Top 15 in Non-Fiction
Week of September 14, 2026

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
by Ann Patchett
The acclaimed, prize-winning #1 New York Times bestselling writer returns with a moving, luminous novel that reminds us of the sweetness and impermanence of life and the power of connection to defy time. When Daphne Fuller and her husband Jonathan visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they notice an older, white-haired gentleman following them. The man turns out to be Eddie Triplett, her former stepfather, who had been married to her mother for a little more than year when Daphne was nine. Now fifty-three, Daphne hasn't seen Eddie for many years, not since the fateful event that changed the direction of both their lives. Meeting again, time falls away; while their relationship was brief, it had a profound impact on them both, and now that they are reunited, they have no intention of ever being separated again. Whistler is a story about two adults looking back over the choices they made, and the choices that were made for them. It's a story about bravery, memory, the often small yet consequential moments that define our lives, and the endless stream of loss that in time comes for us all. Beautiful in its simplicity, it is ultimately about how love endures, and how the feeling of being known by one other person, even for a short period of time, can change everything.

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 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 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 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 Jennette McCurdy
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes a sad, funny, thrilling novel about sex, consumerism, class, desire, loneliness, the internet, rage, intimacy, power, and the (oftentimes misguided) lengths we’ll go to in order to get what we want. A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, USA Today, Bustle, Town & Country Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Forceful. Hurting. Perceptive. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of all: Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher with the wife and the kid and the mortgage and the bills, with the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. She doesn’t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? The fact that he knows books and films and things that she doesn’t? Or is it purer than that, rooted in their unlikely connection, their kindred spirits, the similar filter with which they each take in the world around them? Or, perhaps, it’s just enough that he sees her when no one else does. Startlingly perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is a rich character study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles—or attempts to overcome them—in her effort to be seen, to be desired, to be loved.
by Gary M. Pomerantz
"Out of the greatest dynasty in American professional sports history, an intimate story of race, mortality, and regret"--

by Steve Turner
"They kept it up to the very end. Only the engulfing ocean had power to drown them into silence. The band was playing 'Nearer, My God, to Thee.' I could hear it distinctly. The end was very close." --CHARLOTTE COLLYER, TITANIC SURVIVOR The movies, the documentaries, the museum exhibits. They often tell the same story about the "unsinkable" Titanic, her wealthy passengers, the families torn apart, and the unthinkable end. But never before has "that glorious band"--the group of eight musicians who played on as the Titanic slipped deeper and deeper into the Atlantic Ocean--been explored in such depth. Steve Turner's extensive research reveals a fascinating story including dishonest agents, a clairvoyant, social climbers, and a fraudulent violin maker. Read what brought the band members together and how their music served as the haunting soundtrack for one of modern history's most tragic maritime disasters. BOOK REVIEWS The Band that Played On by Steve Turner is, surprisingly, the first book since the great ship went down to examine the lives of the eight musicians who were employed by the Titanic. What these men did'standing calmly on deck playing throughout the disaster'achieved global recognition. But their individual stories, until now, have been largely unknown. What Turner has uncovered is a narrow but unique slice of history'one more chapter of compelling Titanic lore. Turner, a music journalist, pursued living relatives of the band members and squeezed all that he could o

by Caro Claire Burke
A GMA BOOK CLUB PICK • A traditional American woman, a “tradwife” influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel. "A bold and biting satire, Yesteryear…will have you cackling and gasping right to the final page." —Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid series My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive. Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it. Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel?

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 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 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 Lysa TerKeurst
The enemy wants us to feel rejected . . . left out, lonely, and less than. When we allow him to speak lies through our rejection, he pickpockets our purpose. Cripples our courage. Dismantles our dreams. And blinds us to the beauty of Christ's powerful love. In Uninvited, Lysa shares her own deeply personal experiences with rejection--from the incredibly painful childhood abandonment by her father to the perceived judgment of the perfectly toned woman one elliptical over. With biblical depth, gut-honest vulnerability, and refreshing wit, Lysa helps readers: Release the desire to fall apart or control the actions of others by embracing God-honoring ways to process their hurt. Know exactly what to pray for the next ten days to steady their soul and restore their confidence. Overcome the two core fears that feed our insecurities by understanding the secret of belonging. Stop feeling left out and start believing that "set apart" does not mean "set aside." End the cycle of perceived rejection by refusing to turn a small incident into a full blown issue.
