“But with nonfiction, the task is very straightforward: Do the research, tell the story.”
As we get into the swing of 2025, it’s shaping up to be an incredible year for readers who love burying themselves in thought-provoking and inspiring stories. The world of non-fiction is brimming with compelling new releases, offering everything from groundbreaking memoirs and insightful explorations of current events to fascinating deep dives into history, science and more. If you’re on the hunt for the best non-fiction books of 2025, you’re in for a treat. Here at What We Reading, we’ve curated all new non-fiction books from 2025 capturing headlines and attention in one place. Whether it’s gripping narratives, practical wisdom or thought-provoking ideas, these new non-fiction novels are sure to add something special to your reading lists this year.
You’ll Never Believe Me: A Life Of Lies, Second Tries And Things I Should Only Tell My Therapist – Kari Ferrell
Kicking off our list of the best non-fiction books of 2025 is Kari Ferrell aka. ‘Hipster Grifter’s’ memoir, You’ll Never Believe Me. Adopted at a young age by a Mormon family in Utah, Kari struggled with questions of self-worth and identity as one of the few Asian Americans in her sheltered community. This would lead to her running with a ‘bad crowd’ in an effort to fit in someplace.
Soon enough, stealing from supermarkets led to picking up men (and picking their pockets). And, before she knew it, Kari grew from a petty criminal to Utah’s most wanted list. Across her illuminating biography, Ferrell takes on a tour through New York’s indie sleaze scene, stints in jail, internet infamy and fetishisation and a side of her true self that no one has ever quite seen – until now.
Release Date: 7 January 2025
Cleavage: Men, Women, And The Space Between Us – Jennifer Finney Boylan
Jennifer Finney Boylan’s She’s Not There was the first bestselling work by a transgender American. In the two decades since its release, she has become one of the go-to voices for insights into the impact of gender on our lives, from the food we consume to the dreams we hold for ourselves and our children. In her new 2025 book, Cleavage, Boylan not only examines gender identity but also the difference between coming out as trans in 2000 and the present day of blowback and fear.
Delivered with her trademark humour and poignancy, Boylan reckons with her womanhood, reflects on the boys and men who shaped her and reconceives herself as a writer, activist, parent and spouse. Sharp, witty and utterly captivating, Cleavage is a look back at the triumphs and losses of a life lived through two genders and provides hope for a future where we all have the freedom to live joyfully as men, women and the space in between.
Release date: 4 February 2025
The JFK Conspiracy: The Secret Plot To Kill Kennedy – And Why It Failed – Brad Meltzer And Josh Mensch
John F Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States, regularly ranks as one of the most popular presidents in the nation’s history. Yet, in their new 2025 work, Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch reveal how JFK’s historic stint in the Oval Office almost ended before it had even begun at the hands of a disgruntled sociopath armed with dynamite.
Their new book from 2025, The JFK Conspiracy, takes readers back to December 1960 and before Kennedy’s inauguration and into the perspective of postal worker Richard Pavlick. Written in the same gripping style that Meltzer and Mensch were lauded for in their previous works, The Nazi Conspiracy and The Lincoln Conspiracy, The JFK Conspiracy is a brilliant exploration of what could have been for one of the most influential leaders of the twentieth century.
Release date: 14 January 2025
Back In Blues: How A Color Tells The Story Of My People – Imani Perry
Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably interlinked with another colour: blue. In daily life, blue skies and blue water offer hope, but are also the colours with which we associate melancholy and heartache. In one of the best art books from 2025, Imani Perry uses the world’s favourite colour as a muse for a riveting emotional, cultural and spiritual journey – an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology.
Black in Blues traces both blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to the many embodiments they have within contemporary culture. From the dyed indigo cloths of West Africa that were traded for human lives to the fundamentally American art form of blues and the blue flowers Perry housed to honour a loved one, Back in Blues is a poignant, spellbinding and brilliant new work from a trailblazing new writer and thinker.
Release date: 28 January 2025
Memorial Days – Geraldine Brooks
After spending their early years together as foreign correspondents in conflict zones around the world, Geraldine Brooks and Tony Horwitz settled down on Martha’s Vineyard. Raising two boys between them, their lives were one of meaningful work, good humour, and tenderness. However, on Memorial Day in 2019, all of it was brought to an end with the sudden, shocking news we all dread receiving.
Three years on from the death of her beloved partner, Geraldine booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia to finally give herself space to grieve. In a shack on a pristine coast, she often went days without seeing another person. Memorial Days is another one of the best biographies from 2025, delivering a candid and profoundly moving tale of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that wonderfully captures the joy, agony and many mysteries of life.
Release date: 4 February 2025
Protocols: An Operating Manual For The Human Body – Andrew D. Huberman
In his new book from 2025, Protocols, neuroscientist and professor at Stanford School of Medicine Dr Andrew Huberman offers an essential guide to improving brain function, enhancing mood and rewiring your nervous system to learn new skills and behaviours that can radically transform your life.
Protocols provide simple, powerful and evidence-backed solutions to life’s most common challenges. Designed to improve your mental and physical health, the guidelines outlined in this groundbreaking work are customisable and are delivered with Huberman’s clear and engaging style. With every protocol explained with scientific principles, Protocols is the framework needed for achieving optimal health this year.
Release date: 9 September 2025
Mark Twain – Ron Chernow
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow has been highly lauded for his works on the likes of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Ulysses S. Grant, but turns his attention to America’s first literary celebrity in one of the best books from 2025, Mark Twain.
Utilising Twain’s bountiful archives, including his fifty notebooks, thousands of letters and hundreds of unpolished manuscripts, Chernow deftly captures a man whose career reflected the US’ westward expansion, industrialisation and foreign wars. Over a century after his death, Twain’s writing continues to be read, discussed and debated. Through his stunning portrait of the man, Chernow unveils the magnificence and often maddening life of one of the most remarkably original individuals in American history.
Release date: 13 May 2025
Is A River Alive? – Robert Macfarlane
Is a River Alive? serves as a joyous exploration into a long-ancient and urgent concept: that rivers are living beings who should be recognised as such in imagination and law. Renowned nature writer and author Robert Macfarlane whisks readers on three unforgettable journeys brimming with colourful casts and places: to the cloud forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, the wounded creeks and lagoons of India and finally the wild rivers of Canada – imperilled by mining, pollution and dams.
Tying these journeys to the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s own home, Is a River Alive? is a dazzlingly delivered tome that will open hearts, challenge perspectives and remind readers that our fate flows with that of the rivers that make up our planet.
Release date: 1 May 2025
The Harder I Fight The More I Love You: A Memoir – Neko Case
Neko Case has long been recognised as one of the music world’s most influential artists, whose authenticity, lyrical storytelling and sly wit have endeared her to a devout army of critics, musicians and hardcore fans. In her new 2025 work, The Harder I Fight the More I Love You, Case charts her life from an invisible girl in rural Washington to an internationally acclaimed musical talent.
In sharp-edged prose, Case shows readers what it is like to be left alone for hours and hours as a child, to take refuge in the woods around her house, and how to harness the monotony loneliness and joy that comes from music, camaraderie and shared experience into art. Promising to be one of the best memoirs from the year, Case’s story is a rebellious meditation on identity, corruption and how to make a space for ourselves in the world.
Release date: 28 January 2025
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History And Persistence Of Our Deadliest Infection – John Green
Tuberculosis has been intertwined with humanity for millennia. In 2019, bestselling author and healthcare reform activist John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient in Sierra Leone whilst travelling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a warm infectious smile. In the years that followed, John has become one of the leading voices in the fight for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequalities that allow this curable, treatable infection also to be the most deadly, claiming 1.5 million people every year.
In his 2025 non-fiction science book, Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through the scientific and social history of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.
Release date: 18 March 2025
The River’s Daughter – Bridget Crocker
After her parent’s tumultuous divorce, Bridget Crocker moved with her mother from California to Wyoming to live in a trailer park near the Snake River. Over the coming years, as she bounced back and forth across the country from home to home, the Snake River would become the sole constant in her life. Being on the water healed Bridget – from abuse and betrayal by those closest to her. She became a world-class whitewater rafting guide, earning admiration from her mostly male counterparts for her grit and resilience.
In The River’s Daughter, Bridget Crocker takes readers on a propulsive tour through her adventures on the water, and of finding meaning in a life outdoors. One of the most powerful books from 2025, Crocker’s candid approach to finding a new way of experiencing the world helps make this one of the freshest new voices in adventure writing.
Release date: 3 June 2025
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
