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New Nonfiction & Biography December 2025 |
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Why Do I Keep Doing This?: Unlearn the Habits Keeping You Stuck and Unhappy
by Kati Morton
Leading mental health advocate and licensed marriage and family therapist, Kati Morton, explores our common struggle and contradiction with control in ourselves and relationships, giving readers the ability to not only ask themselves why do I keep doing this, but have the insight to find a real answer. Why Do I Keep Doing This? will shed light on shared struggles as readers follow Kati through some key points of growth in her own life while incorporating what she has learned as a therapist and content creator who knows how to create lasting healthy change.
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Happy Habits: A Happier, Healthier Life One Minute at a Time
by Tal Ben-Shahar
Cultivate lasting change with simple habits, from New York Times bestselling author Tal Ben-Shahar. Do you struggle to make real change because you're starting too big without building a foundation first--get a new job, lose twenty pounds, learn a new language? Maybe the tools at your disposal seem inadequate, the prospect of change overwhelms you, and you feel stuck. In Happy Habits, happiness expert Tal Ben-Shahar provides accessible and easy-to-implement tools, and an easy-to-follow three step process, that can help you realize your goals, aspirations, and dreams. With concrete examples, practical, direct advice, and an easy-to-follow action plan, Ben-Shahar shows you that while cultivating lasting change takes motivation, it does not have to be a frustrating experience that is doomed to failure: you're just starting without the foundation you need for real change.
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Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain: Breaking the Doom Loop to Heal Chronic Physical and Emotional Pain
by Daniel G. Amen
In the United States alone, one in five adults experiences chronic pain. For too long, when a doctor couldn't find the source of frequent pain, the patient was dismissively told, 'It's all in your head.' Today, we know that our somatic responses to trauma, anxiety, and depression create real suffering, and that physical pain can lead to trauma, anxiety, and depression. Dr. Daniel Amen calls this 'the doom loop'--the dance between physical and emotional pain.
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Age Like a Girl: How Menopause Rewires Your Brain for Mental Clarity, Increased Confidence, and Renewed Energy
by Mindy Pelz
Dr. Mindy Pelz, noted women's health advocate and the bestselling author of Fast Like a Girl and Eat Like a Girl, redefines menopause as a powerful biological upgrade--offering science-backed strategies to help women thrive, reclaim their health, and step into their most vibrant, authentic selves. What most women mistake as the beginning of the end is actually a biologically designed brain and identity reset--one that can deliver greater confidence, clarity, and energy than you've felt in years. You're not falling apart. You're being rebuilt-- from the inside out. With science, compassion, and lived wisdom, Dr. Mindy helps you make sense of what's happening--and what's possible next.
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The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation
by Phil Le-Brun
One of nature's most intelligent and curious creatures, the octopus is everything your organization needs to be: smart, endlessly adaptable, and highly resilient. Its eight tentacles work in concert, but each can also think for itself. This book shows how to achieve the same balance of cohesion and autonomy and to guide your organization toward a living, breathing system--one that learns, adapts, and thrives by tapping into the distributed intelligence of its people. Drawing on their experience at companies such as Amazon and McDonald's and work with hundreds of global companies, AWS executives Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner show you how to break away from the broken model of transformation and embrace continuous change. The Octopus Organization is your guide to moving beyond rigid structures and nurturing the living, adaptable organization you aspire to create, and be a part of.
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Queens at War: England's Medieval Queens
by Alison Weir
Alison Weir chronicles the five queens who got caught up in wars that changed the courses of their lives: the Hundred Years' War between England and France, and the Wars of the Roses between the royal Houses of Lancaster and York. Joan of Navarre was happily married to King Henry IV but was accused of witchcraft by Henry's heir and imprisoned. Paris-born Katherine of Valois's political marriage to Henry V was meant to bring peace between England and France. It didn't, and Henry died during the Hundred Years' War without ever seeing his newborn heir, Henry VI, who was wed to another French princess, Margaret of Anjou, in 1445. In the Wars of the Roses, Margaret staunchly supported her husband and son. Weir's Medieval Queens series strips away centuries of historical mythologizing to shed light on the genuine accomplishments and bravery of these fascinating female monarchs. Queens at War brings the series to an action-packed close.
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The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age
by Alex Wellerstein
President Truman's choice to drop the atomic bomb is the most debated decision in the 20th Century. But what if Truman's actual decision wasn't what everyone thinks it was? The conventional narrative is that American leaders had a choice: Invade Japan, which would have cost millions of Allied and Japanese lives, or instead, use the atom bomb in the hope of convincing Japan to surrender. Truman, the story goes, carefully weighed the pros and cons before deciding that the atomic bomb would be used against Japanese cities, as the lesser of two evils. But nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein argues that is not what happened.
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Progress: How One Idea Built Civilization and Now Threatens to Destroy It
by Samuel Miller McDonald
Progress has built cities, flattened mountains, charted the globe, delved the oceans and space, created wealth, opportunity, and remarkable innovation, and ushered in a new epoch unique in our planet's 4.5-billion-year history. But the modern story of progress is also a very dangerous fiction. It shapes our sense of what progress means, and justifies what we will do to achieve it--no matter the cost. In Progress, geographer Samuel Miller McDonald offers a radical new perspective on the myths upon which the modern world is built, illuminating its destructive lineage and suggesting an urgent alternative. Drawing on interdisciplinary research across anthropology, history, philosophy and geography, McDonald argues that if humanity is to thrive, then we must dismantle, reimagine, and create anew what progress means.
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The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien's Creation
by Michael DC Drout
In The Tower and the Ruin, Michael D. C. Drout takes us deep into Tolkien's genius, allowing us to glimpse the making of not only The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion but also lesser-known books such as The Fall of Gondolin as well as Tolkien's poetry and innovative scholarship. Drout, who has spent decades reading, studying, and teaching Tolkien, allows us to understand the author's methods and to embrace his works as never before. With great erudition and sparkling prose, Drout shows us how Tolkien invented myths, legends, cultures, languages, histories, and an intricate, multivocal narrative.
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Quick Wins: Healthy Cooking for Busy Lives
by Ella Mills
With an overwhelming amount health and wellness advice, how do you find the balance, peace of mind and confidence to take control of nourishing your body whilst juggling the endless other to-do lists that life throws at you? Eating well isn't about chasing perfection, and what works is often the simplest solution. These recipes balance deliciousness, variety, nutrition and ease, so you can enjoy fresh, wholesome food without the stress. In this book, you'll find eight weeks of meal plans designed to make healthy eating effortless. Each one comes with a shopping list for six dinners and two lunches, giving you plenty of flexibility to adapt to your routine.
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The Complete Anti-Inflammatory Cookbook: Optimize Health, Boost Your Immune System, Promote Longevity
by America's Test Kitchen
With this book, you'll discover how simple and satisfying an anti-inflammatory eating pattern can be. Dos and don'ts of inflammation RDN and Cook for Your Gut Health co-author Alicia Romano coaches you through anti-inflammatory cooking and how to get the good antioxidants, fiber, and omega-3s your body benefits from. Flexible recipes and ingredients support your unique goals: Make-ahead guidance, easy swaps to make dishes gluten- or dairy-free, and nutritional info make these recipes fit seamlessly into your life.
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Selected Biography & Memoir
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Ain't Nobody's Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton
by Martha Ackmann
A larger-than-life new biography of country music legend and philanthropist Dolly Parton. From her impoverished childhood in the Smoky Mountains to international stardom as a singer, songwriter, actress, businesswoman, and philanthropist, Dolly Parton has exceeded everyone's expectations except her own. Ain't Nobody's Fool is a deep dive into the social, historical, and personal forces that made Dolly Parton one of the most beloved and unifying figures in public life and includes interviews with friends, family members, school mates, Nashville neighbors, members of her band, studio musicians, producers, and many others.
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The Six Loves of James I
by Gareth Russell
From the assassination of his father to the explosive political and personal intrigues of his reign, this fresh biography reveals as never before the passions that drove King James I. Gareth Russell's rollicking, gossipy (Dan Jones, author of The Plantagenets), and scholarly voice invites us into James's world, revealing a monarch whose reign was defined by both his public power and personal vulnerabilities. For too long, historians have shied away from or condemned the exploration of his sexuality. Now, Russell offers a candid narrative that not only reveals James's relationships with five prominent men but also challenges the historical standards applied to the examination of royal intimacies.
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Googoosh: A Sinful Voice
by Googoosh
Before there was Madonna or Beyoncé, there was Googoosh. For the first time, one of the biggest pop stars of the 20th century tells her remarkable story: her rise to fame in pre-revolution Iran, her arrest and imprisonment, her twenty-year exile, and finally, her triumphant return to the global stage. My story is not only my story. It's about our past, my country, how it was, what it became, what happened to the people, to artists. What would happen to a country's biggest pop star if religious extremists took control? In the wake of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, singer Googoosh found out. She was ordered by her government to never sing again, and for twenty years, she didn't...until she did. Now, in this lyrical and moving memoir, pop superstar Googoosh unveils her unforgettable journey.
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