Book Group Nonfiction
Looking for good books for discussion? These recently released nonfiction titles cover a variety of topics and viewpoints, and are sure to spark lively discussion in your book group! Created by librarians at The Seattle Public Library. Annotations by staff or from review sources as noted. (Created April 2025)
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Strangers in the Land
Luo celebrates the vitality and persistence of Chinese Americans while lamenting feelings of precariousness that pervade even today. His chronicle adds a much-needed Asian and Pacific voice to primarily Eurocentric narratives of nineteenth-century immigration. (Booklist)
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Is A River Alive?
A joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. (Publisher description)
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By the Fire We Carry
Digging into the 2020 Supreme Court case Sharp v. Murphy, which saw the return of tribal land to the Muscogee Nation, Nagle traces the history and repercussions of the forced displacement of Native people.
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Mood Machine
Pelly breaks down Spotify’s business model and treatment of artists, examining the way their streaming model has changed the industry and shaped listener behavior.
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Black in Blues
Digging into a wide range of history, art, and storytelling, Perry traces the multifaceted thematic connection of the color blue to Black identity.
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Lessons for Survival
In this collection of essays and reporting, Raboteau tackles the intersections around climate change anxiety, the pandemic, art, and motherhood.
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Vanishing Treasures
Literature, folklore, history, and science inform these profiles of 22 endangered species. Young and old will savor Rundell’s infectious enthusiasm for these remarkable and infinitely varied creatures. A clarion call for preservation by way of a delightful bestiary. (Kirkus)
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Knife
Rushie details his survival of a violent stabbing at an author event in 2022, reflecting on his physical and mental recovery and the role art plays in his life.
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The Wide Wide Sea
Recounting the final voyage of explorer Captain James Cook, Sides incorporates both an examination of the Age of Exploration and of changes in Cook’s outlook and demeanor in response to imperialist mandates.
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Bone of the Bone
Smarsh illuminates the lives of white, rural, working-class people struggling to get by in this collection of essays written over a decade of seismic shifts in politics and culture.
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