Non-Fiction Index by Title

* denotes a title I read or saw live with my kids


Biography and Autobiography


The Background…Erasmus Hendrik van Loon 

Barracoon* Zora Neale Hurston

Bear in the Back Seat Kim DeLozier & Carolyn Jourdan

Becoming Dr. Seuss                       Brian Jay Jones

Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo

Black Boy (American Hunger) Richard Wright

Bold Spirit     Linda Laurence Hunt

The Bonanza King Gregory Crouch

Born a Crime Trevor Noah

Born Standing Up Steve Martin

The Boys In The Boat     Daniel James Brown

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer

Brown Girl Dreaming* Jacqueline Woodson

The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup Susan Orlean

The Burgermeister’s Daughter Steven Ozment

Calypso                                           David Sedaris

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice* Phillip Hoose

A Clearing in the Distance     Witold Rybczynski

Cultural Amnesia     Clive James

Dad is Fat     Jim Gaffigan

The Dangerous Animals Club Stephen Tobolowsky

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life Yiyun Li

A Dream Called Home Reyna Grande

Educated    Tara Westover

Escape from Camp 14 Blaine Harden

George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm Miranda Carter

The Girl Explorers Jayne Zanglein

The Glass Castle     Jeannette Walls

The Happiness Philosophers Bart Schultz

The High Sierra Kim Stanley Robinson

House of Gucci Sara Gay Forden

House of Wits Paul Fisher

How to Create the Perfect Wife Wendy Moore 

Ill Met By Moonlight     W. Stanley Moss

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot

The Irregulars     Jennet Conant

Irving Berlin: American Troubadour Edward Jablonski

Jim Henson: The Biography Brian Jay Jones

Lab Girl Hope Jahren

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey Lady Fiona, Countess of Carnarvon

Love Thy Neighbor Ayaz Virji & Alan Eisenstock

The Map that Changed the World Simon Winchester

McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon Joseph Mitchell

Me Talk Pretty One Day* David Sedaris

A Mighty Long Way Carlotta Walls Lanier & Lisa Frazier Page

My First Summer in the Sierra John Muir

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers Tamara Thornton

Nothing Daunted     Dorothy Wickenden

Of Monkey Bridges and Bahn Mi Sandwiches Oanh Ngo Usadi

Oh My America     Sara Wheeler

On Gold Mountain     Lisa See

100 Things Dodger Fans Should Know… Jon Weisman

Persepolis    Marjane Satrapi

Philip Larkin James Booth

The Possessed     Elif Batuman

The Professor and the Madman Simon Winchester

Reinventing the Enemy’s Language (Part 1) Various

The River of Doubt Candice Millard

The River War     Winston Churchill

Running Away to Home Jennifer Wilson

St. Francis of Assisi     G. K. Chesterton

Somebody’s Daughter Ashley Ford

Such A Strange Lady     Janet Hitchman

Thy Hand, Great Anarch Nirad C. Chaudhuri

Two-Buck Chuck & The Marlboro Man Frank Bergon

The Ungrateful Refugee Dina Nayeri

Vacationland John Hodgman

The Voice is All     Joyce Johnson

We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing James Whittaker

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China Jung Chang

Woman Lawyer: The Trials of Clara Foltz Barbara Babcock

The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston

The World That Was Ours Hilda Bernstein

The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion

 

Science and Math

 

The Age of Wonder     Richard Holmes

All About Electricity*     Ira M. Freeman

American Eclipse     David Baron

Anesthesia Kate Cole-Adams

Bad Astronomy     Phillip Plait

Basin and Range John McPhee

The Better Angels of Our Nature Steven Pinker

Between Hope and Fear Michael Kinch

The Big, Bad Book of Botany    Michael Largo

The Big Thirst     Charles Fishman

Biophilia E. O. Wilson

Blink        Malcolm Gladwell

Broad Band Claire Evans

Caesar’s Last Breath     Sam Kean

Conifers of California Ronald Lanner

A Crack at the Edge of the World Simon Winchester

Darwin’s Ghosts Rebecca Stott

Death From The Skies Phillip Plait

The Demon-Haunted World Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan

The Disappearing Spoon Sam Kean

An Economist Gets Lunch Tyler Cowen

Elephants on Acid     Alex Boese

Entangled Life Merlin Sheldrake

Fluke: The Math and Myth of Coincidence Joseph Mazur

Full Spectrum Adam Rogers

Fuzz Mary Roach

The Gap     Thomas Suddendorf

The Ghost Map     Steven Johnson

Grunt        Mary Roach

Gulp        Mary Roach

Hallucinations Oliver Sacks

Herding Hemingway’s Cats Kat Arney

The History of Pi     Petr Beckmann

Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms Richard Fortey

How Old Is The Universe? David Weintraub

How To Randall Munroe

How We Got to Now     Steven Johnson

The Hunt for Vulcan     Thomas Levenson

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot

The Island of the Colorblind           Oliver Sacks

Lab Girl Hope Jahren

Last Chance to See     Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine

The Little Book of Black Holes Steven Gruber & Frans Pretorious

The Logic of Life     Tim Harford

Love and Math     Edward Frenkel

The Map that Changed the World Simon Winchester

Music, Sound, and Sensation Fritz Winckel

Musicophilia    Oliver Sacks

My Beloved Brontosaurus Riley Black (Brian Switek) 

The Nothing That Is     Robert Kaplan

Outliers    Malcolm Gladwell

Packing for Mars     Mary Roach

Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies Agustin Fuentes

Range                                  David Epstein

Reading the Rocks     Marcia Bjornerud

The Righteous Mind     Jonathan Haidt

Science at the Edge     John Brockman, ed.

Scurvy        Stephen Bown

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics Carlo Rovelli

Sex on Six Legs     Marlene Zuk

Single Digits Marc Chamberland

Spook        Mary Roach

Stiff        Mary Roach

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn

Stuff Matters     Mark Miodownik

The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons Sam Kean

A Taste for the Beautiful    Michael J. Ryan

Underbug    Lisa Margonelli

Under the Sea Wind Rachel Carson

The Vagina Bible Dr. Jen Gunter

The Violinist’s Thumb     Sam Kean

What If?     Randall Munroe

Where Good Ideas Come From Steven Johnson

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Caitlin Doughty

Words and Rules Steven Pinker

The World in a Grain Vince Beiser

 

History

 

100 Year History of the Tule River Mountain Country Jeff Edwards

The Age of Wonder     Richard Holmes

Allensworth The Freedom Colony Alice Royal

American Amnesia Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson

An American Plague*     Jim Murphy

Atlantic Simon Winchester

Behemoth Joshua Freeman

Behind the Bears Ears R. E. Burrillo

The Better Angels of Our Nature Steven Pinker

Between Hope and Fear Michael Kinch

Bomb* Steve Sheinken

The Bonanza King Gregory Crouch

The Boys In The Boat     Daniel James Brown

Broad Band Claire Evans

The Civil War as a Theological Crisis Mark Noll

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice* Phillip Hoose

The Color of Law Richard Rothstein

A Crack at the Edge of the World Simon Winchester

Cultural Amnesia     Clive James

Darwin’s Ghosts Rebecca Stott

Destiny of the Republic Candice Millard

Devil in the Grove     Gilbert King

Divine Vintage     Joel Butler & Randall Heskett

Dying of Whiteness Jonathan Metzl

England Under the Stuarts G. M. Trevelyan

Falling Garrett Soden

Full Spectrum Adam Rogers

George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm Miranda Carter

The Ghost Map     Steven Johnson

Ghost Ship     Brian Hicks

Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams Jill Jonne

A History of the World in 6 Glasses Tom Standage

Ill Met By Moonlight     W. Stanley Moss

Iron Curtain     Anne Applebaum 

The Irregulars     Jennet Conant

Jesus and John Wayne Kristin Kobes Du Mez

The Lost Gutenberg Margaret Davis

The Mechanical Horse Margaret Guroff

A Mighty Long Way Carlotta Walls Lanier & Lisa Frazier Page

The Mosquito Timothy Winegard

On Gold Mountain     Lisa See

Opium John Halpern & David Blistein

The Other Slavery     AndrĂ©s ResĂ©ndez

Overthrow Stephen Kinzer

Palimpsest Matthew Battles

A Paradise Built in Hell Rebecca Solnit

Part of Our Time Murray Kempton

A Peace to End All Peace David Fromkin

Play it Loud     Brad Tolinsiki & Alan DiPerna

The Price for Their Pound of Flesh Daina Ramey Berry

The Pseudoscience Wars Michael Gordin

The Pursuit of Glory     Tim Blanning

The Radium Girls     Kate Moore

Railroaded: The Transcontinentals Richard White

Red Tails, Black Wings John B. Holway

Remembering Jim Crow Various (oral history)

Republic of Detours Scott Borchert

The River of Doubt Candice Millard

The River War     Winston Churchill

Say Nothing Patrick Radden Keefe

Scurvy        Stephen Bown

Sex and the Constitution Geoffrey Stone

The Slaves’ War     Andrew Ward

Sweetness and Power Sidney W. Mintz

The Swerve                         Stephen Greenblatt

The Taste of War     Lizzie Collingham

They Thought They Were Free Milton Meyer

Trafalgar     Tom Pocock, ed.

Turn Right at Machu Picchu      Mark Adams

Underground Haruki Murakami

Uppity Women of Medieval Times Vicki LeĂłn

The Way We Never Were Stephanie Koontz

Whatever Happened to the Metric System? John Bemelmans Marciano

When Books Went to War Molly Manning

White Rage     Carol Anderson

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China Jung Chang

Woman Lawyer: The Trials of Clara Foltz Barbara Babcock

 

Philosophy, Religion, & Politics

 

American Amnesia Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson

The American Way of Eating Tracie McMillan

Areopagitica    John Milton

Are Women Human?     Dorothy Sayers

The Art of War     Sun Tzu

Because of Sex     Gillian Thomas

The Better Angels of Our Nature Steven Pinker

Beyond Opinion     Ravi Zacharias, ed.

The Bible Tells Me So     Peter Enns

The Civil War as a Theological Crisis Mark Noll

Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas Cass Sunstein

Constitutional Personae Cass Sunstein

Cultural Amnesia     Clive James

Dying of Whiteness Jonathan Metzl

The End of Policing Alex Vitale

Essays: First Series Ralph Waldo Emerson

Feline Philosophy John Gray

The Fire This Time     Jesmyn Ward, ed.

Gift From the Sea Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The Happiness Philosophers Bart Schultz

Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams Jill Jonnes

The Hero With A Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell

Heretics    G. K. Chesterton

The Honor Code     Kwame Anthony Appiah

How Pleasure Works     Paul Bloom

How to be an Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi

In Defense of Witches Mona Chollet

In Praise of Folly Erasmus

In Search of Ancient Roots Kenneth J. Stewart

Jesus and John Wayne Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Love Thy Neighbor Ayaz Virji & Alan Eisenstock

A Nation of Nations     Tom Gjelten

Nickel and Dimed     Barbara Ehrenreich

Notes of a Native Son     James Baldwin

Nudge        Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler

The Omni-Americans Albert Murray

The Opium of the Intellectuals Raymond Aron 

Orthodoxy    G. K. Chesterton 

The Paranoid Style in American Politics Richard Hofstadter

Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein

A Pluralistic Universe William James

The Purity Myth     Jessica Valenti

Reconstructing the Gospel Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

The Righteous Mind     Jonathan Haidt

The Sacred and the Profane Mircea Eliade

The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind Mark Noll

The Second Sex (Part 1) Simone de Beauvoir

The Second Sex (Part 2) Simone de Beauvoir

Sex and the Constitution Geoffrey Stone

Simon, Who is Called Peter Mackenzie Mulligan

The Souls of Black Folk W. E. B. Du Bois

The Swerve             Stephen Greenblatt

Tao Te Ching     Lao Tzu

A Tear and a Smile Kahlil Gibran

They Thought They Were Free Milton Meyer

Twelve Ordinary Men     John MacArthur

The Ungrateful Refugee Dina Nayeri

A Vindication of the Rights of Women Mary Wollstonecraft

Walden Two B. F. Skinner

The Way We Never Were Stephanie Koontz

We Need New Stories Nesrine Malik

We Should All Be Feminists          Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

White Evangelical Racism Anthea Butler

Why Does the World Exist? Jim Holt

Why Society Needs Dissent Cass Sunstein

 

Music and the Arts

 

Everything Bad is Good For You Steven Johnson

The Hermitage Cats    Nicolai Gol & Maria Haltunen

Listen to This     Alex Ross

Music, Sound, and Sensation     Fritz Winckel

Musicophilia    Oliver Sacks

Pandora’s Jar Natalie Haynes

The Perfect Wagnerite George Bernard Shaw

Play it Loud     Brad Tolinski & Alan DiPerna

Schumann on Music     Robert Schumann

The Shakespeare Wars Ron Rosenbaum


This Thing We Call Literature     Arthur Krystal

Wagnerism Alex Ross

What Are You Looking At? Will Gompertz

The White Man’s Guide Dana Schwartz

Why Mahler?     Norman Lebrecht

 

Other Non-Fiction

 

Alarms and Diversions James Thurber

All the Single Ladies     Rebecca Traister

America Eats! Pat Willard

Areopagitica    John Milton

The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations Charles Harrington Elster

The Book of Difficult Fruit Kate Lebo

Changing My Mind Zadie Smith

City Life     Witold Rybczynski

Cultural Amnesia     Clive James

Cultural Literacy     E. D. Hirsch, Jr.

Don’t Make Me Pull Over Richard Ratay

Eldorado Bayard Taylor

Essays    Francis Bacon

The Grasshopper Trap* Patrick McManus

Grounded    Seth Stevenson

Happy City     Charles Montgomery

Home Economics Wendell Berry

How To Be Alone     Jonathan Franzen

How to Invent Everything Ryan North

How to Write a Sentence Stanley Fish

Impossible Journeys     Matthew Lyons

It’s All Relative A. J. Jacobs

Just My Type     Simon Garfield

Languages of Truth Salman Rushdie

The Library     Stuart Kells

A Man Without A Country Kurt Vonnegut

McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon Joseph Mitchell

The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze James Thurber

Mules and Men Zora Neale Hurston

Noodling for Flatheads Burkhard Bilger

On Bullshit Harry Frankfurt

On the Map     Simon Garfield

Our Common Wealth     Jonathan Rowe

The Patch John McPhee

Poetry Notebook     Clive James

The Romantic Economist William Nicholson

A Sand County Almanac Aldo Leopold

The Sense of an Ending Frank Kermode

A Sense of Life     Antoine de Saint-ExupĂ©ry

Sketches and Poems     E. B. White

Sketches and Satires S. J. Perelman

Skyfaring    Mark Vanhoenacker

Studies in Words     C. S. Lewis

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again David Foster Wallace

Talking to Strangers Malcolm Gladwell

Timekeepers Simon Garfield

Two-Buck Chuck & The Marlboro Man Frank Bergon

Underground Haruki Murakami

The Unexpected Universe Loren Eiseley

Walden Henry David Thoreau

The Well Educated Mind Susan Wise Bauer 

Within the Context of No Context George W. S. Trow

The Zen of Fish     Trevor Corson


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