The Quantum Zoo: A Tourist's Guide to the Never-Ending Universe, by Marcus Chown

This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, Daniel J Levitin

Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty that Creates Havoc, by Arthur Miller

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candace Millard

Braiding Sweetgrass is one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life.

How the Word is Passed (Clint Smith) - I listened to the audiobook and highly recommend it.

Why We Sleep (Mathew Walker)

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

Autobiographies:
Truth Be Told by Beverley McLaughlin
Ducks by Kate Beaton

Podcasts:
This Podcast Will Kill You
The Emily Show
This Day in Esoteric Political History
The Memory Palace

"Issac's Storm" by Erik Larson. Apropos after Hurricane Ian.

"Slave Narratives" from the Federal Writers Project.

Total collection is from 17 states and is of first-person interviews with more than 2,000 former slaves from 1936-1938. Library of Congress has more info.

The Genius of Birds
Brain on Fire
Maybe you should talk to someone
The Sewing Girl’s Tale

"The Road Out of Hell: Sanford Clark and the True Story of the Wineville Murders" by Anthony Flacco

Very dark subject-teenage boy was forced by his uncle to torture and murder other young boys (and was brutally tortured himself) in the 1920s

This was also depicted in the movie "Changeling."

https://www.amazon.com/Road-Out-Hell-Sanford-Wineville-ebook/dp/B07VYGX8H8

Chocolate City, about the history of DC
Sewing Girl's Tale, about a early rape prosecution in 1780s NYC
10 Steps to Nanette, Hannah Gadsby's memoir about dealing with mental illness and trauma
The Rage of Innocence, about racism in the juvenile justice system
The Woman They Could Not Silence, about the fight to end sexist laws that allowed husbands to put their wives in insane asylums

Cultish

Educated and Just Kids are other possibilities (altho I think Educated shows up on the thread of popular books you didn’t like)

-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.

I’ve been more into nonfiction lately. Would love to hear your nonfiction suggestions. History, true crime, science, whatever.