of detail about the lives of ordinary women during that time period

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer - series of essays/linked chapters about Indigenous peoples' interactions with nature and what we can learn from them

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain - a young woman during WWI, authobiography

Life and Death of the Great Lakes - fascinating investigative reporting about the ecological disaster in the Great Lakes

All That She Carried by Tiya Miles - looks at the items a young enslaved girl brought with her out of slavery and what they tell us about her life and that of her ancestors

All That She Carried was fantastic!

It's not new by a long stretch, but if you're local, Rosa Lee by Leon Dash remains one of the most compelling books I've ever read. Also not new but with a local hook, Katharine Graham's Personal History.