Top 15 in Non-Fiction
Week of June 22, 2026
by Jonathan Silvertown
What do eggs, flour, and milk have in common? They form the basis of crepes of course, but they also each have an evolutionary purpose. Eggs, seeds (from which flour is derived by grinding) and milk are each designed by evolution to nourish offspring. Everything we eat has an evolutionary history. Grocery shelves and restaurant menus are bounteous evidence of evolution at work, though the label on the poultry will not remind us of this with a Jurassic sell-by date, nor will the signs in the produce aisle betray the fact that corn has a 5,000 year history of artificial selection by pre-Colombian Americans. Any shopping list, each recipe, every menu and all ingredients can be used to create culinary and gastronomic magic, but can also each tell a story about natural selection, and its influence on our plates--and palates. Join in for multiple courses, for a tour of evolutionary gastronomy that helps us understand the shape of our diets, and the trajectories of the foods that have been central to them over centuries--from spirits to spices. This literary repast also looks at the science of our interaction with foods and cooking--the sights, the smells, the tastes. The menu has its eclectic components, just as any chef is entitled. But while it is not a comprehensive work which might risk gluttony, this is more than an amuse bouche, and will leave every reader hungry for more.

by Kai-Fu Lee
AI Superpowers is Kai-Fu Lee's New York Times and USA Today bestseller about the American-Chinese competition over the future of artificial intelligence.

by Robert T. Kiyosaki
Kiyosaki believes that our educational system-- and poor job it does on financial education-- is what causes the gap between the rich and everyone else. In this book, he explains why savers are losers, debt and taxes make the rich richer, and why going to school, working hard, getting out of debt, and investing for the long term in the stock market is the worst financial advice for most people. Kiyosaki and Wheelwright share ideas on how to survive-- and thrive-- into the future

by Amy S. Greenberg
"While the Woman's Rights convention was taking place at Seneca Falls in 1848, First Lady Sarah Childress Polk was wielding influence unprecedented for a woman in Washington, D.C. Yet while history remembers the women of the convention, it has all but forgotten Sarah Polk. Now, Amy S. Greenberg's riveting biography brings Sarah's story into vivid focus. We meet Sarah as the daughter of a frontiersman who raised her to discuss politics and business with men. We see the savvy and charm she brandished to help her brilliant but unlikeable husband, James K. Polk, ascend to the White House. We watch as she exercises truly extraordinary power as First Lady: quietly manipulating elected officials, shaping foreign policy, and directing a campaign in support of America's expansionist war against Mexico. And we meet many of the enslaved men and women whose difficult labor made Sarah's political success possible. Lady First also shines a light on Sarah's many contradictions. While her marriage to James was one of equals, she firmly opposed the feminist movement's demands for what she perceived to be far-reaching equality. She banned dancing and hard liquor from the White House, but did more entertaining than any of her predecessors. During the Civil War, she worked on behalf of the Confederacy even though she claimed to be neutral. And in the late nineteenth century, she became a celebrity among female Christian temperance reformers, while she struggled to redeem her husband's tarnished

by Katie Mack
Mack looks at five ways the universe could end, and the lessons each scenario reveals about the most important concepts in cosmology. --From publisher description.

by Jamie Glowacki
"Toilet-training expert Jamie Glowacki's self-published OH CRAP! POTTY TRAINING has sold more than 40,000 copies and has been the "dirty little secret" of moms on message boards and in parenting groups for years. Now, this proven, 6-step plan (called "the WHAT TO EXPECT of potty training books" for its comprehensive, no-nonsense voice) is available to the general trade audience for the first time"--

by Virginia Evans
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Discover the word-of-mouth hit hailed by Ann Patchett as “A cause for celebration”—an intimate novel about the transformative power of the written word and the beauty of slowing down to reconnect with the people we love. “The Correspondent is this year’s breakout novel no one saw coming.”—The Wall Street Journal “I cried more than once as I witnessed this brilliant woman come to understand herself more deeply.”—Florence Knapp, author of The Names In development as a major motion picture starring Jane Fonda LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE, THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL, AND THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Elle, Christian Science Monitor, She Reads “Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle. . . . Isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?” Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person.

by Jaron Lanier
"You might have trouble imagining life without your social media accounts, but virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier insists that we're better off without them. In Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, Lanier, who participates in no social media, offers powerful and personal reasons for all of us to leave these dangerous online platforms"--

by Esther Wojcicki
Outlines simple, counterintuitive approaches to raising happy, healthy, and successful children through parental demonstrations of respectful examples and child-directed activities that facilitate early independence and problem-solving skills.
by Don Graham
"Featuring James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Taylor, Giant is an epic film of fame and materialism, based around the discovery of oil at Spindletop and the establishment of the King Ranch of south Texas. Isolating his star cast in the wilds of West Texas, director George Stevens brought together a volatile mix of egos, insecurities, sexual proclivities, and talent. Stevens knew he was overwhelmed with Hudson's promiscuity, Taylor's high diva-dom, and Dean's egotistical eccentricity. Yet he coaxed performances out of them that made cinematic history, winning Stevens the Academy Award for Best Director and garnering nine other nominations, including a nomination for Best Actor for James Dean, who died before the film was finished. Don Graham chronicles the stories of Stevens, whose trauma in World War II intensified his ambition to make films that would tell the story of America; Edna Ferber, a considerable literary celebrity, who meets her match in the imposing Robert Kleberg, proprietor of the vast King Ranch; and Glenn McCarthy, an American oil tycoon; and Errol Flynn lookalike with a taste for Hollywood. Drawing on archival sources Graham's Giant is a comprehensive depiction of the film's production showing readers how reality became fiction and fiction became cinema. "--Adapted from dust jacket.
by Gary M. Pomerantz
"Out of the greatest dynasty in American professional sports history, an intimate story of race, mortality, and regret"--

by Michael Burlingame
Now in paperback, this award-winning biography has been hailed as the definitive portrait of Lincoln. In the first multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln to be published in decades, Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame offers a fresh look at the life of one of America’s greatest presidents. Incorporating the field notes of earlier biographers, along with decades of research in multiple manuscript archives and long-neglected newspapers, this remarkable work will both alter and reinforce current understanding of America’s sixteenth president. In volume 2, Burlingame examines Lincoln’s presidency and the trials of the Civil War. He supplies fascinating details on the crisis over Fort Sumter and the relentless office seekers who plagued Lincoln. He introduces readers to the president’s battles with hostile newspaper editors and his quarrels with incompetent field commanders. Burlingame also interprets Lincoln’s private life, discussing his marriage to Mary Todd, the untimely death of his son Willie to disease in 1862, and his recurrent anguish over the enormous human costs of the war.

by Carrie Gibson
A sweeping saga of the Spanish history and influence in North America over five centuries, from the acclaimed author of Empire's Crossroads Because of our shared English language, as well as the celebrated origin tales of the Mayflower and the rebellion of the British colonies, the United States has prized its Anglo heritage above all others. However, as Carrie Gibson explains with great depth and clarity in El Norte, the nation has much older Spanish roots--ones that have long been unacknowledged or marginalized. The Hispanic past of the United States predates the arrival of the Pilgrims by a century, and has been every bit as important in shaping the nation as it exists today. El Norte chronicles the sweeping and dramatic history of Hispanic North America from the arrival of the Spanish in the early 16th century to the present--from Ponce de Leon's initial landing in Florida in 1513 to Spanish control of the vast Louisiana territory in 1762 to the Mexican-American War in 1846 and up to the more recent tragedy of post-hurricane Puerto Rico and the ongoing border acrimony with Mexico. Interwoven in this stirring narrative of events and people are cultural issues that have been there from the start but which are unresolved to this day: language, belonging, community, race, and nationality. Seeing them play out over centuries provides vital perspective at a time when it is urgently needed. In 1883, Walt Whitman meditated on his country's Spanish past: "We Americans have yet to

by David Wallace-Wells
If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible. In California, wildfires now rage year-round; across the US storms pummel communities month after month. Wallace-Wells believes that, without a revolution in how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth could become uninhabitable as soon as the end of this century. Food shortages, refugee emergencies, and other crises will reshape the globe. He presents a meditation on the devastation we have brought upon ourselves, and an impassioned call to action. -- adapted from publisher info

by Joel F. Harrington
"A work of nonfiction that explores the thoughts and experiences of one early modern executioner, Nuremberg's Frantz Schmidt (1555-1634), through his own words - a rare personal journal, in which he recorded and described all the executions and corporal punishments he administered between 1573 and his retirement in 1617"-- Provided by publisher