20 Best Nonfiction Books of 2025 That Will Change How You See the World
If your 2026 reading goal includes more powerful, perspective-shifting nonfiction, this curated list of the top 20 nonfiction books of 2025 is the perfect place to start. From climate change and deep history to intimate memoir and cultural criticism, these books earned spots on major “best of the year” lists and generated serious buzz among reviewers and readers alike.
Below you will find each title with the author, notable awards or list mentions, and a brief, spoiler‑free synopsis so you can quickly decide which ones to add to your TBR and which formats (print, ebook, or audio) might work best for your reading life.
1. How to End a Story: Collected Diaries – Helen Garner
Awards & Recognition: Featured on multiple “best nonfiction of 2025” lists and widely praised by critics for its intimate portrayal of a writer’s life.
Australian author Helen Garner gathers her late‑career diaries into a raw, sharply observed chronicle of aging, creativity, friendship, and disappointment. The entries explore the mundane and the profound side by side, offering a compelling portrait of a woman determined to keep paying attention even as relationships shift and the body slows.
2. The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years – Sunil Amrith
Awards & Recognition: Highlighted as one of the standout environmental history books of 2025 and recommended for readers of climate nonfiction.
Historian Sunil Amrith traces how human societies have transformed land, water, and atmosphere over five centuries, linking imperialism, capitalism, and climate change in an accessible narrative.By weaving together global case studies, the book helps readers see today’s climate crises as the result of long, interconnected histories rather than isolated modern accidents.
3. Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin – Sue Prideaux
Awards & Recognition: Frequently cited on year‑end best‑of lists for biography and art writing in 2025.
Sue Prideaux digs beneath the myth of Paul Gauguin to explore his restless personality, radical art, and deeply troubling personal choices. The biography balances lush descriptions of his paintings with close attention to the colonial and interpersonal harm that underpinned his self‑created legend.
4. The Story of a Heart – Rachel Clarke
Awards & Recognition: Recognized as a leading medical memoir and shortlisted on several health‑writing prize lists.
Physician and writer Rachel Clarke combines medical history, personal narrative, and ethics in a meditation on the human heart—both as an organ and as a metaphor. Moving between hospital wards and the stories of landmark heart patients, Clarke examines what it means to fight for life in systems that are often overwhelmed and under‑resourced.
5. The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s – Jason Burke
Awards & Recognition: Featured on political and history “best books of 2025” lists for its global lens on extremism. Jason Burke offers a sweeping account of radical movements in the 1970s, from Europe to the Middle East, showing how a small number of groups shaped decades of conflict and counterterror responses. By highlighting the personal stories behind headlines, the book illuminates the motives, missteps, and long shadows of political violence.
6. The Golden Road – William Dalrymple
Awards & Recognition: Included among the most acclaimed history titles of 2025.
Historian William Dalrymple turns his narrative gifts toward a richly detailed account of South Asian history, trade, and empire along a key corridor sometimes described as a “golden road.” Blending archival sources with vivid storytelling, he reconstructs the lives of merchants, rulers, and travelers whose choices shaped the region’s cultural and political landscapes.
7. Africonomics: A History of Western Ignorance – Bronwen Everill
Awards & Recognition: Noted in economics and global history lists for its fresh, critical perspective on development debates.
Bronwen Everill examines how Western economic thinking about Africa has been built on misunderstandings, stereotypes, and selective data for centuries. By unpacking the history of misguided “expertise,” the book challenges readers to rethink assumptions about growth, debt, and what economic success really looks like on the continent.
8. Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life – Jason Roberts
Awards & Recognition: Celebrated as a standout science and nature book, appearing on several “best nonfiction” lists.
Jason Roberts chronicles the quest to catalog Earth’s biodiversity, from early naturalists to modern genomic projects racing against extinction. The narrative captures both the wonder of discovery and the ethical weight of losing species faster than science can study them.
9. Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar – Cynthia Carr
Awards & Recognition: Widely praised as one of the year’s best biographies, especially in LGBTQ+ and cultural studies circles.
Cynthia Carr delivers a deeply researched portrait of Candy Darling, the trans actress and Warhol superstar who became an enduring symbol of glamour and defiance. Drawing on interviews, archives, and film history, the book situates Candy’s life within the politics of gender, performance, and fame in twentieth‑century New York.
10. Augustus the Strong: A Study in Artistic Greatness and Political Fiasco – Tim Blanning
Awards & Recognition: Highlighted on multiple history lists as a vivid, character‑driven biography.
Tim Blanning explores the contradictory life of Augustus the Strong, the Saxon ruler whose passion for art and architecture rivaled his disastrous political decisions.The book shows how cultural magnificence and administrative chaos can coexist in a single reign, leaving an ambiguous legacy for later generations.
11. The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham – Lucy Hughes‑Hallett
Awards & Recognition: Frequently mentioned among 2025’s best works of narrative history.
Lucy Hughes‑Hallett reconstructs the meteoric rise and violent end of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, favourite of King James I and lightning rod for public anger. By tracing how power, charisma, and resentment collided, the book explores why some political figures become convenient repositories for national frustration.
12. Italy Reborn: From Fascism to Democracy – Mark Gilbert
Awards & Recognition: Featured on political history lists for its clear, accessible account of modern Italy.
Mark Gilbert charts Italy’s journey from Mussolini’s dictatorship through World War II and into the messy process of building a democratic republic.The book blends high‑level political narrative with attention to everyday Italians navigating fear, hope, and profound social change.
13. Catland: Feline Enchantment and the Making of the Modern World – Kathryn Hughes
Awards & Recognition: A quirky cultural history that landed on several editors’ choice lists for nonfiction.
Kathryn Hughes investigates how cats went from working animals to beloved companions and pop‑culture icons, reshaping domestic life and popular imagination along the way.Combining social history, art, and anecdote, the book shows how feline fascination reveals deeper shifts in family, gender, and leisure.
14. Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age – Eleanor Barraclough
Awards & Recognition: Recognized on several history and archaeology lists for its innovative approach.
Eleanor Barraclough looks beyond the stereotype of raiding warriors to uncover lesser‑known stories of craftspeople, traders, and travelers in the Viking world. Through artifacts and sagas, she highlights the skilled hands that built ships, forged tools, and stitched textiles, expanding what readers think of as “Viking history.”
15. The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV – Helen Castor
Awards & Recognition: A standout in medieval history publishing for 2025.
Helen Castor revisits the turbulent relationship between Richard II and Henry IV, framing their conflict as both personal drama and constitutional turning point. The book illuminates how competing claims to legitimacy and authority set the stage for centuries of English political turmoil.
16. Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade – Hannah Durkin
Awards & Recognition: Acclaimed for recovering overlooked histories and shortlisted for major nonfiction prizes.
Hannah Durkin pieces together the lives of some of the last Africans forcibly transported across the Atlantic, following their stories into the twentieth century. Through meticulous archival work, she reveals how these individuals rebuilt lives in new lands while carrying the trauma and memory of enslavement.
17. The Gravity of Feathers: Fame, Fortune and the Story of St Kilda – Andrew Fleming
Awards & Recognition: Noted for its blend of environmental and cultural history.
Andrew Fleming examines the remote archipelago of St Kilda, once famed for its seabird harvests and later romanticized as a vanished world. The book untangles how tourism, media attention, and conservation transformed local livelihoods and global perceptions of this isolated place.
18. The Pacific Circuit: A Globalized Account of the Battle for the Soul of an American City – Alexis Madrigal
Awards & Recognition: Highlighted in 2025 nonfiction roundups for urban studies and technology.
Journalist Alexis Madrigal uses one American city as a lens for understanding how global capital, tech, and migration are reshaping urban life. By following flows of money, people, and ideas around the Pacific, the book reveals the hidden circuits powering growth—and driving inequality.
19. Black Genius: Essays on an American Legacy – Tre Johnson
Awards & Recognition: Celebrated as one of the year’s most thought‑provoking essay collections.
Tre Johnson gathers essays that honour and interrogate the idea of Black “genius,” from artists and activists to everyday people whose brilliance often goes unrecognized.The collection blends cultural criticism with personal reflection, inviting readers to rethink how talent, labor, and recognition are distributed.
20. The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders – Sarah Aziza
Awards & Recognition: Frequently singled out among 2025’s best memoirs for its lyrical, politically engaged storytelling.
Sarah Aziza’s memoir moves between countries, languages, and identities as she reflects on displacement, gender, and the violence of borders. Through intimate scenes and sharp analysis, she shows how geopolitical lines are felt in the most personal parts of the body and self.
Whether you love memoir, rigorous history, sharp cultural criticism, or big‑picture science, these twenty nonfiction books of 2025 offer rich, conversation‑starting reading for your shelves, your book club, or your next library haul.
