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New & Noteworthy Nonfiction December 2025 |
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Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They're Too Much
by Cynthia Erivo
In this vulnerable and enlightening book of life lessons, globally renowned performer Cynthia Erivo draws from her singular experience to show us how to embrace being too much and to live up to the fullest iteration of ourselves. It is never too late to build the life you're seeking. Cynthia Erivo learned the music to Wicked a decade before she needed it, not knowing those same lyrics would change her life. Now she has performed those songs on the world stage, showing us there is always time to keep discovering ourselves. And to illustrate that it's often the parts of ourselves we are told to bury that make us shine. In a series of powerful, personal vignettes, Cynthia reflects on the ways she has grown as an actor and human and the practices she's learned over years of performing and reminds us all we are capable of so much more than we think.
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Evergreen: The Trees That Shaped America
by Trent Preszler
A sweeping natural history of the most valuable trees on earth that have quietly transformed our economies, cultural traditions, and collective imagination for millennia. Every December, homes, offices, and town squares around the world are adorned with lavishly decorated evergreens to ring in the holiday season. But how did this beloved tradition begin? And as the planet continues to warm and more people swap real trees for artificial ones, will Christmas trees still be here for future generations? In Evergreen, Cornell University professor Trent Preszler takes us on a riveting journey through history, culture, and science, exploring America's story through the lives of its most resilient and cherished trees. From the annual hunt for the perfect Rockefeller Center spruce, back to the earliest days when Ancestral Puebloan builders crafted remarkable dwellings from pine beams, Evergreen reveals surprising connections between past and present that fueled America's rise to global prominence.
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Something from Nothing: A Cookbook
by Alison Roman
Something from Nothing is Alison Roman's latest book featuring over 100 deceptively simple, casually stylish, impossibly delicious recipes that make the most of your pantry. In Something from Nothing, New York Times bestselling author Alison Roman gives you a collection of simple, smart, timeless recipes that rely on a home cook's best kept secret: a well-stocked pantry. Making the most of your shelf-stable bottles, bags, jars and cans, Alison shows you how to cook as she does-loosely, intuitively, and with maximum flavor. With each recipe you'll fall deeper in love with the magic of pantry cooking by using flavorful, hardworking ingredients, leaving you to ask, How did something so wonderful come from basically nothing?
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On a Mission: The Smithsonian History of Us Women Astronauts
by Valerie Neal
Sally Ride became a household name as the first American woman in space, but scores of equally impressive women have also left their mark in space. On a Mission- The Smithsonian History of US Women Astronauts spans 45 years and 61 astronauts to share the epic journeys of women who made space for themselves in a male-dominated field..
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Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore
by Char Adams
In Black-Owned, Char Adams celebrates the living history of Black bookstores. Packed with stories of activism, espionage, violence, community, and perseverance, Black-Owned starts with the first Black-owned bookstore, which an abolitionist opened in New York in 1834, and after the bookshop's violent demise, Black book-lovers carried on its cause.
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The Complete Johnny Cash: Lyrics from a Lifetime of Songwriting
by Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash remains one of the most prolific and influential songwriters in American history. In a voice like no other, his words and melodies speak to the soul of the nation--capturing the complexities of American life and the wonder of the human condition. This definitive volume, fully authorized by the Cash estate, spans the entire arc of his extraordinary career, from the earliest compositions penned in poverty amid the glow of youthful ambition, through the moments that defined him as an inspiration to generations, to the final songs of devotion written near the end of a life filled with pain, success, hardship, and joy. With unprecedented access to Cash's personal writings, this work presents newly-discovered, essential compositions, alongside never-before-seen handwritten pages that offer readers a rare and intimate look into his process and poetic mind.
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Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts
by Margaret Atwood
Raised by ruggedly independent, scientifically minded parents - entomologist father, dietician mother - Atwood spent most of each year in the wild forest of northern Quebec. This childhood was unfettered and nomadic, sometimes isolated (on her eighth birthday: 'It sounds forlorn. It was forlorn. It gets more forlorn.'), but also thrilling and beautiful. From this unconventional start, Atwood unfolds the story of her life, linking seminal moments to the books that have shaped our literary landscape, from the cruel year that spawned Cat's Eye to the Orwellian 1980s Berlin where she wrote The Handmaid's Tale. In pages bursting with bohemian gatherings, her magical life with the wildly charismatic writer Graeme Gibson and major political turning points, we meet poets, bears, Hollywood actors and larger-than-life characters straight from the pages of an Atwood novel. As we travel with her along the course of her life, more and more is revealed about her writing, the connections between real life and art - and the workings of one of our greatest imaginations.
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Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur
by Jeff Pearlman
Scrutinized in life, mythologized in death, Tupac Shakur remains a subject of immense cultural significance and speculation nearly thirty years after his murder. Despite a multitude of books, documentaries, and even a feature film, much about Tupac's story remains shrouded and misunderstood. Like many icons who died tragically young, Tupac the man has long been obscured--his edges sanded down, his complexity numbed--by the competing agendas that surround his legacy.
In Only God Can Judge Me, accomplished biographer and New York Times bestselling author Jeff Pearlman tackles his most nuanced subject, telling the definitive story of Tupac Shakur in unprecedented depth. In this authoritative look at Tupac's life, Pearlman skillfully recreates West Coast hip hop in all its glory, going inside Death Row Records and on the sets of movies like Juice and Poetic Justice to offer the most clear-eyed rendering to date of the man who still casts a shadow over modern hip hop. But more than just a biography of a complicated figure, Only God Can Judge Me also captures the time and place in which Tupac rose, a singular moment in music history when West Coast hip hop became a phenomenon and transformed popular music.
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All the Cool Girls Get Fired: How to Let Go of Being Let Go and Come Back on Top
by Laura Brown
Turn losing your job into an epic comeback with this unfiltered, comprehensive, GPS guide to rebuilding your career on your terms. So, you got fired, laid off, restructured, canned. Welcome to the club, baby! In today's seismically changing job market, getting fired doesn't automatically mean you failed; it's a rite of passage. With their decades of experience in high-stakes leadership roles, Laura Brown and Kristina O'Neill know firsthand the challenges--and thrilling opportunities--that come with losing a job, no matter where you are in your career. They've been through the shock, grief, anger, and confusion, and they're here to help you navigate the experience. All the Cool Girls Get Fired is both a roadmap and a mindset shift--a pragmatic, empowering and humorous way to make lemonade from lemons. With candor, humor, actionable advice, and exclusive I've been there, interviews from inspirational women, All the Cool Girls Get Fired challenges outdated corner office perceptions of career success. From coping mechanisms and self-care practices to networking strategies and reinvention techniques, the book is a comprehensive GPS to navigate the path of career recovery and bounce back with more professional mojo than ever.
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Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
by Christine Kuehn
It began with a letter from a screenwriter, asking about a story. Your family. World War II. Nazi spies. Christine Kuehn was shocked and confused. When she asked her seventy-year-old father, Eberhard, what this could possibly be about, he stalled, deflected, demurred, and then wept. He knew this day would come. The Kuehns, a prominent Berlin family, saw the rise of the Nazis as a way out of the hard times that had befallen them. When the daughter of the family, Eberhard's sister, Ruth, met Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels at a party, the two hit it off, and they had an affair. But Ruth had a secret--she was half Jewish--and Goebbels found out. Rather than having Ruth killed, Goebbels instead sent the entire Kuehn family to Hawaii, to work as spies half a world away. There, Ruth and her parents established an intricate spy operation from their home, just a few miles down the road from Pearl Harbor, shielding Eberhard from the truth. They passed secrets to the Japanese, leading to the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. After Eberhard's father was arrested and tried for his involvement in planning the assault, Eberhard learned the harsh truth about his family and faced a decision that would change the path of the Kuehn family forever. Jumping back and forth between Christine discovering her family's secret and the untold past of the spies in Germany, Japan, and Hawaii, Family of Spies is fast-paced history at its finest and will rewrite the narrative of December 7, 1941.
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The Heart Code: The Breakthrough Method to Open Your Heart and Transform Your Life
by Bradley Nelson
Honing in on the central concept of his runaway bestseller, The Emotion Code , Dr. Nelson presents an expanded, deeper look at Heart-Walls in his next book, The Heart Code . All of us, Dr. Nelson realized, have walls around our hearts--emotional barriers that prevent us from fulfilling our potential and finding our true purpose. Based on the tens of thousands of stories that readers and patients shared with Dr. Nelson, The Heart Code offers an in-depth exploration into the mechanisms of Heart-Walls and practical guidance toward ultimately breaking down these barriers around our hearts. Readers will gain the tools necessary to identify and release these emotional walls that prevent us from experiencing true fulfillment in every aspect of our lives: physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, and romantic.
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The Look
by Michelle Obama
In this celebration of style, from the moment she entered the public eye during her husband's U.S. Senate campaign through her time as the first Black First Lady and today as one of this country's most influential figures, Michelle Obama shares how she uses the beauty and intrigue of fashion to draw attention to her message.
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