BONUS: The Best Nonfiction of the Year

eight pros share their favorite nonfiction and why it worked

Hello, textCrunch readers!

When working on abstract numbers or large-scale categories, it can be easy to forget that I do, in fact, read books. Lots and lots of them. I love reading books so much that I spent an ungodly number of years in school becoming an expert in American literature, and now I get to teach students how to read widely and well. For all that I talk about structures, sales, and strategies, what matters most to me is the read. A book may succeed because of a number of behind-the-scenes factors— an ingenious topic, a huge platform, an NPR interview, or a perfectly timed but unforeseen current event— but the only reason that I recommend a book is because it’s excellent on the page.

This week, I’m reading in silence (while peaking at photos of my kids) at a Canadian farmhouse. To protect this bliss, I’m handing over this week’s newsletter to the experts— all voracious (and professional) readers and friends of the stack.

I asked two simple questions: what was the best work of nonfiction that you read in the last year? Why did it work?

Two caveats:

1. You must name a book that was published in the last 12 months

2. You may not name a book that you worked on in any capacity

A few of these were already on my TBR pile, and some weren’t yet on my radar! But I will always take a peer-reviewed rec. Thanks to these kind folks for the many happy reading hours ahead.

I didn’t intend to ask each of these kind folks for nonfiction writing advice, but many of their answers double as how-tos, with extraordinarily useful nuggets for those of us (me!) working through our own nonfiction projects.

I’ll be back in two weeks, spilling the tea on Memoir.

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I asked a bunch of people for recommendations— agents, editors, publicists, and writers— and got a handful of amazing book suggestions. But only one book came up twice. Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson was recommended first, by writer Julie Satow, and then, by agent Kate McKean.

Julie Satow is an award-winning journalist and writer of two bestselling works of nonfiction: The Plaza (2019), a history of the iconic hotel, and most recently, When Women Ran Fifth Avenue (2025), the story of the women behind the American department store. I met Julie earlier this summer when she was kind enough to interview me for her great podcast, co-hosted with Alice Robb, How Books Work. I loved When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, and was so eager to learn what nonfiction inspired another excellent nonfiction writer.

I read Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson's Claire McCardell biography (Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free), and it felt like Rona Jaffe’s The Best of Everything come to life. I was rooting for Claire to succeed as I might a character in a novel. Elizabeth’s writing is concise and her structure is neat, with none of the flab that sometimes bogs down a biography. I think the book also worked because even though the subject isn’t a celebrity, but rather an obscure early American fashion designer, the theme of an ambitious young girl arriving in the big city with even bigger dreams has universal appeal.

Dickinson’s biography also came highly recommended by Kate McKean, literary agent at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency and the writer of Write Through It: An Insider’s Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life, published earlier this summer and surely already on the bookshelf of every aspiring writer on substack. You might also know Kate from her popular substack, “Agents + Books.”

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson's Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free is the epitome of good historical non-fiction, to me. I had to look back to figure this out but apparently, I found out about this book because someone I follow on Bluesky posted about this designer, I googled the designer, saw Dickinson's forthcoming book, and instantly preordered it. I read it (in audiobook format) the moment it came in. I think the pitch of this book works in general because it is about relatively recent fashion history and highlights a woman's design contribution, and the reader knows that was not the norm. The author is a well-published journalist, so as a reader, I knew I was in good hands. The writing is great, which kept me reading (which isn't always true for non-fiction, even when I'm interested in the subject matter). And I think this book works because the author can definitively say Claire McCardell changed fashion in this specific way. And that's what separates it from other less successful history books that say hey, this person was also there at this big event. The title, the cover, the promise of the subtitle, it all drew me in, and the book itself delivered on all those promises.

Readers of my last post will know that I predict an uptick in history and biography over the next five years, though the category isn’t performing very well at the moment. I didn’t ask Julie or Kate for writing advice, but there are some great insights for writers of biographies here, whether that’s writing well-rounded characters or being clear about a lesser-known figure’s specific cultural interventions (instead of focusing on the also-theres).

It shouldn’t be a surprise that an editor is likewise attentive to craft in his response. Sean deLone is an editor at Atria Books, and writes the fantastic substack, “Dear Head of Mine.” I first came in contact with his work when he was interviewed by Lincoln Michel, and then I went down the newsletter archive rabbit hole. (I suggest, dear nerdy readers, that you start with Sean’s post about the differences between critics’ and consumers’ Best Of lists.)

Get the Picture: The Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Friends Who Taught Me How to See by Bianca Bosker (Feb 2024). It’s a book I’d been waiting for as a reader for seven years. Bosker’s first book, which takes a similar tack of diving into a small specific world, the world of wine, Cork Dork, is one of my favorite narrative nonfiction books. She’s a great writer, funny and perceptive and smart. It’s such a clever style and structure for a book, too. Bosker really plays the straw-woman, coming in as a total amateur to a clandestine world (wine, art) and immerses herself. Such a good narrative trick because you as a reader get to fool yourself into believing you’re in her shoes. It’s also a refreshing example of a publication working because she writes a damn good book: people read it, love it, and recommend it— me included.

I love this idea of “playing the straw-woman” as a way of approaching a narrative project. In several of the books mentioned here, writers found a way to weave their own research narrative into the story they told; perhaps this has something to do with the emergence (and influence) of a category we might call “memoir-plus,” that we’ll dig into next issue. At any rate, I was struck by the role of the author-as-character in the recommendations from Nancy Reddy and Jeffrey Yamaguchi, as well:

Nancy Reddy is an author, poet, professor, and, most importantly, my neighbor! She’s written The Good Mother Myth (highly recommend— I found this book so calming, as a mom of two small humans with a very demanding job). Nancy also writes the susbtack “Write More, Be Less Careful,” where, this summer, she’s been hosting a fabulous Summer Fridays series.

Elizabeth Greenwood's Everyday Intuition: What Psychology, Science, and Psychics Can Teach Us About Finding and Trusting Our Inner Voice explores the question I didn't know I needed: is that feeling anxiety or intuition? The introduction describes the book as being "structured like a swimming pool," meaning that it starts with ideas that are a little easier for everyone to get their minds around, then moves farther into the deep end (so to speak) with premonitions and psychics. I'm not sure that I fully buy into psychics, and I'm not necessarily booking myself a tarot reading after reading the book--but I got a lot of value out of the discussion of how to learn to listen to yourself, which is something that so many of us have been aggressively schooled out of doing, and how to distinguish the clarity of intuition from the buzz of anxiety. It's also just really well-researched, with interviews with a wide range of experts from psychologists to psychics, and scientific studies distilled in an accessible way. At a craft level, I also appreciated how Greenwood wove her own story into the research--she's present as a character, but it's not a memoir--and that feels like a useful example within the genre of narrative nonfiction.

Jeffrey Yamaguchi’s substack “Book Publishing Brick by Brick” has become a must-read for me, especially his Book Publishing Timeline series. (Are you an author with a book in production? Invest in this series! It will soothe and motivate you all at once.) Jeffrey has seen all sides of the publishing industry, from authoring to book marketing to teaching.

I loved Donna Seaman’s River of Books: A Life in Reading, a gorgeously written memoir that unfolds through the lens of her reading experience. I liked the vantage from which this book was written, seemingly narrow, but ultimately so expensive in what it explored. Of course I’m partial to the subject in terms of the publishing aspects of the story, but ultimately it is universal — about reading, learning, and discovery. It’s a slim, quiet book, but one that can make for a wonderful and enriching reading experience. It is not about a hot trend or use shock factor to grab attention. I imagine it on that perennial table in an independent bookstore where a reader will come upon it, having never heard of it before, and realize that this is just the book they were looking for — that’s a you know it when you see it kind of thing, and why I feel it works. These are hard books to publish and get attention for, from a book publishing perspective, but so important to be written, published, and made available to readers. The book was published on November 5, 2024, by Ode Books (A Seminary Co-op Imprint) — a small press. It is part of a series. The first book in the series was Reading the Room: A Bookseller’s Tale by Paul Yamazaki. I don’t know the whole plan for this imprint/series, but it sort of reminds me of the 33 ⅓ series of books (slim books that go deep on individual albums), which is long-running and amazing in what it does. That’s a way to make these kinds of books work, long-term, from a publishing standpoint.

And then, of course, there’s actual memoir, in which the author/subject’s life is interesting or remarkable on its own, but also because it can also stand in for a bigger time, culture, group, or topic. Kathleen Schmidt is one of my favorite publishing industry analysts, bringing years of PR insight into her substack “Publishing Confidential.” I love Kathleen’s perspective; she helps me think about a side of publishing that I rarely see from my author-centric world.

I primarily consume nonfiction by listening to audiobooks. The audiobook of From Here to the Great Unknown by Lisa Marie Presley and her daughter, Riley Keough, was fantastic. It worked because they included original recordings of Lisa Marie talking about her life intertwined with narration by Riley Keough and Julia Roberts (who read Lisa Marie's written parts). I'm fascinated by the lives of celebrity kids in LA during the 60s, 70s, and 80s, so this hit the spot. My 17-year-old daughter read the book, so we had our little book club discussion about it.

Shout-out to Kathleen for the lone audiobook rec!

The subjects that often work best are especially timely, as we can see in the responses from two literary agents, Danielle Bukowski and Alia Hanna Habib. I’ve recently become slightly obsessed with Danielle, an agent at Sterling Lord Literistic who is actually sharing data about the queries she receives, what she reads and rejects, the size of her slush pile, and (gasp!) her income over at her substack “Just Reading All Day.” I love that sort of transparency, and the numbers to back it up. Her recommendation has been on my TBR since it was published and I learned the novel I just finished was written by one of her clients (Bryan Washington). Which is all to say that Danielle obviously has fantastic taste.

I loved Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America by Bridget Read. I’d followed Bridget’s work in the past, begged her editor at Crown for a galley, and devoured the book in a week. The book combines serious reporting and a catnip-timely subject matter; Read inserts herself to add personal stakes but it’s unobtrusive; and the book is structured around the case study of one woman in an MLM. This all together makes for a lively read and I learned a ton of information. Another thing that worked particularly well is Read actually uncovers something in the book that (as far as I know) wasn’t leaked prior to publication (the newsworthy leak seems to be a publicity strategy or symptom of the modern era for many NF books, particularly political books, recently.)

I always want to know what Alia Hanna Habib has to say about nonfiction, not only because she represents it so expertly in her job as literary agent and VP at the Gernert Company, but because she is also my agent. The rest of the world gets to benefit from her sharp advice in her delightful and insightful substack, “Delivery and Acceptance,” and— coming soon!— in her book Take it From Me: An Agent’s Guide to Building a Nonfiction Writing Career from Scratch, which will be published by Pantheon in January 2026 and is available for preorder here.

I can’t praise Peter Beinart’s Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza highly enough. He’s such a morally astute and lucid writer, and I learned a lot.

There you have it: an education! Go forth and build your TBR. (I should really set up affiliate links.)

See you next time, stateside.