The Scribes & Stories List: The Best Nonfiction Books of 2025
It All Begins Here
Books make the best gifts!
The Scribes & Stories team narrowed down the most intriguing reads of the year. Whether you are a writer working on your own memoir, or an avid reader looking for the next compelling read, here are our 9 favorites:
Awake: A Memoir
by Jen Hatmaker
Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
In the middle of the night well-known podcaster Jen Hatmaker woke to find her husband of 26 years on the phone with another woman—from their bed. What follows is a brutally honest memoir about starting over in midlife, parenting, religious subservience, self-identity, and parenting. Raw, funny, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful. Order here.
Next of Kin
by Gabrielle Hamilton
Random House
The celebrated NYC chef's first memoir, Blood, Bones & Butter, was a classic. This one is rawer, darker, more uncomfortable. She writes about her wildly unconventional family with unflinching honesty: from their brilliance to their brutality. It's about what we inherit from our families and what we have to walk away from to survive. Order here.
A Marriage at Sea
by Sophie Elmhirst
Riverhead Books
Elmhirst, an award-winning British journalist, takes the true story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey—a couple whose yacht was struck by a whale in 1973, leaving them adrift in the Pacific for 118 days—and turns it into something that reads like the most gripping novel you've picked up in years. It's a survival story, yes, but it's really about what happens when you can't run away from your marriage because you're literally trapped on a five-foot inflatable raft together. Order here.
It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin
by Marisa Meltzer
Simon & Schuster
Before there was a bag, there was a woman. Meltzer dives deep into the life of Jane Birkin—the original It Girl, the embodiment of French chic, the woman who made a wicker basket a fashion statement. A clear-eyed look at someone who was far more than a muse, who navigated fame and heartbreak and motherhood with a kind of effortless grace that only looks effortless from the outside. Order here.
True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen
by Lance Richardson
Pantheon Books
Peter Matthiessen was a lot of things: CIA operative, novelist, naturalist, Zen master, co-founder of The Paris Review. Richardson spent eight years on this book, and it shows. It's an unflinching portrait of a man who spent his whole life searching for enlightenment while leaving a trail of wreckage behind him. If you loved The Snow Leopard, this is essential reading. If you've never heard of Matthiessen, this is the perfect introduction. Order here
Joyride
by Susan Orlean
Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Susan Orlean has been one of our greatest storytellers for decades (The Orchid Thief, The Library Book), and now she's finally turned her sharp prose on herself. This memoir is about building a writing life, yes, but it's really about curiosity—how to maintain it, how to follow it, how to let it lead you to the most unexpected places. It's also a time capsule of magazine journalism's golden age, when you could spend days chasing a story just because it intrigued you. Order here.
Mother Mary Comes to Me
by Arundhati Roy
Scribner
The Booker Prize-winning author of The God of Small Things focus here is her fierce, formidable, impossible mother. Mary Roy was a single mother who founded a school, won a landmark Supreme Court case for women's inheritance rights, and raised Arundhati with equal parts brilliance and brutality. This memoir—Roy's first—is raw, funny, disturbing, and unlike anything else you'll read this year. It's about running away from your mother at eighteen and spending the rest of your life trying to understand her. Roy examines poverty, political upheaval, and what it means to be a woman in India today. Order here.
Night People: How to Be a DJ in '90s New York City
by Mark Ronson
Grand Central Publishing
The story of Mark Ronson before "Uptown Funk," before the Grammys, back when he was just a kid trying to get gigs. This memoir is a love letter to a New York that doesn't exist anymore—pre-Giuliani, pre-cell phones. It is also about loving something so much you're willing to destroy your back and your hearing for it. Nostalgic and cool. Order here.
Consolations II: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
by David Whyte
Many Rivers Press
This came out in the last days of 2024, but I'm including it because it's the perfect book for anyone who loves the power of words. David Whyte is back with 52 new meditations on the words we think we understand—and what they actually mean when you really sit with them. It's the kind of book you keep on your nightstand and dip into when you want to be inspired and think about things differently. Order here.