Nonfiction

Talking with Po Bronson

Decoding the World takes on some of our most vexing problems and the emerging technologies that may solve them.

Drive, He Said
Tom Zoellner’s The National Road seeks to take the measure of Americ…
Kindred Spirits
Lynell George channels Octavia E. Butler in A Handful of Earth, A Ha…
Live Through This
In A Kingdom of Tender Colors, Seth Greenland recalls his cancer dia…
The Wounds of History

Roberto Lovato’s Unforgetting chronicles public and private wars.
Mar 30, 2020
Laila Lalami Goes Deep

Conditional Citizens excavates the history of exclusion.
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Mar 30, 2020
Excerpt: Conditional Citizens

Laila Lalami reveals how California managed to shrink the pool of welfare recipients and expand the suffering of the poor.
Mar 20, 2020
True Stories of L.A. in the 1960s 

Mike Davis and Jon Wiener revisit the turbulence of Los Angeles in the 1960s—and come correct.
Mar 20, 2020
American Documentary 101

In Screening Reality, Jon Wilkman rethinks a film genre—and its history.
Mar 20, 2020
Spring 2020 Nonfiction Picks

E.J. Koh, Dinah Lenney, Harry Dodge, and Roman Dial take us into very real worlds with these nonfiction selections.
Mar 19, 2020
Excerpt: Monsters of Our Own Making

Luis J. Rodriguez's From Our Land to Our Land: Essays, Journeys, and Imaginings from a Native Xicanx Writer.
Mar 3, 2020
The Art of Rebecca Solnit’s Essay

What makes Rebecca Solnit’s essays so popular? That they’re probably so right. And that’s a problem.
Mar 2, 2020
Ginger Gaffney on Horses and Humans

The author discovers transcendence at an alternative prison ranch.
Feb 25, 2020
Nonfiction Picks for Winter 2020

Intimate and intense, these nonfiction selections are must-reads for 2020.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Feb 11, 2020
The Empathy of True Crime

Rachel Monroe discusses the radical empathy of true crime.
Jan 31, 2020
Diane Keaton’s Family Album

In a new memoir, Diane Keaton disassembles her family’s narrative.
Jan 14, 2020
What It’s Like to Have a Stroke
In this excerpt from his forthcoming book, Between Heaven and Hell: The Story of my Stroke, author David Talbot takes us through his ex…
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Jan 14, 2020
Talking with David Talbot

The author of Between Heaven and Hell discusses his stroke, his recovery, and what it means to restart his life.
Sep 30, 2019
On the Morning After the Sixties
Few are more deeply Californian than Joan Didion. Alta Books Editor David L. Ulin edited this except of The 1960s & 70s, the first in a…
Sep 30, 2019
The End of the World As We Know It

In Erosion, Terry Tempest Williams bears unflinching witness to what gets stripped away.