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Beyond Bestsellers - Nonfiction

A list of great nonfiction reads not on the Best Sellers list from Winter 2015

January - March 2015 Issue

See also:

Berlin, Ira.  The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States
Bikont, Anna.  The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne.
Breyer, Stephen.  The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities
Brotherton, Rob.  Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories

Cisneros, Sandra.  A House of My Own: Stories from My Life
Costello, Elvis.  Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink

Damrosch, Leo.  Eternity’s Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake
Davis, Clark.  It Starts with Trouble: William Goyen and the Life of Writing
Dean, Margaret Lazarus.  Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Space Flight
DeVita, Jr., Vincent T.  The Death of Cancer: After Fifty Years on the Front Lines of Medicine, a Pioneering Oncologist Reveals Why the War on Cancer is Winnable -- And How We Can Get There

Eby, Margaret.  South toward Home: Travels in Southern Literature

Ferguson, Niall.  Kissinger: The Idealist, 1923-1968
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence.  Writing Across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1960-2010
Forrester, James.  The Heart Healers: The Misfits, Mavericks, and Rebels Who Created the Greatest Medical Breakthrough of Our Lives

Gilbert, Elizabeth.  Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Goldberg, Daniel.  The State of Play: Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture
Goldberger, Paul.  Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry
Goulding, Matt.  Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan’s Food Culture.
Gura, Philip F.  The Life of William Apess, Pequot
Guralnick, Peter.  Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll

Harkup, Kathryn.  A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie
Haygood, Wil.  Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America
Holzer, Harold.  A Just and Generous Nation: Abraham Lincoln and the Fight for American Opportunity

Jackson, Tom.  Chilled: How Refrigeration Changed the World and Might Do So Again
Jacobsen, Annie.  The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top-Secret Military Research Agency
Jefferson, Margo.  Negroland: A Memoir

Kaplan, James.  Sinatra: The Chairman
Karr, Mary.  The Art of Memoir
Kasparov, Garry.  Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped
Kellow, Brian.  Can I Go Now?: The Life of Sue Mengers, Hollywood’s First Superagent
Koppel, Ted.  Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath

Lehman, David.  The State of the Art: A Chronicle of American Poetry, 1988-2014
Light, Alison.  Common People: In Pursuit of My Ancestors
Lowenstein, Roger.  America’s Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve

MacGregor, Neil.  Germany: Memories of a Nation
McGilligan, Patrick.  Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane
Makari, George.  Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind
Mar, Alex.  Witches of America.
Maraniss, David.  Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story

Nabokov, Peter.  How the World Moves: The Odyssey of an American Indian Family
Nabokov, Vladimir.  Letters to Vera
Newkirk, Pamela.  Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga
Nisbett, Robert E.  Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking
Norris, John.  Mary McGrory: The First Queen of Journalism

Oates, Joyce Carol.  The Lost Landscape: A Writer’s Coming of Age
Odede, Kennedy.  Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum
Odell, Amy.  Tales from the Back Row: An Outsider’s View from Inside the Fashion Industry

Randall, Lisa.  Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe
Rieff, David.  The Reproach of Hunger: Food, Justice, and Money in the Twenty-First Century
Robinson, Marilynne.  The Givenness of Things: Essays
Russakoff, Dale.  The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools? 

Sacks, Jonathan.  Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence
Schiff, Stacy.  The Witches: Salem, 1692
Seabrook, John.  The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory.
Service, Robert.  The End of the Cold War: 1985-1991
Shane, Scott.  Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone
Simic, Charles.  The Life of Images: Selected Prose
Sinitiere, Phillip.  Salvation with a Smile: Joel Osteen, Lakewood Church, and American Christianity
Sky, Emma.  The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq
Smith, Patti.  M Train
Steinem, Gloria.  My Life on the Road

Theroux, Paul.  Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads.
Thomas, Evan.  Being Nixon: A Man Divided
Toibin, Colm.  On Elizabeth Bishop
Toll, Ian W.  The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944
Tombs, Robert.  The English and Their History
Tudor, Daniel.  North Korea Confidential: Private Markets, Fashion Trends, Prison Camps, Dissenters and Defectors
Turkle, Sherry.  Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age

Urofsky, Melvin I.  Dissent and the Supreme Court: Its Role in the Court’s History and the Nation’s Constitutional Dialogue

Vargas Llosa, Mario.  Notes on the Death of Culture: Essays on Spectacle and Society
Vendler, Helen.  The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar: Essays on Poets and Poetry.

Wachsmann, Nikolaus.  KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps
Wilson, Andrew.  Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin
Wilson, Cintra.  Fear and Clothing: Unbuckling American Style.
Winik, Jay.  1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History
Wulf, Andrea.  The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World.