The 30 best nonfiction books of the last 30 years

Los Angeles Times

14-04-2025

Times — and The Times — have changed since the first Festival of Books was held in 1996. What hasn't is our commitment to this vibrant community of readers and writers, with the annual spring ritual continuing to shape, and be shaped by, the books we love (and love to argue over). So, after building our Ultimate L.A. and Hollywood bookshelves, we decided to mark the 30th edition of the festival by shifting the frame of this year's special issue from 'place' to 'time,' and choose the best books published since the event's inauguration.
Below, you'll find our list of essential works of nonfiction published in the U.S. from 1996 to the present, culled from a survey of authors, editors, critics, scholars and other experts in the field. (There's also a list for fiction.) Plus, don't miss our reporting on one of the era's most influential poetry organizations, a first-person essay on YA literature's rise and decline and a tribute to those who were so prolific their many works split the vote.
Whether you agree or disagree with the inclusions (and, yes, exclusions), one thing remains true after 30 go-rounds: There's nothing better than getting together to talk about books.
'Me Talk Pretty One Day' is Sedaris at his best and brightest as he recounts his childhood, travels and growth as a writer with trademark wit and humor. Whether writing about accidentally coming out as gay to his music teacher, learning French as a 41-year-old or feeling crushing jealousy for his artistically gifted sister, Sedaris approaches every new experience with a wide-eyed curiosity. The essayist's power lies in his willingness to satirize the inherent absurdity of life without ever downplaying what it means to be human. 'Me Talk Pretty One Day' is by turns poignant and hilarious. —Iman Sultan
Kolbert's Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the world's slide into environmental destruction is an essential read. The New Yorker staff writer makes the case for the effects of climate change bringing about a new age of extinctions on our planet. She documents trees moving in South America to find survivable habitats, the plight of the critically endangered Sumatran rhino and a small experimental effort to save the dying Great Barrier Reef. Meanwhile, she explains the interrelated complexities. Ant and bird and tree and jungle floor all need each other to survive. So do we. It is an up-close, worldwide portrait of our fragile, magical, irreplaceable ecosystem. —Carolyn Kellogg
'Thick description' is a means of cultural analysis in which events and objects are studied in relation to the societies that produce them. In 'Thick,' Cottom plays with that meaning as well as 'thick' as a descriptor of Black women's bodies in popular culture. What results is a series of stunning essays that are personal, incisive cultural criticism, very funny and deeply sad. The author's whip-smart analysis is interwoven with narratives about Trump rallies, white feminism, the deadly effects of medical racism and creating a 'fabulous' life as a respected professor whose work is informed by the Southern working-class tradition. —Lorraine Berry
'They hate our freedom' was the facile catchphrase that many used to explain the rationale for the 9/11 terrorist attacks — regardless of all the time, blood and treasure the U.S. military had spent in Iraq and Afghanistan in previous decades. Of course, the motivations behind the terrorists' actions were more complicated. Wright's thorough investigation into the lives of the 9/11 hijackers and ringleader Osama bin Laden reveals a web of religious, financial and political alliances running up against U.S. counterterrorism activities that often stoked further anger. The tensions were only exacerbated by the often-petty rivalries between the CIA and FBI that eroded coordination and prompted most leaders to miss the attacks as they were being planned and executed. —Mark Athitakis
The magic of blasting down a wall of water balanced on a few pounds of Styrofoam doesn't typically translate to the rectangular page; too many efforts feel pompous, ponderous or preening. Not this. Longtime New Yorker staff writer Finnegan — he of the muscular, award-winning reporting from South America, Africa and Europe — turns his ferocious discipline, steely appraisal and sparkling vocabulary to a lifetime of chasing waves across the world. Come for the generous and refreshing portrayals of smacking the lip but stay for the riveting thrill, for instance, of finding and surfing remote equatorial breaks no one had ever surfed before and few have written about since. —Nathan Deuel
Cullen was one of the journalists who reported in the immediate aftermath of the Columbine High School shooting. Then, for many years after, he researched the events of that day in an effort to correct erroneous initial reports. 'Columbine' is outstanding literary journalism, balancing the facts with intimate portraits of those who were there on that horrific day in 1999. Cullen demolishes many of the myths about the killers, including characterizations of them as bullied outsiders. The work is an act of contrition for mistakes he initially made and a deeply felt caution to all who report and read breaking news. —L.B.
Larson centers the activities of two men in the years leading up to and during Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. The fair's chief architect, Daniel Hudson Burnham, created a wildly expensive campus of Beaux Arts white buildings, brought in designers including Frederick Law Olmsted, and wowed millions with a large-scale incandescent light display. Meanwhile, haunting the fair was H.H. Holmes, the pseudonym taken by a person who was one of America's first serial killers. Holmes' cruel crimes took place at a time when many young, single women ventured to Chicago to seek work during the fair. Based on Larson's research, he writes his nonfiction like a novel, chockablock full of weird and wondrous details of Chicago at the fin de siècle. —L.B.
Simultaneously crushing and riveting, 'Killers of the Flower Moon' is the true story of multiple sorrows wrought by unbridled greed and betrayal. The New Yorker's Grann intertwines the racism and injustices of 1920s Oklahoma, corruption of local authorities and the mysterious deaths of several Osage people, mostly women. His research is so detailed, he writes of other murders that were uncovered throughout his work that were overlooked or ignored entirely. Rivaling the likes of Capote's 'In Cold Blood,' and adapted by Martin Scorsese, Grann's eagle-eyed work is a nonfiction classic. —Edward Banchs
Harari's ambitious work is the story of us, from our earliest moments as hunter-gatherers, through our greatest challenges and to the advancements that shaped the modern world. In this insightful and engaging international bestseller, Harari discusses how we got to where we are, showing readers how even our species' imperfections defined modernity and shaped our planet. This book sits with me in different ways, yet it will always be among my most recommended reads. Last year's publication of the 10th anniversary edition carries the work forward with cautionary insights on the rise of AI. —E.B.
Keefe's vivid account of the Troubles in Northern Ireland braids the stories of the 1972 disappearance of mother Jean McConville in Belfast and of Dolours Price, a young activist who joined the Provisional IRA, and their long aftereffects. McConville's orphaned children later pursued the answers to what happened to her. Price, from a Catholic family with a history of resistance, robbed banks, set bombs and went to prison, where she and her sister held a hunger strike. Keefe's meticulous research, empowered by tapes divulging long-held secrets, results in a story without good and bad guys: just a cause worth killing and dying for, and the moral morass of upholding intractable ideals. —I.S.
We welcome rock memoirs for their liters of vodka, dope on what really happened when the drummer freaked out and maybe what it's like to share a sandwich with Bob Dylan. But the utterly original Patti Smith — deploying the same savage bravery, stirring creativity and groundbreaking voice that made her iconic album 'Horses' so unique — writes one of the best versions yet. Anchored by the poignant tale of her love affair with Robert Mapplethorpe, Smith's story is an estimably mind-blowing response to the bottomless task of capturing why young and beautiful people do their relentless best in a little place called New York City. —N.D.
Eighty-nine-year-old Caro has devoted most of his writing life to just two projects: 'The Power Broker,' his magisterial 1974 biography of New York urban planner Robert Moses, and an epic multivolume biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson. The latter is now more than 3,000 pages and counting. This third volume finds Johnson redefining the power of the U.S. Senate; it also finds Caro redefining the political biography. It's not just a portrait of Johnson but of the Senate itself, from its 19th century leaders to the late 1950s and Johnson's unparalleled ability to bend the institution to his will. No detail is too small for Caro's gimlet eye, which is currently trained on finishing Volume 5. —Chris Vognar
Twenty-five years after publication, King's 'On Writing' remains so popular that, as of this writing, 125 people are in line to borrow the e-book from the L.A. Public Library. Best known for horror and mystery, with some big swerves (like the novella that inspired 'The Shawshank Redemption'), King is a surprisingly warm writing coach. The book is partly a memoir of his own normal childhood, and partly notes on the business and craft of writing. Gems include a rant on critics, the assertion that the paragraph, not the sentence, is the basic unit of writing and how writing helped alleviate his stultified misery after a near-death car accident. A look behind the curtain from an incomparable expert. —I.S.
Ward's memoir of growing up poor in Mississippi, woven together with sharp analysis of the ways that racism kills Black men, is some of the best writing I've ever read. Ward is one of the most gifted writers of her generation; in addition to this indelible work of nonfiction, she's twice been awarded the National Book Award for fiction and is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Here she chronicles the lives of five men, including her brother, who did not survive young adulthood. The memoir's double-helix structure, in which Ward narrates both forward and backward, disrupts notions of time and space. It's a sublime work. —L.B.
For all the ubiquity of HeLa cells in scientific research, it's remarkable that it took until 2010 for anyone to tell their origin story. Another writer might have gotten parts of the narrative — Henrietta Lacks' history, the scientists at Johns Hopkins who took her cancer cells and shared them widely, changing ethical standards, years of medical racism. But it was Skloot, as a deeply empathetic science journalist, who was able to befriend Lacks' descendants, understand their perspective (more religious than scientific) and tell it with respect. This is an iconic work of narrative nonfiction that pairs unimpeachable reporting with advocacy and belief. —C.K.
Bechdel made her name as a cartoonist in the 1980s with the out-and-proud strip 'Dykes to Watch Out For.' By contrast, her graphic memoir was a tale of suppressed sexuality, her own and especially her father's. Bruce Bechdel, the manager of a funeral home (hence the book's arch title) was a complex, highly literate man and also a quintessential closet case; the story of his death, entwined with Bechdel's own process of coming out as lesbian, only furthers the layers she's working through. A graphic-novel classic, the inspiration for a successful musical, and perpetual target for anti-LGBTQ+ book-banners, it remains a powerful story of family dynamics and self-discovery. —M.A.
The late journalist and muckraker's most famous book has inspired a whole subgenre of stunt memoirs. But there was nothing frivolous about this undertaking: to see how long she could make ends meet working everyday hospitality and custodial jobs in the wake of the Clinton administration's dismantling of the social safety net. The labor — waitressing, janitorial — was physically demanding, the wages terrible, the treatment by bosses and customers often worse. America's working poor, she found, are victims of a system that's designed to exploit them and also keep them from putting up a protest. (Ehrenreich's effort to organize a union doesn't take.) An essential text of American wealth inequality. —M.A.
'Midnight was closing in, the one-legged woman was grievously burned, and the Mumbai police were coming for Abdul and his father,' Boo's book begins. Its focus is on the lives within a temporary settlement close to the Mumbai airport and its 'beautiful forever' luxury hotels. The family at its center is the Husains, Muslims in a largely Hindu community. When a mentally disturbed neighbor sets herself on fire and a slumlord tries to extort money from them, the family gets tangled in the corruption that keeps a stranglehold on the slum's inhabitants. Boo, who spent three years at the slum, emphasizes family ties and writes luminously about the daily struggles of Mumbai's poor. —L.B.
LeBlanc began working on this classic of nonfiction reportage while covering the story of a Bronx heroin dealer for Newsday. Embedding herself with his family for several years, she reveals the ways poor families are stymied in their efforts to get by — lack of money, lousy landlords, addiction, parental abandonment and more. LeBlanc never moves her camera away from the ground level; there are no policy prescriptions, no litanies of statistics and no melodramatic statements about pity or persistence. That gives it the grit and grain of a novel but also the intensity of lived experience; no American book has captured it in such relentless, affecting detail. —M.A.
Simply put, no other book in recent memory has so beautifully and meaningfully reported on the agony and ecstasy of living in America with a Black male body. Writer and professor Laymon stacks page after page of devastating portrayals of working in white academia alongside vivid memories of growing up in a Black Mississippi community. He reaches back in time to create a loving and profoundly complex portrait of his mother and the brutal way she tried to express her love, concern and support. But most memorably of all, Laymon shares the true depth of his panicked and aching attempts to feel satisfied, whether it's at a casino, in front of a full plate or looking at himself in the stark light of another college-town mirror. —N.D.
This explosive, eye-opening work came from Ivy League professor Desmond moving to a trailer park and rooming house in a poverty-stricken part of Milwaukee. A critical examination of income disparity in the U.S., 'Evicted' puts the people living the bottom of the American Dream at the center. He paints a sympathetic and honest picture of those living precariously, and the insurmountable, everyday challenges they face. More than just a document of their experiences, 'Evicted' is an ethical call to action to end the exploitation of the poor. An absolute must-read for everyone who still believes America is a nation of equal opportunity. —E.B.
Didion's husband of nearly 40 years, John Gregory Dunne, died of a massive heart attack at the couple's dining room table in 2003. Her memoir offered an intimate account of the ways that grief tears us away from normalcy. For a woman who had made a reputation as a lucid, sharp chronicler of the reality of American lives, Didion struggled with the irrational thoughts that flooded her mind afterward. Narrating her way through her own deep, isolating grief, she wrote her most popular book. We cannot, she writes, 'know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaningless itself.' —L.B.
Wilkerson's magisterial tale of the Great Migration is an incomparable study of the motivations behind a decades-long social movement that brought millions of Black people from the Jim Crow South to better — if still often bitterly racist — fortunes in the north and west. Its widescreen picture of the phenomenon is braided with details of people like Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a Mississippi sharecropper who headed to Chicago to escape violent racism at home, only to discover a complicated network of bigotry and industry in the Midwest. In Wilkerson's stories of 20th century Black America, we also hear the echoes of today's migrant tales — the persistence that brings people to look for better futures and the roadblocks that stand in their way. —M.A.