A nonfiction book can be just as much of a page turner as a fictional story. You can find these captivating nonfiction titles on our ebook platforms Hoopla, Libby, and Cloud Library.
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt (published 1994)
This is one of the most popular nonfiction books of all time. But I still like to recommend it in case anyone is new to reading nonfiction or was not around when this book came out. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil investigates a shooting death of a man in one of Savannah Georgia’s most famous mansions, Mercer House, which was owned by Jim Williams. The book is an intriguing murder mystery, but it also dives into the quirky lives of the people in the neighborhood including a local drag queen, the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club, a very crass male sex worker, a local recluse who owns a bottle of poison that he claims can kill everyone in Savannah, and a Southern belle who is the “soul of pampered self-absorption.” John Berendt also immerses the reader in the tree canopy lined streets of Savannah with its extensive gardens and cemeteries and rich history. It reads incredibly fast, and is a page turner. It won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men’s Mystery, and it remains the longest-standing New York Times bestseller at 216 weeks. It was also made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood.
- Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou (published 2018)
This is an exposé written by an award-winning journalist who faced multiple threats from Elizabeth Holmes and her company’s lawyers who tried to intimidate witnesses while Carreyrou was interviewing them for the book. It tells the story of the company Theranos, a multi-billion-dollar startup that duped investors such as Larry Ellison, Tim Draper, and Walgreens. Elizabeth Holmes was lauded as the “New Steve Jobs” as a startup “unicorn” who was revolutionizing the medical industry. Her company claimed it had invented a small medical device that could perform a blood test with just a drop of blood and maintained this position for almost a decade. It was a lie; the devices didn’t work. Botched tests that nearly harmed patients, disgruntled or downright abused employees, and mounting evidence piled up and eventually led to the downfall of the company. Elizabeth Holmes now faces a mountain of legal issues and the vastness and weight of this scandal has been compared to Enron.
- Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright (published 2013)
Lawrence Wright is the author of a number of critically acclaimed books including The Looming Tower: Al-Queada and the Road to 9/11, and he thoroughly investigated Scientology to write this book. He makes a concerted effort to be fair and impartial to the Church of Scientology, yet the facts he presents still paint a horrific picture of the organization. A large section of the book is devoted to covering the life of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology who faced allegations of abuse from his former wives, went through a number of failed ventures, and fabricated much of his life. The book also contains stories of former church members who left and then were threatened physically by the church. Many of them described mental and physical abuse from church higher ups, and so much of what is uncovered by this book is thoroughly explained and incredibly shocking. That is the word I will use to describe this book, shocking. A documentary was made based on the book, if you want to use that to supplement the reading material.
- Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert MacFarlane (published 2019)
This book is an exploration of the world beneath our feet. The author, Robert MacFarlane is an explorer who will go into the most claustrophobic places to come out and tell us about them. Throughout the book, he describes his expeditions into the underworld, and the unforgettable descent stories of others who have gone underground for various reasons. He explores caves, one of which in China has its own weather system, along with some Norwegian sea caves that have prehistoric art. He explores the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap where he examines the urgency of climate change, Bronze Age funeral chambers that contain human remains over ten millennia old, the Catacombs of Paris, fungal networks of trees, and deep-sunk places that are secretly storing our nuclear waste for the next 100,000 years. He writes with extremely rich, lyrical language, so if you are a fan of descriptive science books that examine the history of the world, this book is for you. This book is also our next book for the True Story Book Club at the end of June, so feel free to read it and join our meeting.
- I’ll be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (published 2018)
This is Michelle McNamara’s account of her sleuthing and research to find the Golden State Killer. It reveals the incredible investigative work that she conducted to help find the man responsible for at least 13 murders, 50 rapes, and 100 burglaries in California between 1974 and 1986. Her work was used to apprehend the man responsible who was arrested 2 months after the book was published. She unfortunately never got to see the book published because she died before she could finish it. Nevertheless, her story was published and her tireless work is inspirational. Her story has been turned into a documentary series on HBO that will be released on June 28, 2020.
- Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham (published 2018)
This book is a thorough investigation of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster which covers the original construction of the RBMK reactors back in the 1970s, the cheap building materials, the statistics of those who perished in the explosion and the nuclear fallout afterward, everything leading up to it, the cleanup, and the lasting environmental effects. I enjoyed this book because it covered the science of the explosion, but it also explained the political corruption and hubris that also led to it. There are some chilling parts of it that will stick with me, including the story about the Elephant’s Foot which is this 4-ton chunk of hardened radioactive waste underneath the ruins of Reactor 4. It is one of the many interesting parts of the book, and I highly recommend it.
- March by John Lewis (published 2013)
This is a graphic novel series that tells John Lewis’ personal account of his participation in the Civil Rights Movement. It is an extremely moving graphic novel series that chronicles the beginning of his life in Alabama, navigating Jim Crow and segregation, and then becoming involved with the Civil Rights movement sit-ins, marches, and the Freedom Riders. He suffered beatings from police and angry white civilians in the process, but the story ends on an inspirational note when he meets Obama and attends the inauguration of the first black president.
- Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb (published 2019)
This story is narrated by a therapist who reveals her path to become a therapist and some of the most touching life stories of people she has provided therapy for along the way. Some of these stories coincide with a crisis that was happening in her own life. Throughout the book you follow the therapy sessions of several of her patients including an older woman who is trying to find new meaning in her life after a lifetime of regrets and mistakes, a woman who is terminally ill with cancer, and a man who is finally opening up about the emotional burden of his son’s death. The stories are heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. After reading this book, I felt it was profoundly meaningful and inspirational.