If what I read and loved in 2025 is any indication, writers have pulled their focus in from the big picture to the world writ small. Between the covers of my top 10 nonfiction books you'll find themes of escape, hope, tragedy and joy.
'A Marriage at Sea'
By Sophie Elmhirst
The book I’ve recommended to more people than any other in 2025 is this riveting tale of adventure — and the true story isn’t even the best part of it. Subtitled “A True Story of Love, Obsession and Shipwreck,” it’s about a British couple who, in the ‘70s, decided to sell their house and sail to the Galapagos Islands, even though they weren’t really sailors and she couldn’t even swim. Their survival story is incredible, to be sure. But what makes “A Marriage at Sea” (note the double meaning in that title) special is Elmhirst’s writing, which is nimble, sensible and uncanny in its ability to help us see how marriages, and this one in particular, work.
'Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation'
By Zaakir Tameez
The 19th century abolitionist, orator and senator is known, if at all, as the guy who was almost beaten to death by a colleague on floor of the U.S. Senate or perhaps as the man who was holding friend Abraham Lincoln’s hand on the president’s deathbed. But there’s a lot more to his story, which includes an unusual degree of compassion for Black Americans — possibly because, as a closeted gay man, he identified with their outsider status (a “romantic friend” of Sumner’s wrote, “Hardly a day passes but I think of you & long to have you by my side” — while on his honeymoon!). “Charles Sumner” is a monumental book, and sharply insightful Tameez — who is in his 20s — is a writer to watch.
'Mother Mary Comes to Me'
By Arundhati Roy
The Indian novelist (she won a Booker Prize for “The God of Small Things”) could have written a sort of “Mommy Dearest” book — there’s plenty of horrible behavior from her mother, whom she refers to throughout “Mother Mary Comes to Me” as “Mrs. Roy.” Instead, the memoir feels like a generous, compassionate attempt to understand the impulses that drove her difficult, driven mother and that Roy has attempted not to become snared in. Despite the title, most of the book is about Roy’s own stellar career, which was shaped by her troubled childhood and which she has devoted to helping those who lack the privileges with which she grew up.
'The Zorg'
By Siddharth Kara
No one is going to claim that “The Zorg,” subtitled “A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery,” is fun to read. But Kara’s elegantly reasoned and economical book (it’s just 288 pages) goes beyond showing us the abominable behavior among the crew on a British/Dutch ship: Ultimately, they threw overboard 130 enslaved Africans they were supposed to transport to the “New World,” simply because they feared the drinking water supply was too low. It’s also a compelling courtroom drama (crew members were tried, eventually) and a thoughtful analysis of how the events inspired Frederick Douglass and others.
'Bone Valley'
By Gilbert King
The year’s finest true crime book (King also told the story on the popular podcast with the same title) is about attempts to free a man who almost everybody in Florida seems to agree was wrongly convicted of murdering his girlfriend. But, as Pulitzer Prize-winning King learns, it’s not as simple as that. Prosecutors suppress new information and ignore other evidence, including a full confession from another man. The book is both a gripping melodrama and a shocking, even maddening, look at how our justice system can go disastrously wrong when the people in charge of it aren’t taking care of it.
'Is a River Alive?'
By Robert Macfarlane
The short answer to the titular question is “Yes.” British science writer Macfarlane explains why in his poetic book, which finds him navigating three rivers in an attempt to put into words why he is so sure we need to be looking at rivers differently. He’s a gifted writer (once you read him referring to reservoirs as “the graves of rivers,” you’ll never be able to think of them as anything else) and he has a true gift for translating what is unique and endangered about our natural world into simple, vivid words. There’s also an element of memoir in “River,” which is informed by knowledge of a secret spring Macfarlane has always cherished and is now teaching his children about.
'I Am Nobody’s Slave'
By Lee Hawkins
In his eye-opening and provocative memoir, Hawkins describes the physical abuse he received from his parents. He also traces it back to slavery and Jim Crow, which he argues have made abuse common among Black parents, for reasons he credibly explains. Incredibly, the writer and podcaster found a path to forgiveness, and to a relationship with both parents. That spirit of generosity colors the memoir, which saves space to cite Black Americans who have shaped the world. Hawkins said he wanted “to name a lot of people who served as guiding lights when I was a kid at the darkest times of my life, when I hated myself.”
'Tigers Between Empires'
By Jonathan C. Slaght
Naturalist Slaght’s “Owls of the Eastern Ice” was hugely acclaimed in 2020, and “Tigers,” which was inspired by adventures while researching “Owls,” may be even better. It’s about the Siberian Tiger Project’s efforts to save the endangered big cats as the tigers battle poachers and climate change. The ambitious book is about nature, for sure, but also politics (the tigers’ home happens to be on the fraught Russia/China border), and it’s enlivened by the insights of Slaght, whose compassion and curiosity make his book suspenseful and urgent.
'A Truce That Is Not Peace'
By Miriam Toews
These essays are just the latest evidence that the witty, wise Canadian writer deserves a much bigger audience than she currently has. Toews’ best-known work is “Women Talking‚” which became an Oscar-winning film, but all eight of her novels are extraordinary. So is this book, a quasi-memoir that digs deep into her novels, all of which are directly inspired by her family, and tries to figure out why she writes and whether the act of writing has been the key to her survival (the author’s father and sister both died by suicide). Despite her abundant gifts (on a lark, Toews starred in the movie “Silent Light” and she’s predictably fantastic in it), “Truce” shares with all of her books a grace and lightness that takes your breath away.
'Baldwin: A Love Story'
By Nicholas Boggs
It’s not the first biography of the legendary writer and activist, but Boggs’ probing work carves out a niche for itself by concentrating on four people Baldwin loved, as friends or romantic partners or both. Boggs selects four mentors and lovers and the portrait that emerges is a bit like a cubist painting, with each of them offering a significantly different portrait of the man they knew. It’s a fascinating way to depict a complicated man and it does the thing a good biography of any author should do: makes you long to dive into its subject’s peerless writing.
