Nonfiction Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2025

This wise and honest memoir by bestselling author Jennifer Finney Boylan is a must-read. Cleavage asks profound and complicated questions about gender, self-image, womanhood, and how the process of coming out has changed over the past 20 years. Full of sharp insights and the author’s signature humor, Cleavage offers hope, reflection, and honesty about living a life that’s true. 

Publication date: February 4, 2025

Elon Green follows up his Edgar Award–winning true crime story Last Call with a searing new investigation. The Man Nobody Killed is the first comprehensive look at the life and death of Michael Stewart, a young Black artist and the victim of one of the most infamous cases of police brutality in 1980s New York City. Stewart died in 1983 after New York City Transit Authority officers beat and choked him for allegedly spray-painting a subway station wall. His killing sparked a nationwide movement of activists, artists, and journalists who demanded answers in the wake of his violent death. Green movingly captures Stewart’s life and tragic demise, bringing to life NYC’s downtown art scene in 1980s and vividly illustrating racial injustice in America. 

Publication date: March 11, 2025

You might think you know everything about the Beatles, but Ian Leslie’s new biography about the relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney will change the way you understand the band and its music. John & Paul charts the bandmates’ complicated and often tumultuous creative partnership chronologically through the songs they wrote together. Based on newly uncovered footage and recordings, John & Paul is a gift for Beatles fans and music lovers alike.  

Publication date: April 8, 2025

No new year’s book list is complete without a self-improvement how-to. But unlike most personal growth guides, this one isn’t just good for you, it’s good for the planet. Frustrated by the cycle of wanting, scrolling, and shopping for things she didn’t need, sustainability expert Ashlee Piper challenged herself to buy nothing new for two years. Through this journey, she found she had more time, greater clarity, and, of course, far more money. Luckily for us, she’s sharing her blueprint for how to regain control over what she calls the “conditioned consumerism” that rules our lives. With clear action items and thoughtful takes on sustainability, No New Things is the self-improvement guide you need in 2025.

Publication date: April 15, 2025

Renowned New Yorker cover artist Harry Bliss poignantly captures his relationship with his dog Penny in this beautiful and touching graphic memoir. The author works through the grief of losing Penny after 17 years by telling the story of their life together in sketches, stories, and cartoons. It’s a beautiful account of love, grief, and family that’s perfect for anyone who has ever shared their life with a pet and knows the unique heartbreak of saying goodbye. 

Publication date: April 29, 2025 

Bad Friend is both a stunning cultural critique and a rousing celebration of female friendship. Cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith delves into the bonds that women have shared across the years, examining the impossible cultural expectations they endured and the quiet acts of revolutionary connection they helped foster. A deeply researched critique and a compelling personal narrative, Bad Friend will make you see your own friendships in an entirely new light. 

Publication date: May 6, 2025 

This debut mother–daughter memoir by award-winning writer Erika J. Simpson is already generating buzz — it was named one of the most anticipated memoirs of 2025 by Publishers Weekly. Growing up, Simpson’s mother was a near-mythical figure. In This Is Your Mother, Simpson reflects on these stories as she explores the harsh realities they both experienced, drawing on themes of grief and religion to capture the complex relationships we share with our parents. 

Publication date: May 6, 2025 

In this “brilliant, tender, and illuminating” narrative (Steven W. Thrasher, author of The Viral Underclass), historian Edna Bonhomme delivers a thoroughly researched work on the role that social inequality plays in global pandemics. A History of the World in Six Plagues is a richly told story about the intersection of racial, economic, and social hierarchies and illnesses like HIV/AIDS, Ebola, cholera, and COVID-19. This searing narrative is as much an important history as it is a clarion call for social action against policies that exacerbate sickness across the globe in our most vulnerable populations.

Publication date: March 11, 2025

In Strangers in the Land, Michal Luo, New Yorker executive editor and the son of immigrants from Taiwan, celebrates the tenacity of the Chinese immigrants who moved to the West Coast in the mid-1800s. Though initially welcomed, the new arrivals were soon targeted by racial violence and, later, by federal legislation that aimed to exclude Chinese laborers from the country. Luo captures an important and overlooked chapter from American history in his powerful new work, channeling his in-depth research and excellent prose into a narrative that continues to resonate with our current xenophobic immigration policy debates. 

Publication date: April 29, 2025

In his new memoir, Source Code: My Beginnings, tech luminary Bill Gates tells the story of his childhood and early adulthood, from feeling like an outcast as a kid to almost getting kicked out of college. His memoir is less of a TED Talk and more a thoughtful account of the many friends, family members, and experiences that have come to define his life, creating a strikingly candid and relatable self-portrait of one of the most important figures of the modern era.

Publication date: February 4, 2025