|
|
New Nonfiction & Biography May 2026 |
|
|
|
|
|
The Land and Its People: Essays
by David Sedaris
In The Land and Its People, Sedaris investigates what it means to be a traveler, a brother, a lifelong friend. Trying on the role of caretaker after his boyfriend Hugh's hip-replacement surgery, he both succeeds and fails. He covers ground with his friend Dawn and challenges her to eat a truck tire. A ambivalent Duolingo bot becomes his unlikely confidante as he attempts to describe his family in a foreign language. Ever adding to his list of Countries I Have Been To, he rides a horse named Tequila in Guatemala, buys a bespoke priest's cassock in Vatican City, and goes on safari in Kenya without taking a single photo. Time takes its toll: scrolling through his address book, he counts those he couldn't bear to outlive, and realizes how many are already gone. He is bitten by a dog and insulted by a wee train passenger. Throughout these essays--at once acerbic and tender, playful and profound--Sedaris shows how much there is to marvel at when you keep your head up and your eyes open, observing with warmth and curiosity our fascinating human species and the lands we inhabit.
|
|
|
|
Body Electric: The Hidden Health Costs of the Digital Age and New Science to Reclaim Your Well-Being
by Manoush Zomorodi
In today's world, a normal day means sitting in front of a screen for eight to ten hours. Meeting after meeting. Email after email. We leave our desks drained, overstimulated and unfocused, only to go home, sit down again, and scroll some more. The result? Headaches, back pain, restless sleep, and rising rates of preventable disease. We know technology is breaking us down--so why can't we break away? It's a question that Manoush Zomorodi has always wanted to answer. As the host of the NPR's TED Radio Hour and Body Electric podcast, she has interviewed experts, conducted citizen experiments, and sought out research about how our digital lives are changing the way we think, learn, and feel. Now, in Body Electric, she presents an eye-opening investigation into the impact technology and sedentary living has had on our bodies and brains, from breath and eyesight to blood pressure, posture, and productivity.
|
|
|
|
I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything
by Joanna Stern
What happens when intelligent machines aren't just in our pockets but are also driving our cars, making our decisions, folding our laundry, and educating our kids? You've heard the hype: AI will make us healthier, give every child a personalized tutor, run our businesses more efficiently, return hours of free time to our overworked brains, and make discoveries previously unimagined by humankind. The AI future is going to be unlike any other technological revolution. But what does that really mean? And will AI truly make life better? To find out, award-winning journalist Joanna Stern surrendered her life to artificial intelligence for one year. The results are both hilarious and unsettling. I Am Not a Robot is like a time machine trip to the very near future, where AI promises to be your doctor, chauffeur, teacher, masseuse, coworker, therapist, financial planner, chef, housekeeper, and even . . . romantic partner. But after a year of living as a human lab rat, Joanna delivers one of the clearest--and funniest--pictures yet of what's really happening and what it means for you.
|
|
|
|
Girls(r): Generation Z and the Commodification of Everything
by Freya India
Freya India shows that age-old anxieties of girlhood are now being amplified by modern life and exploited like never before. While previous generations of women were relentlessly sold products and procedures, girls today have become the product, displaying their lives on Instagram, advertising themselves on dating apps, and packaging themselves into personal brands, making anxiety feel overwhelming and unmanageable. Each chapter of GIRLS(R) focuses on a common anxiety in adolescent girls' lives, from insecurities about our faces and bodies, to our reputation and social status, to our friendships and romantic relationships. Along the way, India traces how rapidly culture and technology have evolved over the past decade. This isn't just a book for girls. For young women, it offers a nostalgic, if unsettling, reflection on the world they've grown up in and reassurance that they're not alone in their struggles. For younger girls, it provides context for where these challenges began and warns where they might be headed. And, for parents, teachers, and older generations, it serves as a reminder that these issues have never been so intense.
|
|
|
|
Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better
by David Epstein
We live in a world that gives us seemingly infinite choices and prizes freedom above all else. We have an unprecedented number of options regarding what to do, who to be, and how to spend our time. All that choice is wonderful; it is also overwhelming. The irony is that total freedom and unlimited resources don't necessarily lead to the biggest breakthroughs. In fact, overvaluing complete freedom can be disastrous for everything from starting a company to harnessing creativity to finding personal satisfaction. David Epstein argues that all of us--individuals, businesses, institutions, even societies--can benefit from narrowing our options. He dives into the science and practice of constraints, exploring exactly when and how guardrails can be beneficial, whether we're working with limited resources or using self-imposed boundaries to tap unexpected wells of focus and innovation.
|
|
|
|
The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright: The True Story of Mass Murder in Paradise
by Casey Sherman
Frank Lloyd Wright was more than the mind behind America's most iconic buildings--he was a man whose turbulent private life captivated a nation. The famous architect's stormy marriage to Kitty Wright and his infamous affair with another woman, Mamah Borthwick, ignited one of the country's first celebrity scandals, splashed across headlines from coast to coast. Then, in August 1914, scandal turned to horror. A tragedy at Taliesin, the Wisconsin home Wright built as a monument to love, shook the very foundation of Wright's life--and catapulted him back to the front pages of newspapers across the country as readers clamored for glimpses of his very darkest moments. In The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright, New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman delves beyond the myth of Wright's genius to reveal a man of relentless ambition, consuming passion, and devastating loss. With haunting intimacy and propulsive storytelling, Sherman delivers a portrait of an artist who could not escape the shadows of his own making--and who rose, again and again, from the ashes.
|
|
|
|
The Art of Intentional Dressing: Your Essential Style Guide for Manifesting a Magnetic Life
by Erin Walsh
Every morning, millions of women get stuck before their day even begins, as they question: What am I going to wear? But behind the clothes burns a deeper question: Who do I want to be? Celebrity stylist Erin Walsh's success is driven by her core belief that your closet is a portal of possibilities, offering you daily choices about who you want to be, how you want to feel, and how to dress the part. In The Art of Intentional Dressing, she presents her transformative approach to practicing what she calls manifestation in fashion form. Her signature CREATE method will empower you to not only find your personal style, but find your magic--as you step into a life of presence, power, and purpose.
|
|
|
|
Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I Have Known
by Scott Simon
Scott Simon's household does not make much distinction between humans and other animals. Whether two-legged or four-, flesh-covered, fur-covered, feathered, or gilled--everyone is family. Today, Simon lives with the haiku-writing and absolument charmant French poodle Daisy and the daringly audacious foster cat Gato Blanco. But that's just the start. Depicting a lifetime of remarkable, enduring relationships with pets, Simon explores the difficulty of expressing the strong ties we feel: a kinship between humans and animals that's more familial than "owner," and more mutual than "caregiver" or "guardian." Paired with the charming, whimsical illustrations of renowned New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck, Simon reflects on how pets unlock our hearts and burrow into our lives beginning with his family's dog guiding his first steps.
|
|
|
|
Ammazza!: Culinary Adventures from New York to Italy and Back Again (a Cookbook)
by Hillary Sterling
A celebration of a life devoted to food, Ammazza blends story, substance, and soul. Raised in a tight-knit Jewish household in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn--where her grandmother kept kosher downstairs and her family broke the rules upstairs--Sterling shares over 100 recipes that trace her path from her early days as a young cook, to her later love affair with Italian cooking, and her career spent in the kitchens of New York's most beloved restaurants. Following the rhythm of the seasons, these recipes showcase Sterling's brilliance with flavor. Interspersed are menus rooted in family and tradition, with inspired twists--she brings an Italian spin to the Passover table, and shares a Mexican Thanksgiving feast influenced by her time at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill.
|
|
|
|
Grill Time!: Why You Should Be Grilling for Better, Healthier, Easier, and More Delicious Meals: A Cookbook
by Noah Galuten
In Noah Galuten's backyard, it's always grill time. With two young children, Galuten knows firsthand how important it is to get flavorful, healthy food on the table quickly and easily. His secret: the grill, which allows easily customizable dinners for all different palates. In Grill Time, Galuten embraces his love of bright flavors, comfort foods, and veggie-forward dishes to create meals that work for backyard barbecues, pool parties, camping trips, and, of course, quick weeknight dinners. And for any newbies on the grill, or pros who want to expand their grill knowledge, Grill Time is a helpful guide on grill mechanics, including the differences between smokers, gas grills, and charcoal grills and the cooking techniques that go along with each one.
|
|
|
Selected Biography & Memoir
|
|
|
|
True Crime: A Memoir
by Patricia Cornwell
Patricia Cornwell is best known for her international bestselling thriller series about forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Every story comes from somewhere, and Scarpetta's began when Patricia Cornwell embedded herself in a morgue. In this achingly honest memoir, Cornwell excavates her own life, detailing her traumatic childhood being raised by neglectful parents, her father abandoning the young family on Christmas day, her mother being institutionalized twice, an abusive foster family, and developing a parental relationship with evangelist Billy Graham's wife Ruth. Cornwell depicts a harrowing hospitalization and near-death car accident. She unflinchingly shares overcoming obstacles that later gave her the ambition to become an award-winning police reporter. From there it was research in a medical examiner's office that would turn into a full-time job. She would become a forensic expert and worldwide publishing phenomenon.
|
|
|
|
American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed
by Isaac Fitzgerald
New York Times bestselling author Isaac Fitzgerald sets off to the heart of America, following the path of the legendary Johnny Appleseed on an epic journey that both takes him far from home and brings him closer to it. It's a difficult thing, to separate legend from story from memory from fact. As a child, Isaac Fitzgerald was always captivated by Johnny Appleseed, drawn by family ties to the legend, his father's larger-than-life stories, and a shared restlessness to leave home and discover what lies beyond. In American Rambler, he sets out, walking from Massachusetts to Indiana on a year-long journey to follow Appleseed's path, turning a childhood fascination into a profound reckoning of loss and grief, ritual and faith, grimy gas-station bathrooms and scenic apple picking.
|
|
|
|
Mother Tongue: A Memoir
by Sara Novic
Sara Novic's early years were steeped in music, Bible study, and a strong desire to fit in. But when she failed her school's mandated hearing test, her worldview was thrown into chaos. Desperate not to be marked as different, she told no one, staying in the hearing world for as long as she could by brute force. Eventually unable to ignore the fact that she was deaf, Novic sought out other deaf people and was welcomed into a tight knit community rooted in the beauty and joy of American Sign Language. Novic realized that rather than maintaining the facade of her old life or trying to straddle two worlds, she would need to cultivate an existence in the space between. Now the mother of two young sons--one, biological and hearing, the other, adopted and deaf--Novic reflects on her life both before and after parenthood. She's raising her children within the deaf world, offering them things her younger self needed, all the while knowing that as her children grow, their own paths will branch off from hers in ways she cannot fully predict or plan for.
|
|
|
|
Marilyn and Her Books: The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe
by Gail Crowther
Far from the spotlights of the Hollywood film sets and the flashbulbs of the press, Marilyn Monroe was a great reader and lover of books. Her association with writers did not stop at reading their words on the page. She was, of course, briefly married to one of America's best-known playwrights, Arthur Miller, and met a number of other writers who moved in his literary world. But she also met authors independently of Miller, many of whom were fans of her films and keen to meet her. Through her deep research, Gail Crowther delves into Marilyn's personal book collection and recounts some of these meetings, like when she shared an apartment with Shelley Winters in West Hollywood, where they entertained Dylan Thomas and Christopher Isherwood for drinks (probably several drinks), after which Monroe arranged for Thomas to meet his childhood hero, Charlie Chaplin. Marilyn And Her Books charts the intellectual life of a screen legend, revealing how Monroe, who left high school before graduation, embarked on an impressive and progressive program of self-education, hungry for knowledge and devouring books as an active and engaged reader.
|
|
|
|
|
|