The Best Nonfiction Books of 2025

“If you care about education in America—which, ideally, should be every single American—then this book is an absolute must-read. Original Sins by the scholar, cultural organizer, and author Eve Ewing is an incisive portrait of how the country’s school system has, over centuries, perpetuated the ‘original sins’ wrought by chattel slavery and the genocide and displacement of Indigenous populations. With dozens and dozens of pages of harrowing citations backing her, Ewing argues that ‘the way Black and Native children have been treated in schools, from the earliest days of this country to the present, is an integral part of the way racial hierarchy is constructed and maintained…Original sin is inherited and fundamental. It doesn’t go away.’ This is a book for educators and parents, yes, but it is also a book for any and every average citizen who wants to see our school systems clearly—and help shape them into institutions more like the beacons they purport to be.”—LPP

“As the creator of Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels has been shaping American culture for 50 years. But while many know his name, few know much more about the taciturn Canadian. In Lorne, Susan Morrison, a long-time New Yorker editor, gives us the full story of the man who touched the careers of so many of the world’s funniest people.”—AG

“A work of startling moral lucidity, Egyptian Canadian journalist and novelist Omar El Akkad’s memoir-meets-polemic One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is nearly impossible to stop thinking about once you’ve dug deep enough into its pages. Mixing personal narrative with larger global examples of war and empire, rooting his account in the present-day horrors taking place in Gaza, El Akkad rejects the ideals he once held about the West. With One Day, he offers an agonized outcry for those lost to state-sanctioned violence—and calls upon readers to confront the hypocrisy, apathy, and complicity that perpetuate it.”—LPP

“Sarah Wynn-Williams’s experience working as a Facebook executive illustrates how—and why—America has become so divided. Corporate greed, recklessness, and cruel indifference turned a company supposedly intended to foster connection into a hotbed of election interference, hateful rhetoric, and sexual harassment. Careless People offers some genuinely scandalous revelations, but what Wynn-Williams really delivers is an account of what tech companies like Facebook have cost us as a society.”—AG

“John Green’s decision, in 2021, to focus on nonfiction might have come as a surprise to fans of the ultra-popular YA author. But when you read Everything Is Tuberculosis, you see that it has all the drama, emotion, and compassion of The Fault in Our Stars or Paper Towns. Tying the book together is the story of Henry, a 17-year-old whom Green met in a Sierra Leone hospital. Green follows Henry and his mother, Isatu, for years as Henry struggles with tuberculosis, a disease that is both avoidable and treatable. Green rails against this injustice while also telling the history of a disease that shaped much of the way we live today.”—AG

“A person making minimum wage would need to work 141 hours a week to afford a standard two-bedroom apartment in Boston. The number is higher in San Francisco. It’s a devastating reality that even full-time workers are vulnerable to losing housing, as Brian Goldstone explores in There Is No Place for Us. Goldstone follows five Atlanta families over years of housing insecurity, telling their stories while examining the larger factors (gentrification that caused rapidly rising rents; property flipping, which created a more limited supply of homes; and predatory real estate practices among them) that have made stable, affordable housing so unattainable. Goldstone’s remarkable reporting is both heartbreaking and illuminating.”—AG

“There will, perhaps, never be enough ways to interpret or consider motherhood. Ruthie Ackerman has experienced it from so many angles: As a child and young woman, she saw her mentally ill mother grapple with the role and was told stories about women in her family who had walked away from their kids. As a newlywed, she told herself she wanted to be childless. And as a woman rethinking that decision, she threw herself into the world of modern fertility—and all the thorny questions it raises. In Mother Code, Ackerman captures the many experiences and personas a mother can have. Her personal story is engaging, but perhaps the biggest takeaway from Mother Code is the reminder that nothing about being (or having) a mother is simple.”—AG

“Bruce Handy asks us to take teen movies seriously. Hollywood High traces the genre from Rebel Without a Cause to The Hunger Games, studying films that have often been dismissed. The book tells the behind-the-scenes stories of how the greatest examples were created, while looking at how deeply each film reflects the time in which it was created.”—AG

“The proliferation of artificial intelligence is not merely a hypothetical threat; it’s the reality we now live in. But it’s not a reality we must complacently accept. In this clear-eyed, thoroughly researched account, journalist Karen Hao draws on her years of AI-focused reporting for publications including The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic to tell ‘the inside story of Open AI,’ the company behind Chat GPT, and of its CEO Sam Altman, whom she calls ‘Silicon Valley’s golden boy’ and an ‘avatar of the generative AI revolution.’ For Empire of AI, Hao conducted more than 300 interviews—including with 90-plus current and former employees of OpenAI itself—and the resulting book makes the depth of her knowledge apparent. An engaging, often urgent read, Empire of AI offers essential insight not only into Altman’s company, but into the wider world its aforementioned ‘generative AI revolution’ is shaping.”—LPP

“It doesn’t take long to realize that actress Gwyneth Paltrow wasn’t involved in Amy Odell’s second bombshell biography—and, miraculously, that makes the book itself so much more fascinating. In Gwyneth, old friends, fellow actors, and members of the Goop universe share the good, the bad, and the shocking about one of America’s most polarizing and enduring stars.”—AG