The Nonfiction Files 10: The Best Nonfiction of 2025

My nine favorite nonfiction books of 2025 and an update to 2025 nonfiction matrix.

This year I’ve read 48 nonfiction books that published in 2025¹. I have DNF’d at least 20 more². And today I’m thrilled to share my nine favorite 2025 nonfiction books. For those wondering, I will still be sharing my best books of 2025 list on IG later this month, along with the best books of 2025 episode with greta johnsen and MJ Franklin on the podcast, and my ranking of every book I read this year exclusive to paid subs here at Unstacked. So there is plenty more “best of” content coming your way, but you know I had to give nonfiction its own shining moment.

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Before we get to my top nine, I wanted to close the loop on something I started back in June. My Nonfiction Matrix! It’s a visual way to think and talk about nonfiction books. Check out the full piece from June to get the full picture.

The Nonfiction Files 4: Nonfiction Matrix

Here is my June edition.

And here is my follow-up of all the 2025 nonfiction I read in the second half of the year. Below the image follows a list of the books pictured, in order of my reading them. Any books in bold come recommended by me.

• Authority: Essays by Andrea Long Chu

• Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream by Megan Greenwell

• A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children by Haley Cohen Gilliland

• The Pacific Circuit: A Globalized Account of the Battle for the Soul of an American City by Alexis Madrigal

• Black Genius: Essays on an American Legacy by Tre Johnson

• Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins by Barbara Demick

• The People’s Project: Poems, Essays, and Art for Looking Forward by Saeed Jones and Maggie Smith

• Rehab: An American Scandal by Shoshana Walter

• The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990 by Jonathan Mahler

• Both/And: Essays by Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Writers of Color by Denne Michele Norris

• Nice Girls Don’t Win: How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power by Parvati Shallow

• Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy

• The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us by John J. Lennon

• 107 Days by Kamala Harris

• All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation by Elizabeth Gilbert

• Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care by Claudia Rowe

• When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World by Jordan Thomas

• The Once and Future Riot by Joe Sacco

• The Man Nobody Killed: Life, Death, and Art in Michael Stewart’s New York by Elon Greene

• The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders by Sarah Aziza

• Truly by Lionel Richie

• Sad Tiger

• Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Girls Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert

• Empire of Orgasm: Sex, Power, and the Downfall of a Wellness Cult by Ellen Huet

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And now, my 9 best nonfiction books of 2025!

• Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry
  Imani Perry was firing on all cylinders for this book that takes Black people — our history, our culture — and ties it to the color blue. In both obvious and obscure ways. She offers history anew, and does so with her signature style. Lyrical, heart-full, and with a depth of understanding and knowledge that can’t be beat.

• A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children by Haley Cohen Gilliland (Episode 381)
  If you like a well-researched book, this one is for you. The story of the grandmothers who fought for their disappeared children and grandchildren in Argentina isn’t well known in the US. Gilliland wrote with painstaking detail about these events, and did so in a way that made the story come to life. While there are clearly years of work in this book, it reads like a narrative, not a research paper.

• The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders by Sarah Aziza (Episode 398)
  An ambitious debut that pays off. Aziza uses her own treatment for anorexia as a catalyst to talk about generations of her family — mainly her grandmother — from Gaza, and how the traumas of her life and her body are tied to the people who came before her. It is more than just memoir, and it braids strands of resistance across time and place for a powerful reckoning with bodies and power.

  

• The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990 by Jonathan Mahler
  The most fun I had reading all year. If you want juicy, almost gossipy, New York City history, this is your book. Mahler perfectly matches the tone and tenor of 1980s NYC with this retelling. He makes sense of some of the most infamous events, people, and cultural touchstones of our time in recent history (I’m talking Central Park 5, Do the Right Thing, ACT UP, Trump, and on and on). This is big history but make it fun vibes.

• One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Episode 362)
  Whether or not this is the best book of 2025, it is certainly the book of the year. Omar El Akkad has written to this moment with unmatched urgency. This book can only exist right now. That isn’t to say that it feels dated, in fact, that is the feat of this book. It speaks to this moment, while remaining grounded and connected to the history that led us here. The questions asked and the unflinching self and cultural critique are timeless and so deeply needed. Where others have backed off, El Akkad has doubled down, continued to question, and pulled off powerful that will haunt me for years to come.

• Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism by Eve L. Ewing (Episode 358)
  You may think a book about the history of racism in the United States’ school systems would read as dry and boring, but of course, you’d be wrong. When Eve L. Ewing is at the helm, things are never boring. Her broad and deep understanding allows her to teach her reader these big concepts and complicated policies in a way that remains accessible. They ideas are not simple, but Ewing distills them for us, making sure no reader is left behind.

  

• Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno tr. Natasha Lehrer
  As a child, Neige Sinno suffered years of sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather. As an adult, she pressed charges against him. This memoir is about these events, but what makes it an exceptional book is that it is also about what it takes to tell this story. Sad Tiger questions memories, power, justice, and the art of storytelling. What does it mean to write this book? How should a story like this be told?

• There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone (Episode 368)
  This was one of my most anticipated books coming into this year, and it lived up to my internal hype. We simply aren’t talking enough about the “working homeless”, people who work full-time and still can’t afford housing. What the fuck, right? Like, did you even know that was a thing? This book covers five families living this horrible reality, and it is pulled off with skill and a lot of empathy. This one will get your blood pressure up.

• Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
  I do not know how to adequately talk about this book. Stunning. Lyrical. Perfectly crafted. Devastating. Yiyun Li writes to us about her sons, both of whom died by suicide. She writes a moving grief memoir that manages to be so much more — the ways she discusses art, nature, and language are beyond. This book defies convention in all the best ways and wrestles with the myths we often parrot because the realities of grief feel at once inadequate and overwhelming.

There you have it. My nonfiction faves of the year. What were yours? Sound off in the comments!

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1. As of today’s publication. I might squeeze one or two more in.

2. I don’t track my DNF's. I think it is best I just release them into the ether. Cut my losses.