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Beyond Bestsellers - Nonfiction, Summer 2025

Get ahead of the crowd with these great recent releases that may not be on the New York Times bestseller list, but that have critics and readers talking.

July - September 2025 Issue 

See also:

Aziza, Sarah. The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders.  

Becker, Adam.  More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity
Bienstock, Richard and Beaujour, Tom.  Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival
Blake, Mariah.  They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals.  
Bolin, Alice.  Culture Creep: Notes on the Pop Apocalypse.  
Burrough, Bryan.  The Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild.

Chen, Anelise.  Clam Down: A Metamorphosis.  
Christensen, Lauren.  Firstborn
Chu, Andrea Long.  Authority: Essays
Clark, Tiana.  Scorched Earth: Poems.  
Cockerell, Rachel.  Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land.  

Dalrymple, William.  The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World.  
De Robertis, Caro.  So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color.  
Dickinson, Elizabeth Evitts.  Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free
Dominus, Susan.  The Family Dynamic: A Journey into the Mystery of Sibling Success.
Dunthorne, Joe.  Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance.  

Febos, Melissa.  The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex.  
Filgate, Michele.  What My Father and I Don't Talk About: Sixteen Writers Break the Silence
Fugett, Karie.  Alive Day: A Memoir.  

Goldstone, Brian.  There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America. Ebook, downloadable audiobook
Grandin, Greg.  America, América: A New History of the New World.  
Green, Elon.  The Man Nobody Killed: Life, Death, and Art in Michael Stewart's New York.  
Greene, A. Kendra.  No Less Strange or Wonderful: Essays in Curiosity.  
Greenwell, Megan.  Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream.  
Gurung, Prabal.  Walk Like a Girl: A Memoir.  
Gustafson, Courtney.  Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats.  

Hage, Dave and Marcotty, Josephine.  Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie.  
Hagey, Keach.  The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future.  
Harris, Malcolm.  What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis.  
Hess, Amanda.  Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age
Hoffman, Claire.  Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson.

James, Rachel McCarthy.  Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder.  
Jeffers, Honorée Fanonne.  Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings.  
Jiménez, Cristina.  Dreaming of Home: How We Turn Fear into Pride, Power, and Real Change.  

Knox, Amanda.  Free: My Search for Meaning. Downloadable audiobook
Kriegel, Mark.  Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson.
Kureishi, Hanif.  Shattered.  

Larocca, Amy.  How to Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure at a Time.  
Leavitt, Danielle.  By the Second Spring: Seven Lives and One Year of the War in Ukraine.  
Li, Yiyun.  Things in Nature Merely Grow.

MacCulloch, Diarmaid.  Lower Than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity.  
McWhorter, John H.  Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words.

Nadel, Dan.  Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life
Nguyen, Viet Thanh.  To Save and Destroy: Writing as an Other
Pember, Mary Annette.  Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools. Ebook, downloadable audiobook
Perry, Andre M.  Black Power Scorecard: Measuring the Racial Gap and What We Can Do to Close It
Prideaux, Sue.  Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin.

Read, Bridget.  Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America.  
Rediker, Marcus.  Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea.  
Risen, Clay.  Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America
Rodell, Besha.  Hunger Like a Thirst: From Food Stamps to Fine Dining, a Restaurant Critic Finds Her Place at the Table.  
Ruhl, Sarah.  Lessons from My Teachers: From Preschool to the Present.  
Russo, Richard.  Life and Art: Essays.  

Sack, Kevin.  Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church.  
Sciolino, Elaine.  Adventures in the Louvre: How to Fall in Love with the World's Greatest Museum.  
Seabrook, John.  The Spinach King: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty.  
Sheff, David.  Yoko: A Biography.  
Shukla, Dr. Jagadish. A Billion Butterflies: A Life in Climate and Chaos Theory.  
Simpson, Erika J.  This Is Your Mother: A Memoir.  
Smith, Jennie Erin.  Valley of Forgetting: Alzheimer’s Families and the Search for a Cure
Sosenko, Carla.  I'll Look So Hot in a Coffin: and Other Thoughts I Used to Have About My Body.  
Starkey, Brando Simeo.  Their Accomplices Wore Robes: How the Supreme Court Chained Black America to the Bottom of a Racial Caste System.  
Summerscale, Kate.  The Peepshow: The Murders at Rillington Place.

Tammet, Daniel.  Nine Minds: Inner Lives on the Spectrum.  
Theoharis, Jeanne.  King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life of Struggle Outside the South
Thomas, Jordan.  When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World.  

Tourmaline.  Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson.  

Vara, Vauhini.  Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age
Viorst, Judith.  Making the Best of What's Left: When We're Too Old to Get the Chairs Reupholstered. Downloadable audiobook

Walker, Shaun.  The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West.  
Weisman, Alan.  Hope Dies Last: Visionary People Across the World, Fighting to Find Us a Future.  
Weymouth, Adam.  Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness.  
Whitaker, Mark.  The Afterlife of Malcolm X: An Outcast Turned Icon’s Enduring Impact on America
Williams, Dana A.  Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship.  

Young, Michelle.  The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland.