Most Popular Adult Nonfiction 2025

"On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Master storyteller Erik Larson...

"Dick and Doris Goodwin were married for forty-two years and married to American history even longer. Dick was one of the young men of John F. Kennedy's New Frontier, and he both named and helped design Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Doris was a White House Fellow and worked directly for Lyndon Johnson, later assisting on his memoir. The Goodwins' last great adventure involved opening the more than three hundred boxes of letters, diaries, documents...

This book discusses the history of the twenty-first century as a story of unaffordability and shortage in America. It highlights the national housing crisis, labor shortages due to limited immigration, insufficient clean-energy infrastructure, and delayed, over-budget public projects. The author argues that the root cause of these problems is a lack of sufficient building and proactive planning over the decades. Many of today's issues stem from past...

"In his first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man, #1 bestselling author John Grisham and Centurion Ministries Founder Jim McCloskey share ten harrowing true stories of wrongful convictions. Impeccably researched and grippingly told. Framed offers an inside look at the victims of the United States criminal justice system. A fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty there is...

Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina's gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades...

"Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz--just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy--collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk. After spending their early years together in conflict...

"Twenty-five years after the publication of his groundbreaking first book, Malcolm Gladwell returns with a brand-new volume that reframes the lessons of The Tipping Point in a startling and revealing light. Why is Miami… Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial harmony? In this...

"A comprehensive, authoritative book of science-backed information and lived experience, it covers every woman's needs: From changes in your appearance and sleep patterns to neurological, musculoskeletal, psychological, and sexual issues, a comprehensive A-Z toolkit of science-backed options for coping with symptoms. What to do to mediate the risks associated with your body's natural drop in estrogen production, including for diabetes, dementia, Alzheimer's,...

"In a rare window into some of her life's pivotal moments, Melinda French Gates draws from previously untold stories to offer a new perspective on encountering transitions. "You don't get to be my age without navigating all kinds of transitions. Some you embraced and some you never expected. Some you hoped for and some you fought as hard as you could." - Melinda French Gates Transitions are moments in which we step out of our familiar surroundings...

"What if depression, anxiety, infertility, insomnia, heart disease, erectile dysfunction, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's, dementia, cancer and many other health conditions that torture and shorten our lives actually have the same root cause? Our ability to prevent and reverse these conditions--and feel incredible today--is under our control and simpler than we think. The key is our metabolic function--the most important and least understood factor in...