The Best Nonfiction Books of 2016
Best 2016, Best Books, Best Year-End, Nonfiction

The Best Nonfiction Books of 2016 (A Year-End List Aggregation)

“What are the best Nonfiction books of 2016?” We aggregated 49 year-end lists and ranked the 582 unique titles by how many times they appeared in an attempt to answer that very question!

There are thousands of year-end lists released every year and, like we do in our weekly Best Book articles, we wanted to see which books appear on them the most. We used 49 nonfiction book lists and found 582 unique titles. The top 35 books, all appearing on 4 or more lists, are below with images, summaries, and links for learning more or purchasing. The remaining books, along with the articles we used, can be found at the bottom of the page.

Be sure to check out our other Best Book of the year lists:

And if you want to see how they compare to last year, take a look at the 2015 lists as well!

Happy Scrolling!

 



The Top Nonfiction Books of 2016



35 .) At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell

at-the-existentialist-cafe-freedom-being-and-apricot-cocktails-by-sarah-bakewell
Lists It Appears On:

  • Boston Globe
  • NY Times
  • San Francisco Chronicle 2
  • Amazon

“Paris, 1933: three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called Phenomenology. “You see,” he says, “if you are a phenomenologist you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!”

It was this simple phrase that would ignite a movement, inspiring Sartre to integrate Phenomenology into his own French, humanistic sensibility, thereby creating an entirely new philosophical approach inspired by themes of radical freedom, authentic being, and political activism. This movement would sweep through the jazz clubs and cafés of the Left Bank before making its way across the world as Existentialism.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



34 .) Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America by Patrick Phillips

blood-at-the-root-a-racial-cleansing-in-america-by-patrick-phillips
Lists It Appears On:

  • Hudson Booksellers
  • NY Times
  • Publishers Weekly
  • Boston Globe

“Forsyth County, Georgia, at the turn of the twentieth century was home to a large African American community that included ministers and teachers, farmers and field hands, tradesmen, servants, and children. Many black residents were poor sharecroppers, but others owned their own farms and the land on which they’d founded the county’s thriving black churches.

But then in September of 1912, three young black laborers were accused of raping and murdering a white girl. One man was dragged from a jail cell and lynched on the town square, two teenagers were hung after a one-day trial, and soon bands of white “night riders” launched a coordinated campaign of arson and terror, driving all 1,098 black citizens out of the county. In the wake of the expulsions, whites harvested the crops and took over the livestock of their former neighbors, and quietly laid claim to “abandoned” land. The charred ruins of homes and churches disappeared into the weeds, until the people and places of black Forsyth were forgotten.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



33 .) City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp by Ben Rawlence

city-of-thorns-nine-lives-in-the-worlds-largest-refugee-camp-by-ben-rawlence
Lists It Appears On:

  • Hudson Booksellers
  • Kirkus
  • The Globe and Mail
  • The Economist

“Situated hundreds of miles from any other settlement, deep within the inhospitable desert of northern Kenya where only thorn bushes grow, Dadaab is a city like no other. Its buildings are made from mud, sticks, or plastic. Its entire economy is grey. And its citizens survive on rations and luck. Over the course of four years, Ben Rawlence became a firsthand witness to a strange and desperate place, getting to know many of those who had come seeking sanctuary. Among them are Guled, a former child soldier who lives for football; Nisho, who scrapes an existence by pushing a wheelbarrow and dreaming of riches; Tawane, the indomitable youth leader; and Kheyro, a student whose future hangs upon her education.

In City of Thorns, Rawlence interweaves the stories of nine individuals to show what life is like in the camp, sketching the wider political forces that keep the refugees trapped. Lucid, vivid, and illuminating, City of Thorns is an urgent human story with deep international repercussions, brought to life through the people who call Dabaab home.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



32 .) Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape by Peggy Orenstein

girls-sex-navigating-the-complicated-new-landscape-by-peggy-orenstein
Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Goodreads
  • San Francisco Chronicle 2
  • Time

“A generation gap has emerged between parents and their girls. Even in this age of helicopter parenting, the mothers and fathers of tomorrow’s women have little idea what their daughters are up to sexually or how they feel about it. Drawing on in-depth interviews with over seventy young women and a wide range of psychologists, academics, and experts, renowned journalist Peggy Orenstein goes where most others fear to tread, pulling back the curtain on the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important possibilities of girls’ sex lives in the modern world.

While the media has focused—often to sensational effect—on the rise of casual sex and the prevalence of rape on campus, in Girls and Sex Peggy Orenstein brings much more to the table. She examines the ways in which porn and all its sexual myths have seeped into young people’s lives; what it means to be the “the perfect slut” and why many girls scorn virginity; the complicated terrain of hookup culture and the unfortunate realities surrounding assault. In Orenstein’s hands these issues are never reduced to simplistic “truths;” rather, her powerful reporting opens up a dialogue on a potent, often silent, subtext of American life today—giving readers comprehensive and in-depth information with which to understand, and navigate, this complicated new world.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



31 .) Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard

hero-of-the-empire-the-boer-war-a-daring-escape-and-the-making-of-winston-churchill-by-candice-millard
Lists It Appears On:

  • Good Books Guide
  • NPR
  • NY Times
  • Washington Post

“At age twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England one day, despite the fact he had just lost his first election campaign for Parliament. He believed that to achieve his goal he must do something spectacular on the battlefield. Despite deliberately putting himself in extreme danger as a British Army officer in colonial wars in India and Sudan, and as a journalist covering a Cuban uprising against the Spanish, glory and fame had eluded him.

Churchill arrived in South Africa in 1899, valet and crates of vintage wine in tow, there to cover the brutal colonial war the British were fighting with Boer rebels. But just two weeks after his arrival, the soldiers he was accompanying on an armored train were ambushed, and Churchill was taken prisoner. Remarkably, he pulled off a daring escape–but then had to traverse hundreds of miles of enemy territory, alone, with nothing but a crumpled wad of cash, four slabs of chocolate, and his wits to guide him.

Learn More / Purchase Book



30 .) Hidden Figures: The American Dream And The Untold Story Of The Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win The Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

hidden-figures-the-american-dream-and-the-untold-story-of-the-black-women-mathematicians-who-helped-win-the-space-race-by-margot-lee-shetterly
Lists It Appears On:

  • Time
  • Buzzfeed
  • NPR
  • Publishers Weekly

“Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



29 .) How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France

how-to-survive-a-plague-the-inside-story-of-how-citizens-and-science-tamed-aids-by-david-france
Lists It Appears On:

  • Entropy
  • Buzzfeed
  • NY Times
  • San Francisco Chronicle

“A riveting, powerful telling of the story of the grassroots movement of activists, many of them in a life-or-death struggle, who seized upon scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease. Ignored by public officials, religious leaders, and the nation at large, and confronted with shame and hatred, this small group of men and women chose to fight for their right to live by educating themselves and demanding to become full partners in the race for effective treatments. Around the globe, 16 million people are alive today thanks to their efforts.

Not since the publication of Randy Shilts’s classic And the Band Played On has a book measured the AIDS plague in such brutally human, intimate, and soaring terms.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



28 .) So Sad Today: Personal Essays by Melissa Broder

so-sad-today-by-melissa-broder
Lists It Appears On:

  • Entropy
  • The Globe and Mail
  • NPR
  • Publishers Weekly

Melissa Broder always struggled with anxiety. In the fall of 2012, she went through a harrowing cycle of panic attacks and dread that wouldn’t abate for months. So she began @sosadtoday, an anonymous Twitter feed that allowed her to express her darkest feelings, and which quickly gained a dedicated following. In SO SAD TODAY, Broder delves deeper into the existential themes she explores on Twitter, grappling with sex, death, love low self-esteem, addiction, and the drama of waiting for the universe to text you back. With insights as sharp as her humor, Broder explores–in prose that is both ballsy and beautiful, aggressively colloquial and achingly poetic–questions most of us are afraid to even acknowledge, let alone answer, in order to discover what it really means to be a person in this modern world.

Learn More / Purchase Book



27 .) The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The US Standard of Living since the Civil War by Robert J Gordon

the-rise-and-fall-of-american-growth-the-u-s-standard-of-living-since-the-civil-war-princeton-economic-history-of-the-western-world-by-robert-j-gordon
Lists It Appears On:

  • Five Books
  • NY Times
  • Daniel H. Pink
  • The Economist

In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, motor vehicles, air travel, and television transformed households and workplaces. But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end? Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growth challenges the view that economic growth will continue unabated, and demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870 and 1970 cannot be repeated. Gordon contends that the nation’s productivity growth will be further held back by the headwinds of rising inequality, stagnating education, an aging population, and the rising debt of college students and the federal government, and that we must find new solutions. A critical voice in the most pressing debates of our time, The Rise and Fall of American Growth is at once a tribute to a century of radical change and a harbinger of tougher times to come.

Learn More / Purchase Book



26 .) Time Travel: A History by James Gleick

time-travel-by-james-gleick
Lists It Appears On:

  • MPR News
  • Buzzfeed
  • Boston Globe
  • San Francisco Chronicle 2

The story begins at the turn of the previous century, with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book and an international sensation: The Time Machine. It was an era when a host of forces was converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological: the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks. James Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea that becomes part of contemporary culture—from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Jorge Luis Borges to Woody Allen. He investigates the inevitable looping paradoxes and examines the porous boundary between pulp fiction and modern physics. Finally, he delves into a temporal shift that is unsettling our own moment: the instantaneous wired world, with its all-consuming present and vanishing future.

Learn More / Purchase Book



25 .) All The Single Ladies: Unmarried Women And The Rise Of An Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister

all-the-single-ladies-unmarried-women-and-the-rise-of-an-independent-nation-by-rebecca-traister
Lists It Appears On:

  • MPR News
  • NPR
  • The Globe and Mail
  • Boston Globe
  • NY Times

“The New York Times bestselling investigation into the sexual, economic, and emotional lives of women is “an informative and thought-provoking book for anyone—not just the single ladies—who want to gain a greater understanding of this pivotal moment in the history of the United States” (The New York Times Book Review).

In 2009, award-winning journalist Rebecca Traister started All the Single Ladies about the twenty-first century phenomenon of the American single woman. It was the year the proportion of American women who were married dropped below fifty percent; and the median age of first marriages, which had remained between twenty and twenty-two years old for nearly a century (1890–1980), had risen dramatically to twenty-seven.

But over the course of her vast research and more than a hundred interviews with academics and social scientists and prominent single women, Traister discovered a startling truth: the phenomenon of the single woman in America is not a new one. And historically, when women were given options beyond early heterosexual marriage, the results were massive social change—temperance, abolition, secondary education, and more. Today, only twenty percent of Americans are married by age twenty-nine, compared to nearly sixty percent in 1960. “

Learn More / Purchase Book



24 .) Kill ‘Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul by James McBride

kill-em-and-leave-searching-for-james-brown-and-the-american-soul-by-james-mcbride
Lists It Appears On:

  • NPR
  • Tampa Bay Times
  • Time
  • Boston Globe
  • San Francisco Chronicle 2

Kill ’Em and Leave is more than a book about James Brown. Brown’s rough-and-tumble life, through McBride’s lens, is an unsettling metaphor for American life: the tension between North and South, black and white, rich and poor. McBride’s travels take him to forgotten corners of Brown’s never-before-revealed history: the country town where Brown’s family and thousands of others were displaced by America’s largest nuclear power bomb-making facility; a South Carolina field where a long-forgotten cousin recounts, in the dead of night, a fuller history of Brown’s sharecropping childhood, which until now has been a mystery. McBride seeks out the American expatriate in England who co-created the James Brown sound, visits the trusted right-hand manager who worked with Brown for forty-one years, and interviews Brown’s most influential nonmusical creation, his “adopted son,” the Reverend Al Sharpton. He describes the stirring visit of Michael Jackson to the Augusta, Georgia, funeral home where the King of Pop sat up all night with the body of his musical godfather, spends hours talking with Brown’s first wife, and lays bare the Dickensian legal contest over James Brown’s estate, a fight that has consumed careers; prevented any money from reaching the poor schoolchildren in Georgia and South Carolina, as instructed in his will; cost Brown’s estate millions in legal fees; and left James Brown’s body to lie for more than eight years in a gilded coffin in his daughter’s yard in South Carolina.

Learn More / Purchase Book



23 .) Known and Strange Things: Essays by Teju Cole

known-and-strange-things-essays-by-teju-cole
Lists It Appears On:

  • Time
  • Largehearted Boy
  • The Undefeated
  • San Francisco Chronicle 2
  • Good Books Guide

“With this collection of more than fifty pieces on politics, photography, travel, history, and literature, Teju Cole solidifies his place as one of today’s most powerful and original voices. On page after page, deploying prose dense with beauty and ideas, he finds fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people, and historical moments, taking in subjects from Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare, and W. G. Sebald to Instagram, Barack Obama, and Boko Haram. Cole brings us new considerations of James Baldwin in the age of Black Lives Matter; the African American photographer Roy DeCarava, who, forced to shoot with film calibrated exclusively for white skin tones, found his way to a startling and true depiction of black subjects; and (in an essay that inspired both praise and pushback when it first appeared) the White Savior Industrial Complex, the system by which African nations are sentimentally aided by an America “developed on pillage.”

Persuasive and provocative, erudite yet accessible, Known and Strange Things is an opportunity to live within Teju Cole’s wide-ranging enthusiasms, curiosities, and passions, and a chance to see the world in surprising and affecting new frames.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



22 .) Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O’Neil

weapons-of-math-destruction-how-big-data-increases-inequality-and-threatens-democracy-by-cathy-oneil
Lists It Appears On:

  • MPR News
  • Buzzfeed
  • NY Times
  • Boston Globe
  • Verso

“We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we pay for health insurance—are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated.

But as Cathy O’Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable, even when they’re wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination: If a poor student can’t get a loan because a lending model deems him too risky (by virtue of his zip code), he’s then cut off from the kind of education that could pull him out of poverty, and a vicious spiral ensues. Models are propping up the lucky and punishing the downtrodden, creating a “toxic cocktail for democracy.” Welcome to the dark side of Big Data.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



21 .) White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson

white-rage-the-unspoken-truth-of-our-racial-divide-by-carol-anderson
Lists It Appears On:

  • Chicago Review of Books
  • NY Times
  • The Globe and Mail
  • Washington Post
  • Boston Globe

“As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014, and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as “black rage,” historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, “white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,” she writes, “everyone had ignored the kindling.”

Since 1865 and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, every time African Americans have made advances towards full participation in our democracy, white reaction has fueled a deliberate and relentless rollback of their gains. The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction was greeted with the Black Codes and Jim Crow; the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was met with the shutting down of public schools throughout the South while taxpayer dollars financed segregated white private schools; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 triggered a coded but powerful response, the so-called Southern Strategy and the War on Drugs that disenfranchised millions of African Americans while propelling presidents Nixon and Reagan into the White House.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



20 .) The Romanovs: 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore.

the-romanovs-1613-1918-by-simon-sebag-montefiore
Lists It Appears On:

  • Dayton Daily News
  • Good Books Guide
  • NPR
  • Washington Post
  • The Economist
  • The Spinoff

“This is the intimate story of twenty tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition. Simon Sebag Montefiore’s gripping chronicle reveals their secret world of unlimited power and ruthless empire-building, overshadowed by palace conspiracy, family rivalries, sexual decadence and wild extravagance, with a global cast of adventurers, courtesans, revolutionaries and poets, from Ivan the Terrible to Tolstoy and Pushkin, to Bismarck, Lincoln, Queen Victoria and Lenin.

To rule Russia was both imperial-sacred mission and poisoned chalice: six of the last twelve tsars were murdered. Peter the Great tortured his own son to death while making Russia an empire, and dominated his court with a dining club notable for compulsory drunkenness, naked dwarfs and fancy dress. Catherine the Great overthrew her own husband (who was murdered soon afterward), enjoyed affairs with a series of young male favorites, conquered Ukraine and fascinated Europe. Paul I was strangled by courtiers backed by his own son, Alexander I, who in turn faced Napoleon’s invasion and the burning of Moscow, then went on to take Paris. Alexander II liberated the serfs, survived five assassination attempts and wrote perhaps the most explicit love letters ever composed by a ruler. The Romanovs climaxes with a fresh, unforgettable portrayal of Nicholas II and Alexandra, the rise and murder of Rasputin, war and revolution—and the harrowing massacre of the entire family.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



19 .) Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives by Gary Younge

another-day-in-the-death-of-america-a-chronicle-of-ten-short-lives-by-gary-younge
Lists It Appears On:

  • Chicago Tribune
  • Goodreads
  • Kirkus
  • Publishers Weekly
  • The Economist
  • Shelf Awareness

“On an average day in America, seven children and teens will be shot dead. In Another Day in the Death of America, award-winning journalist Gary Younge tells the stories of the lives lost during one such day. It could have been any day, but he chose November 23, 2013. Black, white, and Latino, aged nine to nineteen, they fell at sleepovers, on street corners, in stairwells, and on their own doorsteps. From the rural Midwest to the barrios of Texas, the narrative crisscrosses the country over a period of twenty-four hours to reveal the full human stories behind the gun-violence statistics and the brief mentions in local papers of lives lost.

This powerful and moving work puts a human face—a child’s face—on the “collateral damage” of gun deaths across the country. This is not a book about gun control, but about what happens in a country where it does not exist. What emerges in these pages is a searing and urgent portrait of youth, family, and firearms in America today.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



18 .) Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson

blood-in-the-water-the-attica-prison-uprising-of-1971-and-its-legacy-by-heather-ann-thompson
Lists It Appears On:

  • The Christian Science Monitor
  • Kirkus
  • NY Times
  • Publishers Weekly
  • The Undefeated
  • Boston Globe

“On September 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 prisoners took over the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to protest years of mistreatment. Holding guards and civilian employees hostage, the prisoners negotiated with officials for improved conditions during the four long days and nights that followed.

On September 13, the state abruptly sent hundreds of heavily armed troopers and correction officers to retake the prison by force. Their gunfire killed thirty-nine men—hostages as well as prisoners—and severely wounded more than one hundred others. In the ensuing hours, weeks, and months, troopers and officers brutally retaliated against the prisoners. And, ultimately, New York State authorities prosecuted only the prisoners, never once bringing charges against the officials involved in the retaking and its aftermath and neglecting to provide support to the survivors and the families of the men who had been killed.

Drawing from more than a decade of extensive research, historian Heather Ann Thompson sheds new light on every aspect of the uprising and its legacy, giving voice to all those who took part in this forty-five-year fight for justice: prisoners, former hostages, families of the victims, lawyers and judges, and state officials and members of law enforcement. Blood in the Water is the searing and indelible account of one of the most important civil rights stories of the last century.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



17 .) Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

lab-girl-by-hope-jahren
Lists It Appears On:

  • NPR
  • NY Times
  • Star Tribune
  • Time
  • Shelf Awareness
  • Daniel H. Pink

“An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime friendship; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see the natural world

Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she’s studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Her first book is a revelatory treatise on plant life—but it is also so much more.

Lab Girl is a book about work, love, and the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It is told through Jahren’s remarkable stories: about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom’s labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and learned to perform lab work done “with both the heart and the hands”; and about the inevitable disappointments, but also the triumphs and exhilarating discoveries, of scientific work.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



16 .) Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi

stamped-from-the-beginning-the-definitive-history-of-racist-ideas-in-america-by-ibram-x-kendi
Lists It Appears On:

  • Chicago Review of Books
  • Buzzfeed
  • Entropy
  • Kirkus
  • Washington Post
  • Boston Globe

“In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. Stamped from the Beginning uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and antiracists. From Puritan minister Cotton Mather to Thomas Jefferson, from fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to brilliant scholar W.E.B. Du Bois to legendary anti-prison activist Angela Davis, Kendi shows how and why some of our leading proslavery and pro-civil rights thinkers have challenged or helped cement racist ideas in America.

Contrary to popular conceptions, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. Instead, they were devised and honed by some of the most brilliant minds of each era. These intellectuals used their brilliance to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation’s racial disparities in everything from wealth to health. And while racist ideas are easily produced and easily consumed, they can also be discredited. In shedding much-needed light on the murky history of racist ideas, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose them–and in the process, gives us reason to hope.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



15 .) The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between by Hisham Matar

the-return-fathers-sons-and-the-land-in-between-by-hisham-matar
Lists It Appears On:

  • Five Books
  • MPR News
  • Good Books Guide
  • NPR
  • NY Times
  • The Economist

“When Hisham Matar was a nineteen-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime’s most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. “Hope,” as he writes, “is cunning and persistent.”

Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells are empty and there is no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returns with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he’d go back to again. The Return is the story of what he found there. It is at once an exquisite meditation on history, politics, and art, a brilliant portrait of a nation and a people on the cusp of change, and a disquieting depiction of the brutal legacy of absolute power. Above all, it is a universal tale of loss and love and of one family’s life. Hisham Matar asks the harrowing question: How does one go on living in the face of a loved one’s uncertain fate?”

Learn More / Purchase Book



14 .) Truevine – Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother’s Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South by Beth Macy

truevine-two-brothers-a-kidnapping-and-a-mothers-quest-a-true-story-of-the-jim-crow-south-by-beth-macy
Lists It Appears On:

  • MPR News
  • Dayton Daily News
  • Kirkus
  • Tampa Bay Times
  • San Francisco Chronicle
  • NY Times

“The year was 1899 and the place a sweltering tobacco farm in the Jim Crow South town of Truevine, Virginia. George and Willie Muse were two little boys born to a sharecropper family. One day a white man offered them a piece of candy, setting off events that would take them around the world and change their lives forever.
Captured into the circus, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even “”Ambassadors from Mars.”” Back home, their mother never accepted that they were “”gone”” and spent 28 years trying to get them back.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



13 .) I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong

i-contain-multitudes-the-microbes-within-us-and-a-grander-view-of-life-by-ed-yong
Lists It Appears On:

  • MPR News
  • Buzzfeed
  • Medium
  • NPR
  • NY Times
  • Publishers Weekly
  • Star Tribune

“Joining the ranks of popular science classics like The Botany of Desire and The Selfish Gene, a groundbreaking, wondrously informative, and vastly entertaining examination of the most significant revolution in biology since Darwin—a “microbe’s-eye view” of the world that reveals a marvelous, radically reconceived picture of life on earth.

Every animal, whether human, squid, or wasp, is home to millions of bacteria and other microbes. Ed Yong, whose humor is as evident as his erudition, prompts us to look at ourselves and our animal companions in a new light—less as individuals and more as the interconnected, interdependent multitudes we assuredly are.

The microbes in our bodies are part of our immune systems and protect us from disease. In the deep oceans, mysterious creatures without mouths or guts depend on microbes for all their energy. Bacteria provide squid with invisibility cloaks, help beetles to bring down forests, and allow worms to cause diseases that afflict millions of people.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



12 .) March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

march-book-three-march-3-by-john-lewis-andrew-aydin
Lists It Appears On:

  • Buzzfeed
  • Chicago Tribune
  • Time
  • Bookriot
  • NPR
  • The Horn Book
  • Daniel H. Pink

“By the fall of 1963, the Civil Rights Movement has penetrated deep into the American consciousness, and as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, John Lewis is guiding the tip of the spear. Through relentless direct action, SNCC continues to force the nation to confront its own blatant injustice, but for every step forward, the danger grows more intense: Jim Crow strikes back through legal tricks, intimidation, violence, and death. The only hope for lasting change is to give voice to the millions of Americans silenced by voter suppression: “”One Man, One Vote.””

To carry out their nonviolent revolution, Lewis and an army of young activists launch a series of innovative campaigns, including the Freedom Vote, Mississippi Freedom Summer, and an all-out battle for the soul of the Democratic Party waged live on national television.
With these new struggles come new allies, new opponents, and an unpredictable new president who might be both at once. But fractures within the movement are deepening … even as 25-year-old John Lewis prepares to risk everything in a historic showdown high above the Alabama river, in a town called Selma.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



11 .) Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer

dark-money-the-hidden-history-of-the-billionaires-behind-the-rise-of-the-radical-right-by-jane-mayer
Lists It Appears On:

  • Ripr
  • Goodreads
  • Caroline County Public Library
  • Medium
  • NPR
  • NY Times
  • Washington Post
  • San Francisco Chronicle

“Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality? Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again? Why have protections for employees been decimated? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers?
The conventional answer is that a popular uprising against “big government” led to the ascendancy of a broad-based conservative movement. But as Jane Mayer shows in this powerful, meticulously reported history, a network of exceedingly wealthy people with extreme libertarian views bankrolled a systematic, step-by-step plan to fundamentally alter the American political system.
The network has brought together some of the richest people on the planet. Their core beliefs—that taxes are a form of tyranny; that government oversight of business is an assault on freedom—are sincerely held. But these beliefs also advance their personal and corporate interests: Many of their companies have run afoul of federal pollution, worker safety, securities, and tax laws.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



10 .) The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

the-gene-an-intimate-history-by-siddhartha-mukherjee
Lists It Appears On:

  • Hudson Booksellers
  • Marginal Revolution
  • NPR
  • NY Times
  • Seattle Times
  • The Globe and Mail
  • San Francisco Chronicle 2
  • Medium

“Siddhartha Mukherjee has a written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant, and illuminating as his extraordinarily successful biography of cancer. Weaving science, social history, and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee animates the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.

Throughout the narrative, the story of Mukherjee’s own family—with its tragic and bewildering history of mental illness—cuts like a bright, red line, reminding us of the many questions that hang over our ability to translate the science of genetics from the laboratory to the real world. In superb prose and with an instinct for the dramatic scene, he describes the centuries of research and experimentation—from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Mendel and Darwin, from Boveri and Morgan to Crick, Watson and Franklin, all the way through the revolutionary twenty-first century innovators who mapped the human genome.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



9 .) The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing

the-lonely-city-adventures-in-the-art-of-being-alone-by-olivia-laing
Lists It Appears On:

  • Verso
  • Entropy
  • Good Books Guide
  • Goodreads
  • NPR
  • Publishers Weekly
  • The Globe and Mail
  • The Spinoff

“What does it mean to be lonely? How do we live, if we’re not intimately engaged with another human being? How do we connect with other people? Does technology draw us closer together or trap us behind screens?

When Olivia Laing moved to New York City in her mid-thirties, she found herself inhabiting loneliness on a daily basis. Increasingly fascinated by this most shameful of experiences, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art. Moving fluidly between works and lives – from Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks to Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules, from Henry Darger’s hoarding to David Wojnarowicz’s AIDS activism – Laing conducts an electric, dazzling investigation into what it means to be alone.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



8 .) The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race by Jesmyn Ward

the-fire-this-time-a-new-generation-speaks-about-race-by-jesmyn-ward
Lists It Appears On:

  • Bookriot
  • Buzzfeed
  • Entropy
  • Goodreads
  • MPR News
  • NPR
  • Publishers Weekly
  • San Francisco Chronicle 2
  • The Undefeated

“In light of recent tragedies and widespread protests across the nation, The Progressive magazine republished one of its most famous pieces: James Baldwin’s 1962 “Letter to My Nephew,” which was later published in his landmark book, The Fire Next Time. Addressing his fifteen-year-old namesake on the one hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Baldwin wrote: “You know and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon.”

Award-winning author Jesmyn Ward knows that Baldwin’s words ring as true as ever today. In response, she has gathered short essays, memoir, and a few essential poems to engage the question of race in the United States. And she has turned to some of her generation’s most original thinkers and writers to give voice to their concerns.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



7 .) White Trash, the 400-year untold story of class in America by Nancy Isenberg

white-trash-the-400-year-untold-history-of-class-in-america-by-nancy-isenberg
Lists It Appears On:

  • Brian Fanelli
  • MPR News
  • NPR
  • NY Times
  • Publishers Weekly
  • Ripr
  • San Francisco Chronicle 2
  • The Globe and Mail
  • Washington Post

Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society––where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics–-a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ’s Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity.

Learn More / Purchase Book



6 .) Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen

born-to-run-by-bruce-springsteen
Lists It Appears On:

  • Buzzfeed
  • Medium
  • NPR
  • NY Times
  • Philly
  • Publishers Weekly
  • San Francisco Chronicle 2
  • Tampa Bay Times
  • The Economist
  • The Globe and Mail

“Born to Run will be revelatory for anyone who has ever enjoyed Bruce Springsteen, but this book is much more than a legendary rock star’s memoir. This is a book for workers and dreamers, parents and children, lovers and loners, artists, freaks, or anyone who has ever wanted to be baptized in the holy river of rock and roll.
Rarely has a performer told his own story with such force and sweep. Like many of his songs (“Thunder Road,” “Badlands,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “The River,” “Born in the U.S.A,” “The Rising,” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” to name just a few), Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography is written with the lyricism of a singular songwriter and the wisdom of a man who has thought deeply about his experiences. “

Learn More / Purchase Book



5 .) Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

hillbilly-elegy-a-memoir-of-a-family-and-culture-in-crisis-by-j-d-vance
Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Brian Fanelli
  • Englewood Review
  • Hudson Booksellers
  • NPR
  • San Francisco Chronicle 2
  • Seattle Times
  • The Economist
  • Time
  • Washington Post

“Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility.

But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



4 .) Second Hand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich, trans. from the Russian by Bela Shayevich

second-hand-time-the-last-of-the-soviets-by-svetlana-alexievich
Lists It Appears On:

  • Buzzfeed
  • Caroline County Public Library
  • Five Books
  • Good Books Guide
  • Kirkus
  • NPR
  • NY Times
  • Publishers Weekly
  • Readings
  • San Francisco Chronicle
  • The Christian Science Monitor

“When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing “a new kind of literary genre,” describing her work as “a history of emotions—a history of the soul.” Alexievich’s distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation.

In Secondhand Time, Alexievich chronicles the demise of communism. Everyday Russian citizens recount the past thirty years, showing us what life was like during the fall of the Soviet Union and what it’s like to live in the new Russia left in its wake. Through interviews spanning 1991 to 2012, Alexievich takes us behind the propaganda and contrived media accounts, giving us a panoramic portrait of contemporary Russia and Russians who still carry memories of oppression, terror, famine, massacres—but also of pride in their country, hope for the future, and a belief that everyone was working and fighting together to bring about a utopia. Here is an account of life in the aftermath of an idea so powerful it once dominated a third of the world.

Learn More / Purchase Book



3 .) Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

shirley-jackson-a-rather-haunted-life-by-ruth-franklin
Lists It Appears On:

  • Boston Globe
  • Buzzfeed
  • Good Books Guide
  • MPR News
  • NPR
  • NY Times
  • Publishers Weekly
  • San Francisco Chronicle 2
  • Seattle Times
  • Time
  • Washington Post

“The increasingly prescient Jackson emerges as a ferociously talented, determined, and prodigiously creative writer in a time when it was unusual for a woman to have both a family and a profession. A mother of four and the wife of the prominent New Yorker critic and academic Stanley Edgar Hyman, Jackson lived a seemingly bucolic life in the New England town of North Bennington, Vermont. Yet, much like her stories, which channeled the occult while exploring the claustrophobia of marriage and motherhood, Jackson’s creative ascent was haunted by a darker side. As her career progressed, her marriage became more tenuous, her anxiety mounted, and she became addicted to amphetamines and tranquilizers. In sobering detail, Franklin insightfully examines the effects of Jackson’s California upbringing, in the shadow of a hypercritical mother, on her relationship with her husband, juxtaposing Hyman’s infidelities, domineering behavior, and professional jealousy with his unerring admiration for Jackson’s fiction, which he was convinced was among the most brilliant he had ever encountered.

Based on a wealth of previously undiscovered correspondence and dozens of new interviews, Shirley Jackson―an exploration of astonishing talent shaped by a damaging childhood and turbulent marriage―becomes the definitive biography of a generational avatar and an American literary giant.

Learn More / Purchase Book



2 .) When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

when-breath-becomes-air-by-paul-kalanithi
Lists It Appears On:

  • Caroline County Public Library
  • Entropy
  • Hudson Booksellers
  • Kirkus
  • Medium
  • NPR
  • NY Times
  • Publishers Weekly
  • Shelf Awareness
  • The Economist
  • The Globe and Mail

“At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



1 .) Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

evicted-poverty-and-profit-in-the-american-city-by-matthew-desmond
Lists It Appears On:

  • Amazon
  • Boston Globe
  • Buzzfeed
  • Chicago Review of Books
  • Chicago Tribune
  • Daniel H. Pink
  • Good Books Guide
  • Goodreads
  • Kirkus
  • MPR News
  • NPR
  • NY Times
  • Publishers Weekly
  • San Francisco Chronicle
  • Shelf Awareness
  • The Christian Science Monitor

“In this brilliant, heartbreaking book, Matthew Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the $20 a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched stickup after her hours are cut. All are spending almost everything they have on rent, and all have fallen behind.

The fates of these families are in the hands of two landlords: Sherrena Tarver, a former schoolteacher turned inner-city entrepreneur, and Tobin Charney, who runs one of the worst trailer parks in Milwaukee. They loathe some of their tenants and are fond of others, but as Sherrena puts it, “Love don’t pay the bills.” She moves to evict Arleen and her boys a few days before Christmas.

Even in the most desolate areas of American cities, evictions used to be rare. But today, most poor renting families are spending more than half of their income on housing, and eviction has become ordinary, especially for single mothers. In vivid, intimate prose, Desmond provides a ground-level view of one of the most urgent issues facing America today. As we see families forced into shelters, squalid apartments, or more dangerous neighborhoods, we bear witness to the human cost of America’s vast inequality—and to people’s determination and intelligence in the face of hardship.”

Learn More / Purchase Book



The Remaining 547 Best Nonfiction Books of 2016



 

#BookAuthorLists
(Appear on 3 Lists Each)
36A Rage For Order: The Middle East In Turmoil, From Tahrir Square To ISISRobert F. WorthNPR
NY Times
Publishers Weekly
37Am I Alone Here? Notes on Living to Read and Reading to LivePeter OrnerBuzzfeed
San Francisco Chronicle 2
Good Books Guide
38Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal IconLarry TyeConversations Mag
Ripr
Washington Post
39Born a Crime: Stories from a South African ChildhoodTrevor NoahGood Books Guide
NPR
Philly
40Boy ErasedGarrard ConleyLargehearted Boy
Buzzfeed
Shelf Awareness
41Eleanor Roosevelt: The War Years and After: Vol. 3: 1939-1962Blanche Wiesen CookNPR
San Francisco Chronicle 2
NY Times
42Future SexEmily WittEntropy
Verso
Post Matter
43GritAngela DuckworthConversations Mag
Goodreads
Daniel H. Pink
44Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water LiliesRoss KingThe Christian Science Monitor
CBA
Boston Globe
45On Trails: An ExplorationRobert MoorSeattle Times
Amazon
Boston Globe
46Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the WorldAdam M. GrantGoodreads
NPR
Daniel H. Pink
47Pit Bull: The Battle Over An American IconBronwen DickeyNPR
Boston Globe
San Francisco Chronicle 2
48PumpkinflowersMatti FriedmanCBA
NY Times
The Globe and Mail
49Shrill: Notes From A Loud WomanLindy WestMPR News
NPR
The Globe and Mail
50Sing for Your Life: A Story of Race, Music, and FamilyDaniel BergnerNY Times
Publishers Weekly
Washington Post
51Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American RightArlie Russell HochschildRipr
NY Times
San Francisco Chronicle 2
52The Art of WaitingBelle BoggsLargehearted Boy
Buzzfeed
The Globe and Mail
53The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our HeadsTimothy WuPhilly
The Globe and Mail
San Francisco Chronicle 2
54The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious ManuscriptsJoshua HammerMPR News
NPR
Washington Post
55The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed AmericaEthan MichaeliChicago Review of Books
Washington Post
NY Times
56The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Struggle for Social JusticePatricia Bell-ScottThe Christian Science Monitor
Washington Post
San Francisco Chronicle 2
57The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun CulturePamela HaagWashington Post
San Francisco Chronicle 2
Englewood Review
58The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in AmericaAndrés ReséndezChicago Review of Books
NPR
San Francisco Chronicle 2
59The Song Poet: A Memoir of My FatherKao Kalia YangStar Tribune
Twin Cities
Boston Globe
60The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American SegregationNatalie Y. MooreChicago Review of Books
Buzzfeed
The Undefeated
61The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in PalestineBen EhrenreichEntropy
The Economist
San Francisco Chronicle 2
62White Sands: Experiences From the Outside WorldGeoff DyerLargehearted Boy
Good Books Guide
San Francisco Chronicle 2
63You’ll Grow Out Of ItJessi KleinNPR
NY Times
Time
(Books Appear on 2 Lists Each)
64A Field Guide to LiesDaniel J. LevitinDallas Voice
The Globe and Mail
65A Kingdom of Their Own: The Family Karzai and the Afghan DisasterJoshua PartlowPublishers Weekly
Washington Post
66Adnan’s Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After SerialRabia ChaudryGoodreads
Washington Post
67Against Everything: EssaysMark GreifGood Books Guide
San Francisco Chronicle 2
68American HeiressJeffrey ToobinMPR News
NY Times
69An Indigenous People’s History of the United StatesRoxanne Dunbar OrtizBrian Fanelli
Verso
70An Iron WindPeter FritzscheThe Christian Science Monitor
NY Times
71Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden WondersJoshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella MortonMarginal Revolution
Buzzfeed
72Beryl Bainbridge: Love by All Sorts of MeansBrendan KingThe Spinoff
Good Books Guide
73Black Elk: The Life of an American VisionaryJoe JacksonStar Tribune
Boston Globe
74Blood, Bone, and Marrow: A Biography of Harry CrewsTed GeltnerPublishers Weekly
Tampa Bay Times
75BrownKamal Al-SolayleeCBA
The Globe and Mail
76Bullies: A FriendshipAlex AbramovichNPR
Buzzfeed
77CEO, China: The Rise of Xi JinpingKerry BrownMarginal Revolution
The Economist
78Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon ValleyAntonio Garcia MartinezAmazon
NPR
79CloserSarah BarmakCBA
The Globe and Mail
80East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against HumanityPhilippe SandsFive Books
The Economist
81Ego Is the EnemyRyan HolidayGoodreads
NPR
82Far & AwayAndrew SolomonConversations Mag
NY Times
83Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an IdeaMitchell DuneierNY Times
Publishers Weekly
84Ghostland: An American History In Haunted PlacesColin DickeyNPR
Shelf Awareness
85Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De QuinceyFrances WilsonGood Books Guide
Publishers Weekly
86Hamilton: The RevolutionLin-Manuel MirandaGoodreads
NPR
87His Final Battle, The Last Months of Franklin RooseveltJoe LelyveldRipr
NY Times
88Hitler: A Biography: Volume I: Ascent, 1889-1939Volker UllrichGood Books Guide
NY Times
89Homo Deus: A Brief History of the FutureYuval Noah HarariBoomerang Blog
Post Matter
90How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales From the PentagonRosa BrooksNY Times
San Francisco Chronicle 2
91I Will Find YouJoanna ConnorsDallas Voice
Chicago Review of Books
92Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, And The Sterilization Of Carrie BuckAdam CohenNPR
Boston Globe
93India’s War: World War II and the Making of Modern South AsiaSrinath RaghavanMarginal Revolution
Good Books Guide
94Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man’s EducationMychal Denzel SmithChicago Review of Books
The Undefeated
95Invisible NorthAlexandra ShimoCBA
The Globe and Mail
96Joe Gould’s TeethJill LeporeNPR
San Francisco Chronicle 2
97John Aubrey, My Own LifeRuth ScurrPublishers Weekly
Washington Post
98Karl Marx: Greatness and IllusionGareth Stedman JonesGood Books Guide
The Economist
99LandmarksRobert MacfarlaneNPR
Seattle Times
100Louisa: The Extraordinary Life Of Mrs. AdamsLouisa ThomasNPR
San Francisco Chronicle 2
101Martin Luther: Renegade and ProphetLyndal RoperMarginal Revolution
Good Books Guide
102Meetings with Remarkable ManuscriptsChristopher de HamelMarginal Revolution
The Economist
103Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our LivesTim HarfordAmazon
Marginal Revolution
104Midnight in Broad DaylightPamela Rotner SakamotoSeattle Times
Good Books Guide
105Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story: How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold WarNigel CliffStar Tribune
Boston Globe
106Negroland: A MemoirMargo JeffersonFive Books
The Economist
107New England BoundWendy WarrenThe Christian Science Monitor
NY Times
108Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of WarViet Thanh NguyenEntropy
Good Books Guide
109Patient H.M.: A Story Of Memory, Madness, And Family SecretsLuke DittrichNPR
Washington Post
110Radiant Child: The Story Of Young Artist Jean-Michel BasquiatJavaka SteptoeNPR
The Horn Book
111Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American PresidencyDavid GreenbergRipr
Washington Post
112Searching for John HughesJason DiamondEntropy
Chicago Review of Books
113Seven Brief Lessons On PhysicsCarlo RovelliNPR
Daniel H. Pink
114Sex ObjectJessica ValentiChicago Review of Books
NPR
115Some Writer!: The Story of E. B. WhiteMelissa SweetStar Tribune
The Horn Book
116Ten Restaurants that Changed AmericaPaul FreedmanWashington Post
Daniel H. Pink
117The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and NewAnnie DillardAmazon
NPR
118The Arab of the Future 2Riad SattoufDaniel H. Pink
NPR
119The Bitch is Back, a collection of essays editedCathi HanauerDallas Voice
NPR
120The Boys in the BunkhouseDan BarryRipr
Kirkus
121The Caped Crusade: Batman And The Rise Of Nerd CultureGlen WeldonNPR
Washington Post
122The Civil Wars of Julia Ward HoweElaine ShowalterSeattle Times
The Economist
123The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American WestPeter CozzensSeattle Times
San Francisco Chronicle 2
124The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India’s YoungSomini SenguptaSeattle Times
The Economist
125The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World’s Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon ValleyEric WeinerAmazon
Washington Post
126The Hate RaceMaxine Beneba ClarkeBoomerang Blog
Readings
127The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National ParksTerry Tempest WilliamsAmazon
Washington Post
128The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from SyriaJanine di GiovanniGood Books Guide
Kirkus
129The Narrow Door: A Memoir of FriendshipPaul LisickyLargehearted Boy
Shelf Awareness
130The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball TeamBen LindberghGoodreads
NPR
131The Point Is: Making Sense Of Birth, Death, And Everything In BetweenLee EisenbergDallas Voice
NPR
132The Red Parts: Autobiography Of A TrialMaggie NelsonNPR
San Francisco Chronicle 2
133The Return of HistoryJennifer WelshCBA
The Globe and Mail
134The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in BritainBill BrysonHudson Booksellers
Washington Post
135The Selfishness Of Others: An Essay On The Fear Of NarcissismKristin DombekNPR
Shelf Awareness
136The Vanishing Velázquez: A 19th Century Bookseller’s Obsession With A Lost MasterpieceLaura CummingNPR
Good Books Guide
137The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected NonfictionNeil GaimanGoodreads
Hudson Booksellers
138The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child MurdererKate SummerscalePublishers Weekly
Good Books Guide
139This is Not My LifeDiane SchoemperlenCBA
The Globe and Mail
140Trouble Boys: The True Story Of The ReplacementsBob MehrNPR
Philly
141Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money and PowerMichael Kranish and Marc FishPhilly
Washington Post
142Where Am I Now?: True Stories Of Girlhood And Accidental FameMara WilsonChicago Review of Books
NPR
143Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till FileJohn Edgar WidemanBoston Globe
San Francisco Chronicle 2
144You Can’t Touch My HairPhoebe RobinsonMPR News
Bookriot
145You Only Live TwiceChase Joynt and Mike HoolboomCBA
The Globe and Mail
(Books Appear on 1 List Each)
146“Most Blessed of the Patriarchs”: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the ImaginationAnnette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. OnufSan Francisco Chronicle 2
147@NATGEO: The Most Popular Instagram PhotosNational GeographicConversations Mag
1481971: Never A Dull MomentDavid HepworthThe Spinoff
14924 Hours at the SommeRobert KershawThe Book Bag
15032 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table To Working The LineEric Ripert, with Veronica ChambersNPR
1516 Week Money ChallengeSteve RepakConversations Mag
152A BestiaryLily HoangEntropy
153A Burglar’s Guide to the CityGeoff ManaughAmazon
154A Disappearance in DamascusDeborah CampbellCBA
155A Good DeathSandra MartinCBA
156A GOOD DEATH: MAKING THE MOST OF OUR FINAL CHOICESSANDRA MARTINThe Globe and Mail
157A Good Time for the Truth: Race in MinnesotaTwin Cities
158A Life Beyond BoundariesBenedict AndersonMarginal Revolution
159A Notable WomanJean Lucey PrattMarginal Revolution
160A Pillow BookSuzanne BuffamEntropy
161A Primer for CadaversEd AtkinsPost Matter
162A Smile of HopeMa Victoria Sarte-Perez & Zenaida Roy-AlmarioConversations Mag
163A Truck Full Of MoneyTracy KidderCaroline County Public Library
164Adventures in Grocery Shopping, and Other Short Stories from a Cereal Aisle AficionadoDan MayPhilly
165Against the TideJ. H. SullivanConversations Mag
166Algren: A LifeMary WisniewskiChicago Review of Books
167Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma BuiltDuncan ClarkThe Economist
168Alive, Alive Oh!: And Other Things That MatterDiana AthillNPR
169Alligator Candy: A MemoirDavid KushnerNPR
170Almighty: Courage, Resistance, and Existential Peril in the Nuclear AgeDan ZakWashington Post
171America’s War for the Greater Middle EastAndrew J. BacevichThe Christian Science Monitor
172America’s Social Arsonist: Fred Ross and Grassroots Organizing in the Twentieth CenturyGabriel ThompsonSan Francisco Chronicle 2
173American GovernorMatt KatzPhilly
174American Pharoah: The Untold Story of the Triple Crown Winner’s Legendary RiseJoe DrapePhilly
175American Philosophy: A Love StoryJohn KaagNPR
176American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. GrantRonald C. WhiteShelf Awareness
177An Abbreviated LifeAriel LeveMPR News
178AN INTIMATE WILDERNESS: ARCTIC VOICES IN A LAND OF VAST HORIZONSNORMAN HALLENDYThe Globe and Mail
179And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle EastRichard EngelGoodreads
180Antiracism in Cuba: The Unfinished RevolutionDevyn Spence BensonThe Undefeated
181Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the TwelveTom BissellMarginal Revolution
182ArdorRoberto CalassoVerso
183Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?Frans de WaalPublishers Weekly
184Around The Way Girl: A MemoirTaraji P. Henson, with Denene MillnerNPR
185Ask AngeloAngelo EllerbeeConversations Mag
186Assimilate or Go Home: Notes from a Failed Missionary on Rediscovering FaithD.L. MayfieldEnglewood Review
187Athenian Prostitution: The Business of Sexpolymath University of Pennsylvania professor Edward E. CohenPhilly
188Avid Reader: A LifeRobert GottliebWashington Post
189Bad News: Last Journalists in a DictatorshipAnjan SundaramAmazon
190BAD SINGER: THE SURPRISING SCIENCE OF TONE DEAFNESS AND HOW WE HEAR MUSICTIM FALCONERThe Globe and Mail
191Balls: It Takes Some to Get SomeChris EdwardsShelf Awareness
192Bandit: A Daughter’s MemoirMolly BrodakEntropy
193BASED ON A TRUE STORYNORM MACDONALDThe Globe and Mail
194Becoming Jane JacobsPeter LaurenceMarginal Revolution
195Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family(paperback)Amy Ellis NuttDaniel H. Pink
196Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of LivingKrista TippettWashington Post
197Beethoven for a Later Age: Living with the String QuartetsEdward DusinberreThe Economist
198Being a Beast: Adventures Across the Species DivideCharles FosterShelf Awareness
199Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (paperback)Atul GawandeDaniel H. Pink
200Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Memoir of a Writer’s AwakeningNgugi wa Thiong’oPublishers Weekly
201Black Liberation and SocialismAhmed ShawkiVerso
202Black Lotus: A Woman’s Search For Racial IdentitySil Lai AbramsNPR
203Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New NationalismCharles CloverThe Economist
204Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of PossibilityAshon T. CrawleyEntropy
205Bloomsbury South: The Arts in Christchurch 1933-1953Peter SimpsonThe Spinoff
206Bookshelf (Object Lessons)Lydia PyneThe Book Bag
207Boys Among Men: How The Prep-To-Pro Generation Redefined The NBA And Sparked A Basketball RevolutionJonathan AbramsNPR
208BrujaWendy C. OrtizEntropy
209Bullet RiddledGrant M. WhitusConversations Mag
210BushJean Edward SmithWashington Post
211But What If We’re Wrong? Thinking About the Present As If It Were the PastChuck KlostermanGoodreads
212But You Did Not Come BackMarceline Loridan-IvensThe Economist
213CalamitiesRenee GladmanEntropy
214Can You Tolerate This?Ashleigh YoungThe Spinoff
215Carlisle Indian Industrial School: Indigenous Histories, Memories, and Reclamations,Jacqueline Fear-Segal and Susan D. RosePhilly
216Carry OnLisa FennConversations Mag
217Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery HeartClaire HarmanSeattle Times
218Children of Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of IranLaura SecorSan Francisco Chronicle 2
219China’s Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime DecayMinxin PeiThe Economist
220China’s FutureDavid ShambaughThe Economist
221Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of ExtinctionMary Ellen HannibalSan Francisco Chronicle 2
222CITY OF DREAMS: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New YorkTyler AnbinderNY Times
223Cleverlands: The Secrets Behind the Success of the World’s Education SuperpowersLucy CrehanThe Economist
224CockroachesScholastique MukasongaEntropy
225Code Warriors: NSA’s Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet UnionStephen BudianskyWashington Post
226Communal Nude: Collected EssaysRobert GluckEntropy
227Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth and PolicyBradford DeLong and Stephen CohenPhilly
228ConfabulationsJohn BergerPost Matter
229Consequence: A MemoirEric FairNPR
230Constance Fenimore WoolsonAnne Boyd RiouxChicago Tribune
231Continental Drift: Britain and Europe from the End of Empire to the Rise of EuroscepticismBenjamin Grob-FitzgibbonMarginal Revolution
232Cracking the CubeIan SchefflerConversations Mag
233Critics, Monsters, Fanatics, and Other Literary EssaysCynthia OzickGood Books Guide
234Crossing The Borders Of TimeLeslie MaitlandCaroline County Public Library
235Crow Smarts: Inside the Brain of the World’s Brightest BirdPamela S. Turner, photosThe Horn Book
236Dante: The Story of His LifeMarco SantaganaMarginal Revolution
237Dark Ages AheadJane JacobsVerso
238Dark EcologyTimothy MortonPost Matter
239Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted WorldCal NewportGoodreads
240Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland SecurityMatthew DallekWashington Post
241Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful LifeBill Burnett & Dave EvansDaniel H. Pink
242Destiny and PowerJon MeachamConversations Mag
243Destiny of the RepublicCandice MillardCaroline County Public Library
244Diamonds From the Rough anthology presentedTricia PollardConversations Mag
245DiscognitionSteven ShaviroEntropy
246Diving Makes the Water DeepZach SavichEntropy
247Don’t Be a Jerk: And Other Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan’s Greatest Zen MasterBrad WarnerGoodreads
248Double-Edged SwordSimonne Butler with Andra JenkinThe Spinoff
249Dust (Object Lessons)Michael Marder, editedNPR
250Eat My SchwartzGeoff and Mitch SchwartzConversations Mag
251Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium StoryJohn BloomThe Economist
252Ecology Without NatureTimothy MortonVerso
253El Olvido Que SeremosHéctor Abad FaciolinceVerso
254Eleanor And Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped A First LadySusan QuinnNPR
255Elephant Complex: Travels In Sri LankaJohn GimletteNPR
256Elizabeth: The Forgotten YearsJohn GuyThe Economist
257Engines of Liberty: The Power of Citizen Activists to Make Constitutional LawDavid ColeWashington Post
258Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong with the Language of PoliticsMark ThompsonPublishers Weekly
259epilogueJuliet PattersonEntropy
260EPIPHANYMICHAEL CORENThe Globe and Mail
261Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. HelensSteve OlsonAmazon
262EstrangerErik AndersonEntropy
263Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises ,Lesley M.M. BlumeWashington Post
264Everything is TeethEvie WyldMPR News
265Everywhere I LookHelen GarnerReadings
266Exit Right: The People Who Left the Left and Reshaped the American CenturyDaniel OppenheimerWashington Post
267Eyes On The Street: The Life Of Jane JacobsRobert KanigelNPR
268Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always WantedShannan MartinEnglewood Review
269Farewell Kabul: From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous WorldChristina LambWashington Post
270Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French RevolutionRuth ScurrVerso
271Fierce OptimismLeeza GibbonsConversations Mag
272Fight Like a GirlClementine FordReadings
273Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-49David CesaraniGood Books Guide
274Fire Shut Up In My BonesCharles M. BlowCaroline County Public Library
275FirewaterHarold R. JohnsonCBA
276Floodpath: The Deadliest Man-Made Disaster of 20th-Century America and the Making of Modern Los AngelesJon WilkmanAmazon
277Forty AutumnsNina WillnerThe Christian Science Monitor
278FranklinsteinSusan LandersEntropy
279Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected WorldTimothy Garton AshThe Economist
280Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives And Dreams Brought To LifeAshley BryanNPR
281From #Black Lives Matter to Black LiberationKeeanga Yamahtta-TaylorVerso
282From Abuse to AbundanceJamila BattleConversations Mag
283From Crisis to CallingSasha Chanoff and David ChanoffConversations Mag
284From Silk to Silicon: The Story of Globalization Through Ten Extraordinary LivesJeffrey E. GartenAmazon
285FROM THE WAR ON POVERTY TO THE WAR ON CRIME: The Making of Mass Incarceration in AmericaElizabeth HintonNY Times
286Gently to NagasakiJoy KogawaCBA
287Giant SquidCandace Fleming, illustratedThe Horn Book
288Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of GlobalisationBranko MilanovicThe Economist
289Good Girls Marry Doctors: South Asian American Daughters on Obedience and Rebellion editedPiyali BhattacharyaEntropy
290Gramsci’s Common Sense: Inequality and Its NarrativesKate CrehanVerso
291Grant and IRobert ForsterReadings
292Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at WarMar RoachHudson Booksellers
293Habit ChangersM. J. RyanConversations Mag
294Half-Lion: How P.V. Narasimha Rao Transformed IndiaVinay SitapatiThe Economist
295HamiltonRichard SyllaStar Tribune
296Head in the CloudWilliam PoundstoneDallas Voice
297Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman EmpirePeter WilsonThe Economist
298Heart of St. Paul: A History of the Pioneer and Endicott BuildingsLarry MillettTwin Cities
299History of Islamic PhilosophyHenry CorbinVerso
300Hitler’s Soldiers: The German Army in the Third ReichBen H. ShepherdMarginal Revolution
301Housman Country: Into the Heart of EnglandPeter Parker,Marginal Revolution
302How the Post Office Created AmericaWinifred GallagherDayton Daily News
303How To Be A Person In The World: Ask Polly’s Guide Through The Paradoxes Of Modern LifeHeather HavrileskyNPR
304How To Be A Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide To Tudor LifeRuth GoodmanNPR
305How to Have a Good DayCaroline WebbConversations Mag
306How to Know What’s Really HappeningFrancis McKeePost Matter
307How to Listen to JazzTed GioiaThe Economist
308HustleSarah CentrellaConversations Mag
309I Am Pan!Mordicai GersteinThe Horn Book
310I’m Judging You: The Do-Better ManualLuvvie AjayiNPR
311I’ll Tell You in Person: EssaysChloe CaldwellEntropy
312I’m Supposed to Protect You From All ThisNadja SpiegelmanEntropy
313In a Different Key: The Story of AutismJohn Donvan and Caren ZuckerWashington Post
314In Europe’s Shadow: Two Cold Wars and a Thirty-Year Journey Through Romania and BeyondRobert D. KaplanPhilly
315IN GRATITUDEJenny DiskiNY Times
316In Love with These Times: My Life with Flying Nun RecordsRoger ShepherdThe Spinoff
317IN OTHER WORDSJHUMPA LAHIRIThe Globe and Mail
318IN THE DARKROOMSusan FaludiNY Times
319IN-BETWEEN DAYS: A MEMOIR ABOUT LIVING WITH CANCERTEVA HARRISONThe Globe and Mail
320Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the WorldBaz DreisingerWashington Post
321Insanity, Passion, and Addiction: A Year Inside the Chess WorldDaniel GormallyMarginal Revolution
322Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the WorldThomas F. MaddenGood Books Guide
323It’s Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too)Nora McInerny PurmortTwin Cities
324Jane Austen Mansfiend ParkDeidre Shauna LynchStar Tribune
325Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant RebelJohn StubbsGood Books Guide
326Journey to HealCrystal M. SutherlandConversations Mag
327Jungle of Stone: The True Story of Two Men, Their Extraordinary Journey, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the MayaWilliam CarlsenAmazon
328Keeping On keeping OnAlan BennettGood Books Guide
329Kenneth Clark: Life, Art and “Civilisation”James StourtonThe Economist
330KooKooLandGloria NorrisNPR
331Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and WhiteMichael TisserandTampa Bay Times
332Lead with Your HeartAllan J. Hamilton, MDConversations Mag
333Lenin on the TrainCatherine MerridaleThe Economist
334Leninism Under LeninMarcel LiebmanVerso
335Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved & Died in The 1940sAnne SebbaThe Spinoff
336Let Me OutPeter HimmelmanConversations Mag
337Letter to an Imaginary FriendTom McGrathTwin Cities
338LiarRob RobergeEntropy
339Life Is Not an AccidentJay WilliamsConversations Mag
340Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not ReligiousDavid DarkEnglewood Review
341Literary WonderlandsLaura MillerStar Tribune
342Little LaborsRivka GalchenNPR
343Look at You NowLiz PryorConversations Mag
344Looking for Betty MacDonald: The Egg, the Plague, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and IPaula BeckerWashington Post
345Love for Sale: Pop Music in AmericaDavid HajduPublishers Weekly
346Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage EqualityDebbie Cenziper and Jim ObergefellWashington Post
347Lucky Bastard: My Life, My Dad, And The Things I’m Not Allowed To Say On TVJoe BuckNPR
348M TrainPhilly
349Madonnaland: And Other Detours Into Fame And FandomAlina SimoneNPR
350Mansfield & Me: A Graphic MemoirSarah LaingThe Spinoff
351Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western SocietiesKevin AndersonVerso
352MelancholyLászló F. FöldényiMarginal Revolution
353Melba’s American ComfortMelba WilsonConversations Mag
354Mexican Hooker #1Carmen AguirreCBA
355Mincemeat: The Education of an Italian ChefLeonardo LucarelliShelf Awareness
356Minecraft Exploded Builds: Medieval FortressMojang ABThe Book Bag
357MissionRobert MatzenCaroline County Public Library
358Modern potluckCaroline County Public Library
359Modified: GMOs and the Threat to Our Food, Our Land, Our FutureCaitlin ShetterlyPublishers Weekly
360Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the GreatestThomas HauserThe Spinoff
361My Father, the Pornographer: A MemoirChris OffuttPublishers Weekly
362My Father’s Island: A MemoirAdam DuddingThe Spinoff
363My Marathon: Reflections On A Gold Medal LifeFrank Shorter, with John BrantNPR
364My Own WordsRuth Bader Ginsburg withWashington Post
365Narconomics: How to Run a Drug CartelTom WainwrightAmazon
366Native: Dispatches From An Israeli-Palestinian LifeSayed KashuaNPR
367Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on ItChris Voss and Tahl RazThe Book Bag
368Nobody’s Son: A MemoirMark SloukaGood Books Guide
369Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City AtlasRebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-SchapiroSan Francisco Chronicle 2
370Old Records Never DieHudson Booksellers
371Once They Were Hats: In Search of the Mighty BeaverFrances BackhouseSeattle Times
372One of These Things FirstSteven GainesBoston Globe
373OPIUM EATER: THE NEW CONFESSIONSCARLYN ZWARENSTEINThe Globe and Mail
374Original Gangstas: The Untold Story of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast RapBen WesthoffThe Undefeated
375ORSON WELLES. Volume 3: One-Man BandSimon CallowNY Times
376Outlandish Knight: The Byzantine Life of Steven RuncimanMinoo DinshawThe Economist
377Paracuellos Volume 1Carlos GiménezNPR
378Party Of One: A Memoir In 21 SongsDave HolmesNPR
379PASSCHENDAELEPAUL HAMBoomerang Blog
380Penguin Bloom: The Odd Little Bird Who Saved a FamilyCameron Bloom and Bradley Trevor GreiveThe Book Bag
381PeplumBlutchNPR
382Pink Pantie ConfessionsCynda WilliamsConversations Mag
383Planet Earth IIStephen MossThe Book Bag
384Platform CapitalismNick SrnicekVerso
385PLAYING TO THE EDGE: American Intelligence in the Age of TerrorMichael V. HaydenNY Times
386Please Enjoy Your HappinessPaul Brinkley-RogersConversations Mag
387Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History Of PunkLegs McNeil and Gillian McCainNPR
388Position DoubtfulKim MahoodReadings
389Possession: The Curious History Of Private Collectors From Antiquity To The PresentErin ThompsonNPR
390Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists AgencyJames Andrew MillerAmazon
391Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and PersuadeRobert CialdiniDaniel H. Pink
392PRECIOUS CARGO: MY YEAR DRIVING THE KIDS ON SCHOOL BUS 3077CRAIG DAVIDSONThe Globe and Mail
393Presenting Buffalo Bill: The Man Who Invented the Wild WestCandace FlemingThe Horn Book
394PRETENTIOUSNESS: Why It MattersDan FoxNY Times
395Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the FutureJohan NorbergThe Economist
396ProxiesBrian BlanchfieldEntropy
397Pugh’s New Year’s ResolutionsJonathan PughThe Book Bag
398Purple Prose: Bisexuality in BritainKate HarradThe Book Bag
399Raoul WallenbergIngrid CarlbergThe Christian Science Monitor
400Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs(Farrar, Straus & Giroux/Macmillan, 2016Douglas SmithGood Books Guide
401Real Visitors, Voices from Beyond, and Parallel DimensionsBrad Steiger and Sherry Hansen SteigerDallas Voice
402Richard PosnerWilliam DomnarskiMarginal Revolution
403Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of AmericaDouglas BrinkleyWashington Post
404Rise and Fall of American GrowthRobert J. GordonMarginal Revolution
405RiverineAngela PalmLargehearted Boy
406Rogue Heroes: The History Of The SAS, Britain’s Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged The Nazis And Changed The Nature Of WarBen MacintyreNPR
407Roughy: Fishing the Mid-Ocean RidgesAJ PeachThe Spinoff
408Running, A Love StoryInquirer contributor Jen A. MillerPhilly
409Seinfeldia: How a Show About Nothing Changed EverythingJennifer Keishin ArmstrongWashington Post
410Selected PoemsEmily DickinsonStar Tribune
411Shame and Wonder: EssaysDavid SearcySan Francisco Chronicle 2
412Shock And Awe: Glam Rock And Its Legacy, From The Seventies To The Twenty-first CenturySimon ReynoldsNPR
413Simply HappyAmy NewmarkConversations Mag
414Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and BusinessCharles DuhiggGoodreads
415Soft is the New PowerDeya SmithConversations Mag
416Some Versions of the IceAdam Tipps WeinsteinEntropy
417SommeHugh Sebag-MontefioreThe Christian Science Monitor
418Soul at the White Heat: Inspiration, Obsession, and the Writing LifeJoyce Carol OatesSan Francisco Chronicle 2
419Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939Adam HochschildSan Francisco Chronicle 2
420Spark Joy: An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of TidyingMarie KondoMarginal Revolution
421Spiral: Trapped in the Forever WarMark DannerSan Francisco Chronicle 2
422Spirit is a BoneOliver Chanarin & Adam BroombergPost Matter
423SPQR: A History of Ancient RomeMary BeardThe Spinoff
424State and RevolutionVladimir LeninVerso
425Staying with the TroubleDonna HarawayPost Matter
426Street FarmMichael AblemanConversations Mag
427SUBSTITUTE: GOING TO SCHOOL WITH A THOUSAND KIDSNICHOLSON BAKERThe Globe and Mail
428Surfing: 1778-TodayJim HeimannWashington Post
429SurveysNatasha StaggPost Matter
430Talking to My CountryStan GrantReadings
431Tell Me Your StoryTuya PearlConversations Mag
432TellingZoe ZolbrodEntropy
433Terror In The City Of Champions: Murder, Baseball, And The Secret Society That Shocked Depression-era DetroitTom StantonNPR
434Tetris: The Games People PlayBox BrownShelf Awareness
435The A-Z of Victorian CrimeNeil R A Bell, Trevor N Bond, Kate Clarke and M W OldridgeThe Book Bag
436The ABCs Of How We Learn: 26 Scientifically Proven Approaches, How They Work, And When To Use ThemDaniel L. Schwartz, Jessica M. Tsang, Kristen P. BlairNPR
437The Age of EmRobin HansonMarginal Revolution
438The Anthropocene or the Capitalocene?Elmar Altvater et al.Verso
439The ArgonautsMaggie NelsonReadings
440The Art of Beatrix PotterStar Tribune
441The Art of Charlie Chan Hock ChyeSonny LiewThe Economist
442THE BEST OF WRITERS & COMPANY: INTERVIEWS WITH 15 OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST AUTHORSELEANOR WACHTELThe Globe and Mail
443The Black CalhounsGail Lumet BuckleyThe Christian Science Monitor
444The Black Panthers: Portraits From an Unfinished RevolutionBryan Shih and Yohuru WilliamsThe Undefeated
445The Book Of Magic: From Antiquity To The EnlightenmentBrian Copenhaver (editor)NPR
446The Boy Behind the CurtainTim WintonReadings
447The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial RightMichael J. Graetz and Linda GreenhouseWashington Post
448THE CANDIDATE: FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAILNOAH RICHLERThe Globe and Mail
449The Chaos of Empire: The British Raj and the Conquest of IndiaJon WilsonGood Books Guide
450The Constitution TodayAkhil Reed AmarTime
451The Cowshed: Memoirs of the Chinese Cultural RevolutionJi XianlinMarginal Revolution
452The Coyote’s BicycleKimball TaylorConversations Mag
453The Creative TarotJessa CrispinChicago Review of Books
454The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962-1976Frank DikötterGood Books Guide
455The Economic History of China: From Antiquity through the 19th CenturyRichard van GlahnMarginal Revolution
456The Egyptians: A Radical StoryJack ShenkerThe Economist
457THE ENGLISH AND THEIR HISTORYRobert TombsNY Times
458The Euro and the Battle of IdeasMarkus Brunnermeier, Harold James and Jean-Pierre LandauThe Economist
459THE FACE OF BRITAIN: A History of the Nation Through Its PortraitsSimon SchamaNY Times
460The Face: Cartography of the VoidChris AbaniChicago Review of Books
461The Fall of Heaven: The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial IranAndrew Scott CooperMarginal Revolution
462The Feud: Vladimir Nabokov, Edmund Wilson, and the End of a Beautiful FriendshipAlex BeamPublishers Weekly
463The Fight to VoteMichael WaldmanWashington Post
464The Five Hour WorkdayStephan AarstolConversations Mag
465The Fortress – a Love StoryDanielle TrussoniDayton Daily News
466The Garden and the Fire: Heaven and Hell in Islamic CultureNerina RustomjiVerso
467The GatekeeperKathryn SmithConversations Mag
468The Geek Feminist RevolutionKameron HurleyGoodreads
469The Ghosts of BirdsEliot WeinbergerEntropy
470The Gift of AngerJoe SolmoneseConversations Mag
471The Glass Universe: How The Ladies Of The Harvard Observatory Took The Measure Of The StarsDava SobelNPR
472The Godfather NotebookFrancis Ford CoppolaNPR
473The Good Immigrant editedNikesh ShuklaVerso
474The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New GlobalizationRichard BaldwinThe Economist
475The Great Spring: Writing, Zen and This Zigzag LifeNatalie GoldbergTwin Cities
476The Hatred of PoetryBen LernerGood Books Guide
477The Highest Glass Ceiling: Women’s Quest for the American PresidencyEllen FitzpatrickWashington Post
478The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from GrownupsErika ChristakisWashington Post
479The Inefficiency AssassinHelene SeguraConversations Mag
480The Invention of Angela Carter: A BiographyEdmund GordonGood Books Guide
481The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev’s Freedom to Putin’s WarArkady OstrovskyWashington Post
482The Jaguar ManLara NaughtonConversations Mag
483The Jazz Of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music And The Structure Of The UniverseStephon AlexanderNPR
484The Joy of LessAmy Newmark and Brooke Burke-CharvetConversations Mag
485The Kardashian Dynasty: The Controversial Rise of America’s Royal FamilyIan HalperinPhilly
486The King and Queen of Malibu: The True Story of the Battle for ParadiseDavid K. RandallAmazon
487The Latter Days: A MemoirJudith FreemanNPR
488The Legends ClubJohn FeinsteinHudson Booksellers
489The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted ConvictAustin Reed; edited by Caleb SmithSan Francisco Chronicle 2
490The Life Project: The Extraordinary Story of Our Ordinary LivesHelen PearsonThe Economist
491THE LIMOUSINE LIBERAL: How an Incendiary Image United the Right and Fractured AmericaSteve FraserNY Times
492The Love & Lemons CookbookCaroline County Public Library
493The Making of Donald TrumpDavid Cay JohnstonChicago Review of Books
494The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan GreenspanSebastian MallabyMarginal Revolution
495The ManningsLars AndersonConversations Mag
496The Māori Meeting House: Introducing the whare whakairoDamian SkinnerThe Spinoff
497THE MARRIOTT CELL: AN EPIC JOURNEY FROM CAIRO’S SCORPION PRISON TO FREEDOMMOHAMED FAHMY WITH CAROL SHABENThe Globe and Mail
498The Mayor Of Mogadishu: A Story Of Chaos And Redemption In The Ruins Of SomaliaAndrew HardingNPR
499The Miles Between MeToni NealieChicago Review of Books
500The Monster BookNick RedfernDallas Voice
501The Narco-Imaginary: Essays Under the InfluenceRamsey ScottEntropy
502The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better LifeAnu PartanenSeattle Times
503The Odd Woman and the City: A MemoirVivian GornickThe Spinoff
504The Opposite of ComfortableSharon NirConversations Mag
505The Osamu Tezuka Story: A Life in Manga and AnimeToshio BanDaniel H. Pink
506The OutrunAmy LiptrotGood Books Guide
507The Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean PronunciationDavid CrystalThe Book Bag
508The Penguin History of Modern VietnamChristopher GoschaMarginal Revolution
509The Penny Poet of PortsmouthKatherine TowlerEntropy
510The Philadelphia Flyers at 50: The Story of the Iconic Hockey Club and its Top 50 Heroes, Wins & EventsJay GreenbergPhilly
511The Philosophy of HorrorThomas FahyBrian Fanelli
512The Pigeon TunnelJohn le CarréSeattle Times
513The Politics of Everybody: Feminism, Queer Theory and Marxism and the IntersectionHolly LewisVerso
514The Power of BrokeDaymond JohnConversations Mag
515The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914Richard EvansThe Economist
516THE REVENGE OF ANALOG: REAL THINGS AND WHY THEY MATTERDAVID SAXThe Globe and Mail
517The Secret WarMax HastingsThe Christian Science Monitor
518The ShopsSteve Braunias and Peter BlackThe Spinoff
519The Singing BonesShaun TanShelf Awareness
520The Sky Isn’t BlueJanice LeeEntropy
521The Slave’s CauseManisha SinhaThe Christian Science Monitor
522The Soul of a Man 2: Make Me Wanna Holler anthologyElissa GabrielleConversations Mag
523The Soul of an OctopusSy MontgomeryTwin Cities
524The Sound of GravelRuth WarinerCaroline County Public Library
525The Speed Of Sound: Breaking The Barriers Between Music And Technology: A MemoirThomas DolbyNPR
526The Spitboy RuleMichelle Cruz GonzalesEntropy
527The StackBenjamin BrattonPost Matter
528The SurrenderScott EspositoEntropy
529The TellingZoe ZolbrodChicago Review of Books
530The Thunder Before the StormClyde BellecourtTwin Cities
531The Ultimate Ambition In The Arts Of Erudition: A Compendium Of Knowledge From The Classical Islamic WorldShihab al-Din al-Nuwayri, translatedNPR
532The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our MindsMichael LewisDaniel H. Pink
533The Universe in Your Hand: A Journey Through Space, Time, and BeyondChristophe GalfardShelf Awareness
534The Water Kingdom: A Secret History of ChinaPhilip BallThe Economist
535The WitchesStacy SchiffPhilly
536The Yesterday ProjectBen Doller & Sandra DollerEntropy
537Their Promised Land: My Grandparents in Love and WarIan BurumaPublishers Weekly
538Things That Matter: Stories of Life & Death from an Intensive Care SpecialistDavid GallerThe Spinoff
539Through the Eyes of a Miner: The Photography of Joseph DivisSimon NathanThe Spinoff
540Thunder at the GatesDouglas R. EgertonThe Christian Science Monitor
541To Pixar and BeyondLawrence LevyConversations Mag
542Tomboy Survival GuideIvan CoyoteCBA
543TrainwreckSady DoyleEntropy
544Travels with Henry JamesHenry JamesGood Books Guide
545Trespassing Across America – One Man’s Epic, Never-Done-Before (and Sort of Illegal) Hike Across the HeartlandKen IlgunasDayton Daily News
546Trials of the CenturyMark J. Phillips & Aryn Z. PhillipsDallas Voice
547Trials of the EarthMary Mann HamiltonChicago Tribune
548Trials: On Death Row in PakistanIsabel BuchananThe Economist
549Tribe: On Homecoming and BelongingSebastian JungerGoodreads
550Turkey: The Insane and the MelancholyEce Temelkuran, translatedVerso
551Turning Darkness Into LightS. L. YoungConversations Mag
552Two Arabs, a Berber, and a Jew: Entangled Lives in Morocco.Lawrence RosenMarginal Revolution
553UNFORBIDDEN PLEASURESAdam PhillipsNY Times
554United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown TerroristsPeter BergenWashington Post
555Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, Western Economists, and the Making of Global ChinaJulian GewirtzMarginal Revolution
556Urban Forests: A Natural History Of Trees And People In The American CityscapeJill JonnesNPR
557Utopia For Realists: The Case For A Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, And A 15-hour WorkweekRutger Bregman, translatedNPR
558Valiant AmbitionNathaniel PhilbrickSeattle Times
559VesselsDaniel RaeburnMPR News
560Vietnam: A New HistoryChristopher GoschaGood Books Guide
561Visceral PoeticsEleni StecopoulosEntropy
562Waiting for First LightRoméo Dallaire, with Jessica Dee HumphreysCBA
563Walk Through WallsMarina AbramovićMarginal Revolution
564Walking the NileLevison WoodAmazon
565War DiariesAstrid LindgrenStar Tribune
566WastedElspeth MuirReadings
567WatchfiresHilary PlumEntropy
568We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and ResegregationJeff ChangThe Undefeated
569We Have the Technology: How Biohackers, Foodies, Physicians, and Scientists Are Transforming Human Perception, One Sense at a TimeKara PlatoniSan Francisco Chronicle 2
570Wear and TearTracy TynanConversations Mag
571WHEN IN FRENCH: Love in a Second LanguageLauren CollinsNY Times
572When Johnny Doesn’t Come Marching HomeMarian SmallConversations Mag
573When We Are No More: How Digital Memory Is Shaping Our FutureAbby Smith RumseySan Francisco Chronicle 2
574Where The Light Gets InKimberly Williams-PaosleyCaroline County Public Library
575Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?Chicago Review of Books
576Why Look at Animals?John BergerVerso
577Why the Monkees MatterRosanne WelchConversations Mag
578Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism — From Goldwater to the Tea Party and BeyondE.J. Dionne Jr.Washington Post
579With Love, All Things Can Be HealedTobin BlakeConversations Mag
580Women of the Catlins: Life In The Deep SouthDiana Noonan and Cris AntonaThe Spinoff
581Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and WhiteKareem Abdul-JabbarThe Undefeated
582Your One WordEvan CarmichaelConversations Mag


The 49 Best Nonfiction Lists Used



SourceArticle
Amazon Best nonfiction of 2016
Bookriot HERE YOU HAVE IT! BOOK RIOT’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2016.
Boomerang Blog The Best Books of 2016
Boston Globe Best books of 2016
Brian Fanelli 2016 Recap/Best Of
Buzzfeed The 18 Best Nonfiction Books Of 2016
Caroline County Public Library Our Favorite Books of 2016
CBA Best Books of 2016
Chicago Review of Books The Best Nonfiction Books of 2016
Chicago Tribune Best books of 2016
Conversations Mag Conversations’ Top 50 Non-Fiction Books of 2016
Dallas Voice Holiday Gift Guide: Reading list!
Daniel H. Pink MY 15 FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2016
Dayton Daily News The best non-fiction books of 2016
Englewood Review Englewood Honor Books – Best Books of 2016
Entropy BEST OF 2016: NON-FICTION BOOKS
Five Books Stephanie Flanders recommends the Best Nonfiction Books of 2016
Good Books Guide 100+ Literary Favourites of 2016
Goodreads BEST NONFICTION
Hudson Booksellers Best Books of 2016
Kirkus Best Heartrending Nonfiction of 2016
Largehearted Boy Favorite Nonfiction of 2016
Marginal Revolution The best non-fiction books of 2016
Medium 5 Noteable Nonfiction Books of 2016
MPR News Best books of 2016 to give — and receive: Nonfiction favorites
NPR NPR’s Book Concierge Our Guide To 2016’s Great Reads
NY Times Nonfiction
Philly Best books of 2016: Our staff picks
Post Matter Our Top 10 Books of 2016
Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction
Readings The best non-fiction books of 2016
Ripr Scott MacKay’s Favorite Books of 2016
San Francisco Chronicle Top 10 books of 2016
San Francisco Chronicle 2 Best of 2016: 100 recommended books
Seattle Times The best books of 2016, from our critics
Shelf Awareness Our 2016 Best Books of the Year
Star Tribune The 50 Best Books For Holiday Giving
Tampa Bay Times Colette Bancroft’s 10 favorite books of 2016
The Book Bag Top Ten Non-Fiction Books of 2016
The Christian Science Monitor 15 best nonfiction books of 2016
The Economist Books of the Year 2016
The Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year
The Horn Book Horn Book Fanfare
The Spinoff Best books of 2016: the 20 best books of non-fiction
The Undefeated NEW BEGINNINGS: THE FRESHEST BOOKS OF 2016
Time The Top 10 Nonfiction Books
Twin Cities For the book lovers on your list, 21 picks from this year’s best
Verso Staff Picks: Books of the Year 2016—Chosen by Verso
Washington Post Notable Non-fiction Books in 2016