Best Non-Fiction Reads of 2020

I didn't read much non-fic this year just because I felt like I needed to escape reality even more than I usually need to. There are only a handful that didn't make the cut.

Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich
I'll Be gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

I'm giving this memoir its own entry because it's technically a memoir, but it's almost prose poetry:

Just Kids by Patti Smith

Best Non-fiction Audiobook:

Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen

My favorites this year are:

Creativity, Inc by Ed Catmull
The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero

>2 Narilka: The movie they made out of that second book was hilarious. Was the book as funny?

My favorites this year:
The Missing Lynx: The Past and Future of Britain's Lost Mammals by Ross Barnett
Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames by Lara Maiklem
Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History's Most Iconic Extinct Creatures by Ben Mezrich
Written in Stone by Chet Raymo

I didn't read much nonfiction, but I rated both The Hidden World of the Fox and Falling Felines and Fundamental Physics five stars. Cinema Is a Cat is a cool and quirky introduction to film studies.

>3 clamairy: I haven't seen the movie adaption so can't compare them. If you've seen The Room you should appreciate the book. I listened to the audio narrated by Greg who perfectly nails Tommy's strange accent.

>6 Narilka: Yes, I've survived watching The Room... somehow. Audio might be a good option for this one.

I read much less non-fiction than usual in 2020. The best (in order) were:

1. The Civil War as a Theological Crisis by Mark A. Noll
2. Reporter: A Memoir by Seymour Hersch
3. Lost and Found: Memory, Identity and Who We Become When We Are No Longer Ourselves by Jules Montague
4. Imperial Legend by Alexis S. Troubetzkoy
5. The Way of a Pilgrim by an anonymous Russian author

Smaller Majority by Piotr Naskrecki
Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths of Language Usage by John McWhorter
The Royal Art of Poison by Eleanor Herman
Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman
Brave by Rose McGowan

No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West by David McCullough
The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough
Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow
Grant by Ron Chernow

A Goodwin vs. McCullough vs. Chernow battle! Can't go wrong there. I'd have to say that Washington was probably the best, though there's very little difference in quality and enjoyment between that and Grant, The Path Between the Seas and No Ordinary Time. Because there was a real shortage of non-fiction that caught my interest from the Early Reviewer list, my 2020 non-fiction list is a lot more focused than usual.

Not too many non-fictions this year but the few I read were all good ones...

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
When We Were the Kennedys: A Memoir From Mexico, Maine

Report from Ground Zero by Dennis Smith
Brothers Down by Walter R. Borneman
Indianapolis by Lynn Vincent

History has been my bag lately.

I finished four non-fiction books this year. My favourite was The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr.

Number 2 was Reality is not what it seems by Carlo Rovelli.

>9 Bookmarque: I think you may have injured me with Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths of Language Usage. That may be my first wound of 2021.

I had a remarkably good year of non-fiction reads, and the following could equally well be joined by five others just as good:

Dr James Barry by Michael du Preez
Extra Virginity by Tom Mueller
In no uncertain Terms by Helen Suzman
Shaping Kruger by Mitch Reardon
The Last Fish Tale by Mark Kurlansky

I had a surprising number of good ones despite a poor year of reading generally.

The Art of Logic: How to Make sense in a World that Doesn't by Eugenia Cheng
At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails (etc) by Sarah Bakewell
The Book: A Cover to Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of our Time by Keith Houston
Rain: Four Walks in English Weather by Melissa Harrison
Dr Bowdler's Legacy by Noel Perrin
and a slight cheat because a re-read, but I really think it's that good:
Skyfaring by Mark Vanhoenacker.

As Hugh said, I could have added a few more.

>14 pgmcc: my pleasure, Pete. McWhorter is a lot of fun. I listened to another of his Great Courses language series this year, too. He has great knowledge delivered with a good platform manner and sense of humor.

I don't read a lot of non-fiction, and what I do read I often don't count because I borrow a lot of gardening books but I mostly look at the pictures.

Mudlark : In Search of London's Past Along the River Thames by Lara Maiklem (the touchstone seems wrong but maybe it's a variant title)
Rooftop Gardens: The Terraces, Conservatories, and Balconies of New York by Denise LeFrak Calicchio and Roberta Model Amon (not a new book but I finally bought a copy and it has stunning pictures and descriptions of gardens that are worth more than my entire city block)
The 99% Invisible City : A Field Guide To the Hidden World of Everyday Design by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt. From the people behind one of my favourite podcasts.

I did finish a few non-fiction books besides these, but they weren't especially outstanding. Any book that can be summed up with "TLDR: Use more compost" isn't going to be on a best of list :)

My best non-fiction reads of 2020 were:
Braiding sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Chernobyl by Serhii Plokhy
Anne Sexton
Ghostland

I didn't read a lot of non-fiction this year. Of those I did only two got a 4* or above.
One was the incredible With the end in mind which I cried most of the way through and yet is not a depressing book.
The other was Invisible Women which made me angry and is depressing!

>19 Sakerfalcon:
Ghostland is on my shelf (In a pile near my filing cabinet) awaiting attention. I have seen no negative comments anywhere about it and am looking forward to reading it. (The Touchstones do not wish to recognise it at the moment.)

I had a relatively good year with non-fiction. Compared with other years, I certainly read a lot of history in 2020.

This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust covered how the losses incurred during the Civil War changed how Americans viewed the event of death. I have been wondering if this year's experiences in the pandemic will drive a similar re-thinking of how best to handle loss.

Reveille in Washington was another good read. Also about the Civil War, it won a Pulitzer back in 1941. I finally bought this one in hardcover, because I kept passing along the paperback versions.

The Woman's Hour by Elaine Weiss was a Christmas gift to me from my son. As it happened, it was also recommended to me by a museum curator. Very interesting coverage of the campaign to win the vote.

Equally good was Suffrage: Women's Long Battle for the Vote by Ellen Carol DuBois.

I have a TBR non-fiction pile that may well tip over if events in 2021 are in any way similar in nature to 2020.

>19 Sakerfalcon: I have Chernobyl on my pile and hope to get to it before too long.
>20 infjsarah: I also have Invisible Women on my pile after both being recommended it by a friend who heard about it at a talk she went to and then I heard the author speak at an online conference earlier in the year. Again hoping it won't be too long before I get to it.

My best non-fiction reads were:

Divided: Why We're Living in an Age of Walls by Tim Marshall
Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre
Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

I also read My Family and Other Animals and Birds, Beasts and Relatives by Gerald Durrell

Like many have already noted, 2020 was a difficult year requiring a lot of escapist fiction (for me anyway), but I managed to read three four nonfiction books that are all on my favorites list:

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson - a memoir in verse form
Me by Elton John - his autobiography
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson - not usually a fan of WWII history, but this was outstanding

ETA Watercolor Flowers Chinese Style: A Beginner's Step-by-Step Guide by Lu He - I forgot about this lovely how-to book. I don't usually read instruction manuals and the like from cover to cover, but I did this one. It was as beautifully written as it was illustrated.

>5 libraryperilous: Falling Felines is my first BB of the new year.

>10 Karlstar: All five look really good. *sigh* Five more BBs.

>18 tardis: I don't read a lot of non-fiction, and what I do read I often don't count because I borrow a lot of gardening books but I mostly look at the pictures. Haha, that is so me too! Not only with gardening books but also with books on photography and art and lately with how-to watercolor paint books.

>22 jillmwo:
The Republic of Suffering looks very interesting.
But it made me compare some statistics.

Apparently total casualties in the American Civil War were around 2% of the population.
That is roughly the same figure as British losses in World War I (2%)..
Both those wars resulted in psychological trauma to the populations left.
But compare the Byelorussian SSR in World War II, where almost 25% of the population were killed.

I am left thinking how "lucky" our countries have been. I remember talking to people who remembered the aftermath of World War II, but they are all gone now. The American Civil War is beyond living memory. But elsewhere in Europe losses an order of magnitude greater are still a lived reality.

>20 infjsarah: Who would you say is the target audience for With the End in Mind?

Is it for healthcare professionals, the families, or those who are terminally ill?

>25 Storeetllr: It was delightful!

>25 Storeetllr: Honestly, unless you really want to read a lot about the early settlement of Ohio, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West is not quite what it appears to be from the summary. It was just ok. I have corrected the touchstone.

>27 -pilgrim-:-pilgrim-
It's not a technical medical book - more "popular" medical science. I think the author would say it's for everyone as we are all going to die or experience the death of someone. Each chapter has short stories about patients she has known and she uses those stories to illustrate aspects of dying and death that we should all know or consider. There are a few questions at the end of each chapter for the reader to think about for themselves. The appendix also has a list of related UK organisations and websites for further reading if needed. Hope that helps.

I generally don't read a lot of non-fiction, but read some really good stuff last year.

Best non-fiction for me in 2020, 4 stars and up are as follows:

John Henry by Steve Haskin 4.0*

Dr Fager by Steve Haskin 4.0*

Kelso by Steve Haskin 4.0*

Tales From the Triple Crown by Steve Haskin 4.0*

(notice a pattern here?)

Seattle Slew: Racing's Only Undefeated Triple Crown Winner by Dan Mearns 4.0*

The Miracle of Dunkirk by Walter Lord 4.0*

Canoeing with the Cree by Eric Sevareid 4.0*

But my best non-fiction of 2020 was a little book I picked up for my husband, and then read:

The United States in World War 1: The Story of General John J. Pershing and the American Expeditionary Forces by Don Lawson 4.5*

>28 libraryperilous: Looking forward to it!

>29 Karlstar: Thanks for the clarification. I may be interested in the settlement of Ohio - my ancestors (some of them) settled there in the early 1800s - tho McCullough is hit-and-miss for me. I'm more interested in the Chernows.

>29 Karlstar: My daughter and her family are moving to Ohio this month.

>33 pgmcc: From Boston? Which area? Most of my memories are from driving through it several times during the 90s, though I did have fun visiting Cincinnati back in the late 80s.

I lived in NE Ohio (near Akron) for about 16 years before moving to my current home.

>32 Storeetllr: I thought The Path Between the Seas and 1776 (2019 read) were both excellent, but at the moment I'd put Chernow and Goodwin just slightly ahead of McCullough. There was nothing wrong with the book on Ohio, it was just more limited than I expected.

>33 pgmcc: Hopefully around Cleveland?

>34 clamairy:
They moved from Boston to Birmingham, England, about three years ago. 2016 was our last chance to visit them in Boston.

>34 clamairy: & >36 Karlstar:
Cincinnati. She and the family were there in March to check it out and liked it. The move should be happening this month. Emigration in a time of pandemic. I hope it isn't like Station Eleven.

>32 Storeetllr: if you like fiction try reading The Trees for early Ohio settlement.

>30 infjsarah: Thanks!

>37 pgmcc: I recall Cincinnati as a very fun city. It's small enough to be easily navigated by car and large enough to have plenty of cultural events and venues. (When there isn't a plague going on, anyway.) I wish them the best!

>40 clamairy: Thank you! My granddaughter is called Fíona. When they visited Cincinnati Zoo in March they met Fíona the baby hippo. They are following Fíona the baby hippo’s facebook page.

>26 -pilgrim-: I should have been more specific in my comment and noted that This Republic of Suffering spent significant time discussing the changes made by the military with regard to recognized roles and responsibilities for appropriate medical treatment of soldiers and death notifications. As one example, the development of ambulance services in the US arose in large part because of the Civil War. Transfer of the remains to families became an issue because in so many instances remains were never identified except by personal effects (a bible, a letter, a photograph or a watch). Family members would arrive and ask where the bodies of their fallen sons might be and in the instance of such major battles as Antietam or Gettysburg, no one was able to say.

I think at some point the numbers of the dead in any wartime situation may become so large as to become incomprehensible to subsequent generations. The idea of losing one quarter of a country's population is stunning and hard to take in, if one hasn't seen it first hand.

>42 jillmwo: The major change that the British made after World War I was in recruitment. Previously local regiments recruited locally. The epitome of this was the "pals battalions", which were specifically organised so that young men who knew each other could serve alongside one another. The carnage of the trenches proceed the folly of that - the majority of a battalion might be wiped out in a day. After the War there were small villages with almost no young man. 2% overall, but that policy meant that locally, the death rate could be much, much worse.

Anyway, you have got me with your first BB of 2021. Now hunting a copy...

This year was a big nonfiction year for me. I found myself drawn to them more than fiction, in fact one third of the books I read were nonfiction.
These were some of my 5 & 4 star reads, in the order of my catalog, not necessarily in order of my preference:
Foundations of Flavor: The Noma Guide to Fermentation by Ren Redzepi (5*)
American in the Rough: the Autobiography of W. M. (Bill) Coffman by W.M. Coffman (4*)
Buried Cities and Ancient Treasures by Dora Jane Hamblin (4*)
French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork and Corkscrew by Peter Mayle (4*)
Fatu-Hiva by Thor Heyerdahl (4*)
The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck (4*)
Passage to Juneau by Jonathan Raban (4*)

In order to gain 5 stars from me, it has to have changed my life somehow, or have moved me spiritually. 4 stars means that I didn't want to put the book down while reading because I loved it.

>44 MrsLee: Thor Heyerdahl! His Kon-Tiki was one of my favorite childhood books! I've still got the copy I read as a child on my shelves, tho I haven't reread it in years - no, in decades.

I don't remember reading Fatu-Hiva, but this might be a good time to check it out.

>45 Storeetllr: I also loved reading Kon-Tiki when I was little. Have never revisited it though.

>45 Storeetllr: Yes, I read it too - my local library had that and I think one other of his books. I must have been in my teens when I read it.

>45 Storeetllr:, >46 -pilgrim-: & >47 Maddz: I've read 3 books by Heyerdahl, and enjoyed each one immensely. His enthusiasm is lovely to behold.

>45 Storeetllr: >46 -pilgrim-: >47 Maddz: >48 MrsLee: Same here, hard to believe how old that book is now.

Um, I did not know this book exists! I remember eating at a place in Phx named Kon Tiki, complete with palms and those gas llights. Looks like I need to read that!

>49 Karlstar: Parents had a copy, which I read when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, but it seems to have vanished in the last 60 years or so.

>51 hfglen: I also read the book and loved it. Like you, my copy has disappeared in the intervening decades.

>51 hfglen:, >52 pgmcc: I was inspired, aged 10, to attempt to build a scale model, out of the appropriate materials. That too has vanished in the intervening decades.

I think I tried Kon-Tiki as a teenager, but never made it through all the way. I had certainly heard of it before I tried the actual book itself.