Abundance argues that many modern shortages—from housing and workers to clean energy and chips—stem not from conspiracies but from a failure to build and adapt: past rules and fixes have become obstacles to new solutions. Klein and Thompson examine political, regulatory, and cultural barriers across sectors and call for a mindset and institutions that prioritize construction, scaling, and practical problem-solving over preservation and restraint.

Omar El Akkad offers a personal reckoning with the gap between Western ideals and the realities faced by Black, Brown, and Indigenous Americans and younger generations. Drawing on his experience as an emigrant and journalist, he frames a heartfelt "breakup letter" with the West, exploring how trust in Western institutions has eroded and how that rupture shows up on college campuses and city streets.

Yiyun Li reflects on the deaths of her two sons and her attempts to live alongside that loss. Through writing, gardening, reading philosophy, learning piano, and close attention to language and thought, she examines what it means to continue "being" after a loved one is gone, offering intimate, meditative observations without revealing private details.

During lockdown, speechwriter Chloe Dalton rescues an orphaned leveret and forms an unexpected companionship with a wild hare. The memoir follows their evolving relationship and reflects on freedom, trust, loss, and our connection to the natural world, while also exploring hare behavior and their place in culture and folklore.

Arundhati Roy reflects on her relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, exploring how childhood in Kerala and her mother’s fierce presence shaped her life and work. Written after Mary’s death, the memoir navigates complex feelings—love, anger, grief and admiration—without revealing plot details. Intimate, candid, and often quietly humorous, it examines how personal history forms identity and writing.

Nicholas Boggs’s Baldwin examines how James Baldwin’s intimate and artistic relationships—including his mentor Beauford Delaney, his partner Lucien Happersberger, and collaborators Engin Cezzar and Yoran Cazac—influenced his life and writing. Using archival material, the book traces how geographic, cultural, political, artistic, and erotic ties shaped Baldwin’s work and its place in Civil Rights and Black and queer literary history.

A Truce That Is Not Peace is a memoir in which Miriam Toews reflects on her sister’s suicide and the ways memory, language, and humor shape a life. Through short, inventive pieces she wrestles with grief, guilt, and the question of why artists write, offering an intimate, unsentimental exploration of loss without revealing plot details.

A Flower Traveled in My Blood follows the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo and one family’s search for a grandchild taken during Argentina’s 1976–1983 dictatorship. Centering on Rosa and her daughter Patricia—a pregnant activist who was disappeared—the book chronicles how the grandmothers investigate, confront officials, and help pioneer genetic tools to identify stolen children. It is a tightly reported, compassionate account of loss, resilience, and the fight to reclaim identity and justice.

We the People argues that the practice of amending the U.S. Constitution is central to American democracy. Jill Lepore challenges the idea that the Constitution is a fixed document or that interpretation should be left solely to the Supreme Court, showing that the framers expected future generations to tinker with and improve the nation’s governing framework. The book traces generations of Americans who sought constitutional reforms—from proposals to change the Electoral College to campaigns for new rights—framing amendment as a democratic tool for repairing and renewing government.

There Is No Place for Us follows five Atlanta families who work but struggle to keep a roof over their heads as rising rents, low wages, and gentrification push them into cars, motels, and other precarious housing. Through intimate, narrative reporting, Brian Goldstone traces how these parents and children manage jobs, school, and daily life while facing displacement, highlighting a broader “working homeless” crisis often hidden from official counts. The book outlines the causes and human consequences of this trend and raises questions about access to stable housing.

Murderland investigates the surge of serial killings in the Pacific Northwest during the 1970s and 1980s, profiling figures such as Ted Bundy and other notorious perpetrators. The book examines how social forces and regional industrial pollution—notably smelter emissions—may have intersected with those crimes, offering a historical, spoiler-free look at violence in that landscape.

Girl on Girl looks at how late-1990s and early-2000s pop culture—from music videos and fashion to tabloids and the early internet—fostered sexualization, competition, and hostility toward women. Through close cultural analysis, the book traces how these trends normalized objectification and left lasting effects on how women are seen and treated.

After her partner’s sudden death, a writer is left grappling with practical demands and little space to grieve. She later retreats to a remote Australian island to mourn, reflect on mourning practices from other cultures, and search for rituals and ways to rebuild a life around the absence. The memoir is an intimate, spare exploration of love, loss, and the work of grieving.

Dark Renaissance traces Christopher Marlowe’s rise from a humble background to become a provocative Elizabethan dramatist whose bold poetry and plays challenged religious, political, and moral conventions. The book examines his ties to the queen’s intelligence service and the intellectual circles around him, showing how his daring imagination and skepticism helped reshape English literature, language, and culture without revealing plot details.

Set in the middle years of the American Revolution, The Fate of the Day follows George Washington and the Continental Army as they struggle with shortages, harsh winters, and the pressures of sustained war while diplomats like Benjamin Franklin work to secure foreign aid. It covers major campaigns and battles—including Brandywine, Saratoga, and Charleston—and the winter at Valley Forge, highlighting the military, political, and diplomatic challenges of the conflict. The narrative focuses on leadership, sacrifice, and the hardships involved in forging a new nation.

Journalist Julia Ioffe explores modern Russia through the lives of its women. Drawing on her own return to Moscow and on stories from revolutionary feminists, wartime fighters, single mothers, and contemporary activists, she traces how women's roles shifted from Soviet-era professionals to post‑Soviet expectations of domesticity and how those social changes relate to broader political developments. Part memoir, part reportage and history, the book uses personal and historical vignettes to illuminate Russia’s recent transformations without revealing its outcomes.

A candid, often darkly funny memoir from a former Facebook executive that offers an insider’s look at life inside a tech giant. Wynn-Williams recounts elite encounters, workplace sexism, the strains of working motherhood, and how decisions and company culture at the top shaped both employees’ lives and broader events—without revealing specific outcomes.

Mother Emanuel recounts the history of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston—from its founding in 1817 through enslavement, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights era—culminating in the 2015 shooting that killed the pastor and eight worshippers. The book traces how the congregation helped shape a distinct Black Christian tradition, and shows how its members' resilience, faith, and acts of forgiveness reflect larger struggles and changes in American racial history.

Strangers in the Land follows Chinese migrants who came to “Gold Mountain” in the mid-19th century, the violent backlash and exclusionary laws they encountered on the American West Coast, and the community leaders who resisted. It recounts episodes of racial terror, legal exclusion, and forced expulsions, and traces the long arc to mid-20th-century immigration changes and the persistent legacy of being treated as “strangers” in the United States.

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson’s Claire McCardell is a concise biography of the American designer who reshaped midcentury womenswear by prioritizing comfort, practicality, and independence. The book traces McCardell’s innovations—separates, accessible fastenings, pockets, and relaxed silhouettes—alongside her professional rise and personal choices that challenged gender expectations and helped define American sportswear.

Set in 1996 as the US prepares the Defense of Marriage Act, Deep House follows Jeremy’s relationship with a British lover and the precarious choices they make to stay together when the law denies same-sex couples federal protections like immigration. The narrative moves through cities, clandestine apartments, and nightlife scenes while tracing a lineage of gay men who found ways to live and love outside legal recognition. Blending tenderness and sharp humor, the book examines intimacy, domesticity, and the systems that decide which relationships are legitimized.

Neko Case’s memoir traces her journey from a poverty-stricken childhood in rural Washington to her emergence as a musician, exploring how solitude, nature, music, and friendships shaped her identity. It’s a candid, lyrical reflection on creativity, resilience, and making space for oneself.

Margaret Atwood’s Book of Lives is a compact memoir tracing the experiences that shaped her voice — a nomadic childhood in the forests of northern Quebec with scientifically minded parents, pivotal relationships (including life with writer Graeme Gibson), and the moments that fed her imagination. Through linked episodes and reflections, she shows how place, memory, and people influenced her work, without revealing the plots of her novels.

Black Moses chronicles Edward McCabe, a Black businessman and political leader who promoted founding a state within the Union governed by Black people. Set during and after the Civil War and Reconstruction, it follows his efforts to recruit Black settlers to Oklahoma and to lobby politicians, and examines the racial, political, and economic obstacles his movement faced as Black Americans sought land and self-governance.

When It All Burns follows wildland firefighter and anthropologist Jordan Thomas through a brutal six-month season with the Los Padres Hotshots. Blending frontline, vividly rendered firefighting experiences with ecological and historical context, Thomas examines how Indigenous dispossession, federal forestry practices, and the growth of industrial firefighting have reshaped wildfire into a new climate-era threat. The book is an immersive, human portrait of crews, communities, and the forces driving today’s megafires.