Ten years ago, if you had told me that nonfiction books would be at the top of my year-end best-of list, I would have called you a liar.
However, for three years in a row, nonfiction books have been my favorites!
- In 2023, I couldn’t shut up about Accountable by Dashka Slater.
- In 2024, Among the Bros by Max Marshall topped my list.
- In 2025, Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams fascinated me.
Since I’m clearly a nonfiction reader now (how did this happen?), I put together a list of 15 nonfiction books I’m excited to read in the new year. Not all of these nonfiction books are coming out in 2026; some are left from previous years, and some I just learned about.
Nevertheless, these are nonfiction books I’m prioritizing in 2026. If the past is any indication, my 2026 favorite book is probably on this list!
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Nonfiction Books
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad has been on my TBR for a while because it’s going to be a tough read. The summary describes this as “a heartsick breakup letter with the West,” but that means it’s also an important book. Discomfort leads to growth, so this is one of those nonnegotiable nonfiction books.
Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal by Mohammed El-Kurd is about Palestine. Like El Akkad’s book, this is another one that’s going to be hard to read. Nevertheless, I recognize that there’s a privilege in reading about atrocity rather than experiencing it. I want to avoid intellectualizing that and feel it instead, so this is high on my TBR. A kind reader reached out with concerns about this book’s content; I haven’t read it yet, but I wanted to point out that this is a controversial read. Please decide for yourself and read with caution and care.
Athletes is Agender: True Stories of LGBTQ+ People in Sports edited by Katherine Locke and Nicole Melleby speaks to many parts of my heart. First, the illustrations are awesome. Second, this is an easy add to my classroom library. Finally, I did my dissertation on college athletics, so this is right up my ally and really in an area of sports that I didn’t study very much.
Humans: A Monsterous History by Surekha Davies has such a good cover! In a book about how humans define who/what is a “monster,” the cover is just a mirror. (A creepy mirror, but, still, just a mirror.) Pretty telling and intriguing!
The Museum Makers: A Journey Backwards by Rachel Morris is from 2021, but it’s a title that’s new to me. I’m intrigued by the summary of “part memoir, part detective story, part untold history of museums.” I love memoirs, but this is the only one in my list on nonfiction books to read in 2026.
This is the Canon: Decolonize Your Book Shelf in 50 Books by Joan Amin-Addo et al. sounds like a book written in the spirit of We Need Diverse Books. I haven’t done an audit of my personal reading in a long time, so this seems like an overdue read. (It may also be necessary because the last 5 nonfiction books on this list are about two white British authors.) I also know this will eventually gravitate toward my classroom.
True Crime Reads
Ten years ago, I also would not have believed that true crime would be a favorite genre for me. I’m not the sort to list to serial killer podcasts, but I have come to love investigative work. These are three nonfiction books that have already shocked me, and I’ve only read the blurb or the first few pages.
Pill City by Kevin Deutsch is on my TBR because I’m currently reading his first book, The Triangle: A Year on the Ground with New York’s Bloods and Crips, and it’s fascinating and horrifying. Some of my shock is the product of my own ignorance and privilege. Since it’s been such an eye-opening book, Pill City is high on my TBR. Plus, it sounds a little like Among the Bros, which was my favorite book of 2024.
The Riders Come Out at Night: Brutality, Corruption, and Cover-Ups in Oakland by Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham was recommended to me after I mentioned The Triangle to a friend. Winston and Darwin, like Deutsch, are journalists embedded in a dangerous community. In this case, Winston and Darwin focus on corruption within the Oakland police department. While Deutsch’s work focuses on the East Coast and Winston and Darwin are on the West Coast, I’m curious to see if these nonfiction books have any overlap in storytelling, technique, and outcome.
American Kingpin by Nick Bilton was recommended to me in the same conversation as The Riders. Bilton follows the rise and fall of the Silk Road. I know nothing about the dark web, so I’m parts cautious and curious. A few years ago, I read Edward Snowden’s biography, and some of the tech subterfuge in this one sounds like it might be in the same vein.
Jane Austen and William Shakespeare
I’m part surprised and part not-at-all surprised to find so many nonfiction books about Jane Austen and William Shakespeare on my TBR. For one, 2025 marked Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary, so lots of the year-end lists included her books and nonfiction books about her life and inspiration. For another, I read How to Think Like Shakespeare by Scott Newstock late in the year, so Billy has been on my mind lately.
Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend by Rebecca Romney is at the top of my Jane Austen list because even the summary was informative. I had no idea the play in Mansfield Park is real! If I can learn before I even start reading the book, I’m in!
Patchwork: A Graphic Biography of Jane Austen by Kate Evans is the only graphic or visual novel on my TBR this year! While I love a memoir, biography is an under-read genre for me, so I’m hoping the visual elements of this one will get me started. Plus, I love the idea of studying Austen’s life through the lens of the patchwork quilt she worked on in her later life.
Not Just Jane: Rediscovering Seven Amazing Women Writers Who Transformed British Literature by Shelley DeWees was a Pinterest recommendation. As the title suggests, Dewees goes beyond Jane Austen to discuss Charlotte Turner Smith, Helen Maria Williams, Mary Robinson, Catherine Crowe, Sara Coleridge, Dinah Mulock Craik, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. In graduate school, we studied Smith and Robinson, but I have to confess the other names are unknown to me. I’m excited to dig in and learn about some more women authors!
She Speaks! What Shakespeare’s Women Might Have Said by Harriet Walter sounds like the best kind of high-nerd fan fiction. I would love to know what Portia thought before she swallowed the coal or what Calpurnia thought when her husband decided to go to work for fear of being thought weak. I’m also excited to read about Shakespeare’s women from an actor’s perspective; Walter has played so many of these characters, I’m sure she has serious insight into their minds.
The Shakespeare Ladies Club: The Forgotten Women Who Rescued the Bawdy Bard by Christine and Jonathan Hainsworth is on my list because I initially read the title wrong. At first, I thought the title implied that Shakespeare “saved” his women characters, so, full of misplaced righteousness, I picked up the book. Then I realized I had everything wrong: this is a historical read about Shakespeare’s aristocratic women patrons who protected his legacy.
The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Race edited by Patricia Akhimie is almost certainly destined to stay on my TBR because it’s a straight-up textbook, and my days of paying textbook prices are long gone. Nevertheless, I’m really curious about the different critical readings of Shakespeare. I’ll have to see if I can get this used somewhere! Of the nonfiction books on this list, this one speaks the most to my grad school heart.
