The Best Nonfiction Books of 2025
Last updated: December 28, 2025
The Best Memoirs: The 2025 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist, recommended by May-lee Chai
The last year has been one of the best for autobiography and memoir in recent memory, says May-lee Chai, chair of the judging committee for the National Book Critic Circle Prize for Autobiography. Their 2025 shortlist includes a posthumous memoir by Alexei Navalny, former leader of the opposition in Russia, and a travel memoir with a surrealist twist.
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1
Green: The Story of Plant Life on Our Planet
Nicola Davies, illustrated by Emily Sutton -
2
Patience...
Rachel Williams, illustrated by Leonie Lord -
3
The Wild Life of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals
by Mike Barfield & Paula Bossio (illustrator) -
4
The Animal Body Book
by Jess French & Jonathan Woodward (illustrator) -
5
The Rocks Book
by Nancy Dickmann -
6
The History of Information
by Chris Haughton
Best New Science Books for Children: Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize 2025, recommended by Tamsin Mather
Best New Science Books for Children: Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize 2025, recommended by Tamsin Mather
The Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize celebrates the best new science books for kids. Professor Tamsin Mather, Earth scientist and chair of the 2025 judging panel, introduces this year’s shortlist and explains how scientific storytelling can awaken children’s sense of exploration of the world around them.
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Native Nations: A Millennium in North America
by Kathleen DuVal -
Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War
by Edda L. Fields-Black -
Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life
by Jason Roberts -
To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement
by Benjamin Nathans -
Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir
by Tessa Hulls
2025 Pulitzer Prize Nonfiction Book Winners
2025 Pulitzer Prize Nonfiction Book Winners
In May, the winners of the 2025 Pulitzer Prizes, awarded annually by Columbia University in New York and founded by Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911), were announced. The prizes are awarded for a variety of categories across journalism, but also celebrate outstanding books. Below we’ve listed all the books that won in nonfiction book categories (James by Percival Everett won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction).
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1
Bombard the Headquarters! The Cultural Revolution in China
by Linda Jaivin -
2
The Death of Stalin
by Sheila Fitzpatrick -
3
Putin's Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos
by Candace Rondeaux -
4
Shamanism: The Timeless Religion
by Manvir Singh -
5
Iran's Grand Strategy: A Political History
by Vali Nasr
Notable Nonfiction Books of Mid-2025, recommended by Sophie Roell
Notable Nonfiction Books of Mid-2025, recommended by Sophie Roell
From the death of Stalin and the career of Putin’s chef to shaministic rituals on the Indonesian island of Siberut, Five Books editor Sophie Roell gives an overview of some of the excellent new nonfiction books that have appeared since April.
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1
The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism
by Yanni Kotsonis -
2
Abortion: A History
by Mary Fissell -
3
Maria Theresa: Empress
by Richard Bassett -
4
Stronger: The Untold Story of Muscle in Our Lives
by Michael Joseph Gross -
5
House of Huawei: The Secret History of China's Most Powerful Company
by Eva Dou
Notable Nonfiction Books of Early 2025, recommended by Sophie Roell
Notable Nonfiction Books of Early 2025, recommended by Sophie Roell
As March draws to a close, Sophie Roell, editor of Five Books, looks at some of the nonfiction books that have come out in the first three months of 2025, from the biography of one of the world’s great female leaders to better ways to measure a country’s economy.
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1
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
by Peter Norvig & Stuart Russell -
2
The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI
by Ray Kurzweil -
3
The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values
by Brian Christian -
4
Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT, and the Race that Will Change the World
by Parmy Olson -
5
Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
by Yuval Noah Harari
The Best AI Books in 2025, recommended by ChatGPT
The Best AI Books in 2025, recommended by ChatGPT
It’s January and time for our annual interview with an AI chatbot. We asked ChatGPT for its latest recommendations for books on artificial intelligence.
