Wild Thing: The Life of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux. Insightful and beautifully illustrated.
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Marie Benedict is one of my go-to authors for historical fiction.
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Out of my top five, I’d say The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz by Anne Sebba gets first prize.
Other favorites were:
All The Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner
Camera Girl by Carl Sferrazza Anthony
The Jersey Brothers by Sally Mott Freeman
King by Jonathan Eig (especially special since I attended an in-person interview with the author during our vacation in Florida last March)
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I think I was recording several notes with The Wager because there was so much interesting background (I think you could say Etymology) on words and phrases related to the early days of sailing, such as feeling “under the weather”, etc.
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A tie between:
Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry by Austin Frerick
and
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Oh and Write Through It by Kate McKean as it was interesting to learn how publishing works (it’s geared toward aspiring authors). She writes like you’re listening to a friend. I can’t remember how I came across it, but borrowed it from the library on a whim and enjoyed it.
Barons and Careless People are really eye-opening. I wish I had done a buddy read for either as I found myself wishing to discuss what I’d read.
Here’s to hoping for more good nonfiction this year! 
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The Wager has been on my “to read” list since its publication! It has the longest holds on it for the library. I’d read his Lost City of Z first some years ago, then his Killers of the Flower Moon, both solidifying me as a fan of his.
I also read this book this year. I read this for a book challenge with a prompt to read a fiction and a non fiction book by the same author. It was inspirational.
I also read Clementine and really enjoyed it. It was so interesting to get a totally different perspective on Churchill and that period of time.
I would say ‘Solito’ by Javier Zamora, about his trek from El Salvador, across the US border. Irregardless of your stance on immigration, this is an inspiring, heartbreaking, scary, and eye-opening look into the immigrant experience. The non-fiction version of ‘American Dirt’.
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That was a great idea for a book challenge. You definitely picked well.
Place of Tides! So great!
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I totally agree with you about how eye opening Careless People was especially regarding FB.
Facebook did reconnect me with some high school and college friends but I deleted my account after reading Careless People. I only had a limited amount of friends but it started to be a burden because it became flooded with political opinions and recipes. I can see where it is beneficial for some people, but at my age and lifestyle it wasn’t for me. I simply did not have time to respond and now much prefer my communication about what to read on Book Browse.
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My favorite nonfiction was A Marriage at Sea based on their true story about a British couple whose boat sinks and they are stranded on a raft for almost 200 day! How do they survive and will their marriage emerge stronger or broken? Read it and find out!
I also like The Wager- riveting!
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Loved Place of Tides!
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Chip War by Chris Miller. This is a vivid history of a critical technology. The opening scene in 2020 positions a US destroyer at the northern end of the Taiwan Strait. Read this if you want to understand geopolitical tensions with China. The U.S. may not defend Taiwan because of a cold war mentality. It would probably defend Taiwan because of its control of advanced chip manufacturing.
I read this when it first came out and also thought it was timeless. I was so impressed by his ability to share his experience and the emotions in his journey with such clarity. He was so thoughtful in putting into perspective what was most important (and unrelated to neurosurgery) as his disease progressed.
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I loved Raising Hare and am just finishing Chasing Beauty, a biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner. I am determined to get to her museum this year!
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Thank you, Cathryn, for reminding me of The Warmth of Other Suns; I found it very interesting. I also really enjoyed The Churchill Girls: the Story of Winston’s Daughters.
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The Autumn Ghost: How the Battle Against a Polio Epidemic Revolutionized Modern Medical Care Hannah Wunsch
Intensive care units and mechanical ventilation are the crucial foundation of modern medical care and in The Autumn Ghost, Wunsch traces the origins of intensive care units and mechanical ventilation to the polio epidemic in autumn 1952 and more particularly, to the responses of doctors, nurses, and medical students in one overwhelmed hospital in Copenhagen which ultimately saved the lives of many polio patients dying of respiratory failure.
Their radical advances in care marked a turning point in the treatment of patients around the world—from the rise of life support and the creation of intensive care units to the evolution of rehabilitation medicine. Once I started, I couldn’t stop reading; Wunsch has created a riveting account of how people survived, recovered and adapted enveloped in a medical mystery story!
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My favorite nonfiction book in 2025 was Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn. When I started reading this story about a family from Germany who leaked information from Pearl Harbor to the Japanese I thought that I was reading fiction. I was wowed to learn that it all truly happened. Highly recommended.
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