My Year in Nonfiction 2025
Welcome to Nonfiction November 2025! I’m eager to participate again this year. My post today is a review of the nonfiction I’ve read from November 1 2024, through November 1, 2025. I will also include titles I’m reading now or look forward to reading soon.
Hosts for Nonfiction November 2025:
Heather @ Based On A True Story
Frances @ Volatile Rune
Liz @ Adventures in reading, running and working from home
Rebekah @ She Seeks Nonfiction
Deb @ Readerbuzz
***This post contains Amazon affiliate links.
My Year in Nonfiction: Nov 1, 2024-Nov 1, 2025
Nonfiction November is an opportunity to reflect on the year, to celebrate and appreciate nonfiction, and to share recommendations.
I read TWELVE nonfiction books this year, and some were more enjoyable than others.
What is your favorite category of nonfiction?
I love narrative nonfiction (followed closely by thought-provoking memoirs and fascinating biographies).
Narrative Nonfiction is “Nonfiction that uses novelistic devices and strategies to shape the work. That’s material that I really like.”
~Rick Moody
For this post, I am counting my nonfiction reads from the beginning of November 2024 because those nonfiction reads were not represented in last year’s post. So my nonfiction year will be from November 1 to November 1!
My Year in Nonfiction:
***Book titles are Amazon affiliate links or links to my blog reviews
Narrative Nonfiction
BEST EDUCATIONAL: The Boys of Riverside: A Deaf Football Team and a Quest for Glory by Thomas Fuller. I made a FREE Book Club Kit for it! If you love an educational read (deaf culture/history), competition, and an inspiring “underdog” story, this is the one I would press into your hands. The author narrates the audiobook, and it is well done. 5 Stars.
Essay Collections
MOST RELATABLE: Ordinary Time: Lessons Learned While Staying Put by Annie B. Jones. I follow From the Front Porch Podcast by Annie B. Jones and love this authentic, heartfelt, and relatable essay collection. In addition to the podcast, she owns The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. The author narrates the audiobook, and it is lovely. 4 Stars.
MOST AWAITED: Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten. Fans of Ina Garten cookbooks and her cooking shows will enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at her road to success. 3 Stars.
MOST EARNEST: Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand by Jeff Chu. My favorite part was his description of the ways his parents accepted his lifestyle and how LOVE can coexist with differences of opinion and lifestyle. 3 Stars.
MOST ACADEMIC: Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life. This book of writing advice is especially useful for writing poetry. 3 Stars.
MOST SKIPPABLE: I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron. This was almost a DNF. I kept hoping it would get better, although the last chapter about death is poignant, as the book was published in the same year she was diagnosed with cancer (although cancer is not mentioned). 2 Stars.
Historical
MOST INSPIRING: She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman by Erica Armstrong Dunbar. I loved learning more about Harriet Tubman. 5 Stars.
MOST TEDIOUS: Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel’s Messiah by Charles King. Ugh! SO much history and SO little about Handel. Tedious reading, and I skimmed a great deal. Perfect for die-hard history buffs. 2 Stars.
Self-Reflection
MOST THOUGHT-PROVOKING: Measure of My Days by Florida Scott-Maxwell. Reflections on aging. 3 Stars.
MOST UPBEAT: The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. Reflections on living a meaningful life while diagnosed with terminal cancer. 5 Stars.
Science & Medicine
MOST SCAREY: Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green. A friend of mine died of a form of TB last year. This book helped me understand why her disease was so difficult to treat. The author effectively presents the history of TB, but be prepared for his many opinions. 3 Stars.
Travel Memoir
MOST ADVENTUROUS: An Icelandic Adventure: One Family’s Mostly Successful Quest for Puffins, Pleasure, and Perfect Pizza by S. Bavey. Adventurers who are heading to Iceland might find this travel memoir helpful and interesting. 4 Stars.
Nonfiction TBR
On my near future nonfiction reading radar:
- The Blue Machine by Helen Czerski (in progress)
- One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson (starting soon)
- Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard (in progress)
- You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
Questions of the Day:
- What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year?
My favorite nonfiction books I read this year:
The Boys of Riverside, a perfect blend of history, information, culture, and inspiration. 5 Stars. FREE Book Club Kit here.
She Came to Slay, a compelling and memorable biography. 5 Stars.
I look forward to more engaging nonfiction in 2026. - What nonfiction book have you recommended the most this year?
The nonfiction titles I’ve recommended most include The Boys of Riverside, Ordinary Time,, and She Came to Slay. - Do you have a particular topic you’ve been attracted to more this year?
Looking at my reading results, it seems like I’ve been most attracted to essay collections which didn’t work out so well (except for Ordinary Time). I need to add more narrative nonfiction to my TBR in 2026. Recommendations? - Are you participating in Nonfiction November?
I’m eager to read posts from other bloggers and add inspiring nonfiction titles to my 2026 TBR! I’m especially hoping for some terrific narrative nonfiction titles and a couple of great biographies/memoirs.
If you are participating in #NonficNov, please add your thoughts and leave a link to your post in the comments.
Happy Reading Book Friends!
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~Madeleine Riley, Top Shelf Text
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I like travel adventures so that I can enjoy some armchair travel.
Definitely fun! 🙌
For several years before I retired, I taught high school juniors. We read THE LAST LECTURE by Randy Pausch. It was one of the most meaningful books to read with my students. I had them write reflective essays at several points in our reading. We also watched his lecture and also an hour long interview that Diane Sawyer did with Randy and his wife . It is excellent. Here is the link. 42 Minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-a7LRwqwNw. You can also watch his actual lecture with his students (Google it)
The reason I read it is because my grandson read it for school (a high school junior!) and recommended it! Thanks for the link!
Fab post Carol. I remember listening to an audiobook by a different author about Handel’s Messiah, and found it a struggle as well. 🤷♀️
Maybe there isn’t much info available?
Thanks for sharing your year of nonfiction, and your recommendations
Happy Nonfiction November
It’s fun to see what everyone is reading and posting!
I surprised myself by counting 24 non fiction reads in the last year! How to rank them? Generally I like memoirs, bios and essays best, but I also like narrative non-fiction and don’t seem to be reading it! I have The Wager by David Grann, and other stories about expeditions and adventures sitting on my shelves right now, begging to be read.
I’m sorry you didn’t like Nora Ephron’s memoir/essay book, I loved it. I especially was struck by her chapter “Moving On” about how she fell in love with a NYC apartment. It started me off on a “apartment real estate in Manhattan” obsession, which I haven’t gotten over yet. I’d love to live just a year in NYC.
I guess the best memoirs I read were Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks, Lucky Man by Michael J Fox, Gone to the Woods by Gary Paulsen and I AM I AM I AM by Maggie O’Farrell. A good Bio was The Wright Brothers by David McCullough.
The most influential books were Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, and Quiet by Susan Cain, about introverts.
And one of the fun ones was On Animals by Susan Orlean. Many chapters detailing the lives of various animals, but the best were about chickens and donkeys, HER favorite animals.
Wow! You had a fabulous nonfiction year! Thanks for sharing so many titles! I loved Just Mercy and Quiet! 🙌 I love narrative nonfiction as well! Have you read The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore?
Yes, I have! A couple years ago. It was sensational! And eye-opening and scary! It reminds me of a fictional book I read near the same time, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell. In that one, a girl in Edwardian times is neurodivergent and “peculiar”, and when she’s raped and becomes hysterical, they commit her. She spends the next 60 years in a psychiatric ward. Meanwhile, it’s all been covered up and Esme has been “erased.” It was horrifying and fascinating all at once.
Horrific times for women and mental health challenges.
I seem to be the only person on Earth who hasn’t read and loved Everything is Tuberculosis this year!
I skimmed most of it because of heavy handed author’s agenda. Parts were interesting.
Nice to see that we both had the same favourite nonfiction book this year. Of course, you did recommend it to me. Thanks for the reminder about Sue Bavey’s book, I will have to read it this month to double dip with Novellas in November. I hope you have a great nonfiction month, Carol.
I’ve had difficulty finding nf that I want to read this year!
I have those times as well, Carol. I have lots on my shelf, but not a lot of them are calling to me. 🤷♀️
[…] She Came to Slay by Erica Armstrong Dunbar(Narrative Nonfiction, Slavery)Superlative: “Most Riveting”WHY: Informative and inspiring. […]