Top 16 Best Nonfiction Books Of The Decade Updated 04 /2024

Nonfiction books are stories that are based on fact and hopefully, truth. There are a lot of different kinds of books in this category. They cover everything from biography and business to cooking and health. They also cover things like memoirs, travel and home improvement. The best nonfiction books are out there, and I'll show you around. If you love stories but haven't tried them out, let me be your guide.

As someone who hasn't read any nonfiction for a long time, I can see where you're coming from. However, I've been reading a lot of nonfiction books over the past two years, and some of them have become my favorite books of all time. You don't have to read nonfiction books the same way you would read a text book. The well-written ones can be very interesting and educational at the same time. Those who write books really spend a lot of time breaking down complicated ideas so that anyone can understand them, as long as they pick up the book. Reading some books that changed the world has been a great way to learn more about the real world.

If you want to read some interesting nonfiction books from this decade, this is a list of some of them. It includes titles that started and steered conversations, changed cultural discussions, and set the rules for different types of genres.

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee (2011)

This book, written by a well-known oncologist, won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2011. A lot of people don't know much about the history of cancer, so he wrote the book to fill in the gaps. He wanted to tie its origins to how much we knew about it in 2011 and try to help us figure out what to do next. It was a way for him to help his patients understand the disease that was spreading through their bodies, and he hoped it would also help people learn more about it. He has done just that in his book about cancer that is both scientific and personal.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt (2012)

In his book, Jonathan Haidt looks at how people think in order to figure out what kind of morals conservatives and liberals value, and why. How our religious and political views are formed by intuition is what he talks about in his speech. This book can give you a new way to look at the world. A more constructive conversation with people who have different ideas can happen in some cases when we use this method.

Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain (2012)

So why not? This best-selling book from the New York Times has been translated into 40 languages. So important, and our noisy world needs to get more in touch with quiet. It talks about how the world is moving more and more toward an extrovert ideal and how this can make good ideas get lost in the glare of a good-looking person.

 

As a culture, we have started to not value the good things about being introverted, and we miss out on so much while we do it. This book made me feel so important. I'm an introvert, and this book made me feel like I was being talked to. There was a lot I didn't know about myself before. Labels are also for your own comfort, not to make you look like someone else. When something I care about needs me to come out of my shell, I can.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013)

What we've always known but sometimes choose to forget is that we are deeply connected to nature in every way possible. This book shows us that. This connection can also be seen in medicine, as well. Almost all of our needs can be met by the natural world, and it's a great place to go to get help. She is a botanist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, which is a group of people who live in the United States. She accepts the teachings of Indigenous people and helps us see the world through the lens of science. This book is both scientific and poetic, which makes it both educational and fun.

I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Christina Lamb and Malala Yousafzai (2013)

During the Taliban's rule of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, Malalal Yousafzai fought for her right to go to school. When she was 15, she was shot in the head while riding home from school on the bus. People know the story. Helped this book get to more people:

 

Malala, who was shot in the head and miraculously survived, has started a debate about women's education all over the world. Because of her strong but peaceful protest, she won the Nobel Peace Prize. She wants to make this world a little less cruel and a lot more aware.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty (2014)

This is so interesting! Caitlin Doughty talks about how she worked with bodies in the crematory. If you like books that are filled with vivid, sometimes gruesome, and sometimes funny stories, this one is for you.

People don't like to talk about death, but this short story makes it real. This isn't the only thing she talks about. She also talks about how people have looked after the dead over time in different parts of the world. Makes the idea of "dust you are, to dust you return" very real. This nonfiction book is sure to stay with you after you finish reading it.

 

Between the World and Me: Notes on the First 150 Years in America by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)

Samori, Coates' son, is 15 years old. Coates wrote a letter to him called Between The World And Me. To be honest, the author tells us about how being black in the United States has made him feel. He talks about what it's like to be a Black person in America. He talks about racism, police brutality, and the racialized American dream. The book is full of his fears, frustration, and caution for his son. This is how it works: National Book Award for Nonfiction winner: This powerful account of her own life won the award in 2015.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert (2015)

It's been more than half a million years since there have been five mass extinctions on Earth. This is the sixth extinction, called the "Anthropocene." It has been going on for a long time now. Our decisions about which evolutionary paths will stay open and which will be closed are being made without us even realizing it. This is what Elizabeth Kolbert says in her book: "We are making these decisions, even though we don't mean to, without even realizing it." No other animal has ever been able to do this, and it will be our most lasting legacy. Even after everything people have written, painted, and built has been turned into dust, the Sixth Extinction will still have an effect on how we live our lives.

It's not always easy for people to understand how humans have and are still changing the world in ways that they don't always understand. This book, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015, tries to help us understand how we have an irreversible impact on everything around us.

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond (2016)

The author is a Princeton sociologist who follows eight families in Milwaukee as they try to meet the most basic need for housing. They try to find places to live. Eviction can make things even worse for people who are already at the bottom of the economic ladder. It started an important conversation about the housing crisis in the United States. It won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2017 because it talked about a problem that is often not talked about.

Secondhand Time: The Last Of The Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich (2016)

Secondhand Time tells the story of how Soviet communism came to an end and how oligarchic capitalism took off. This is how the author tells the stories of people who get lost in the stories of powerful countries.

Bela Shayevich translated it into English in 2016. Nobel Prize winner: Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015 "for her polyphonic writings, which are a monument to the pain and courage of our time."

Adults In The Room: My Battle With The European and American Deep Establishment by Yanis Varoufakis (2017)

Economican Yanis Varoufakis talks about his fight with European Union officials over the Greek debt crisis in this book, which is called "The Greek Debt Crisis." In 2015, when he was the finance minister of Greece, he tried to change Greece's relationship with the EU. His fight was very interesting, so don't miss this story of modern power. You can read about it here!

So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo (2018)

This is what Ijeoma Oluo talks about. She talks about a lot of things that are affected by race and racial bias in the United States. Intersectionality and police brutality are two topics that she talks about. She also talks about the school-to-prison pipeline and microaggressions. People who read this text will learn how race affects different things and why. Racism doesn't come down to one person being racist, but rather how institutionalized racism and its biases affect the health and opportunities for people of a certain race. This is what she talks about. This book is very insightful and helps to make sense of things that aren't clear. It helps us have better conversations about race and brings up some of the most important issues that people have to deal with.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou (2018)

John Carreyrou does investigative reporting at its best in this fascinating inside story of the rise and fall of Theranos, which he wrote about. Theranos is a multibillion-dollar biotech company that was started by Elizabeth Holmes. In 2015, Forbes named Holmes the richest self-made woman in the United States. In the same year, Carreyou wrote a piece that questioned the validity of her blood-testing technology. We learn about Theranos' huge scam through the persistent and compelling journalism of the author, who makes us want to know more about it.

---