Nonfiction November 2026 | Challenge Word Brainstorming + Recommendations

For sample, A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage, which is essentially a curated sampling of six different beverages that are used to tell the story of the evolution of human history. That was also a really popular one and really fun.

And then also I liked All That She Carried by Tiya Miles for this one because it uses one object, this sack, that becomes the frame through which the much larger history of this mother and her daughter is reconstructed. That's another one I recommended to my mother.

And since we talked about medical puzzles, trying to come to a diagnosis, there's of course Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan. If you have you have not read that one somehow yet, that's a very popular non-fiction book. This might be a good one.

And she talks about her experience. That is such a fun book, and there's lots of wine sampling. So, I thought that one could be a good one.

Educated by Tara Westover could be a good one for sample. A memoir of survival, self-education, and family secrets.

I'm not sure anything could ever compare to Empire of Pain for me. I think that's always going to be my favorite Patrick Radden Keefe book.

That was a good one. That The Facemaker was. I think I preferred The Butchering Art by her, and she has a new one coming out as well.

Really, I think this one could apply to both root and puzzle since there's a mystery element to this of trying to figure out who she is because she thought she knew and that test proved otherwise.

For sample, Lab Girl by Hope Jahren. That's another one of my favorites.

I read that earlier this year, Helen. That was That was really good. But London Falling was really, really interesting.

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya von Bremzen, one of my all-time favorite non-fiction books. And this one talks about basically the history of food in the Soviet system, but it's tied into a memoir of her early life living in the Soviet Union.

She talked about the development of the modern shopping mall and also how a lot of them have fallen into disrepair, the zombie malls, and what they once meant in our society, in our culture. I thought it was really interesting.

She has another one called National Dish and she talks about different cuisine and how it's tied to different cultures. So, you get a sampling of foods and places and cultures from all around the world and how they tie into identity and nationhood. Really interesting.

Oh, for sample, Owls of the Eastern Ice. So good. That was a really good one.

That is a fantastic book. That I still That's one of those non-fiction books that really has stayed with me in my everyday life because she talks a lot, not to spoil it.

Also, The Science of Murder was a really fun one. that was Agatha Christie plus forensic science.

But this is the book that got me interested in John Singer Sargent. I was never really an art person or an art history person, but this is so well done. Love this book.

The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson could be a really good one for puzzle as well cuz that's a very bizarre crime and then the investigation into that crime trying to figure out why it happened. It has to do with feathers, more specifically feathers that were used in fly fishing, Victorian fly tying, which I did not know was a thing until I read that book.

The Forever Witness by Edward Humes could be a good one for both root and puzzle if you wanted to combine them, if you're not looking to read multiple books for Nonfiction November. But, that'd be a good one to knock two challenges out with one book.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks because they took a sample of her biological tissue, and that was used to push medicine forward, and her family did not benefit from it. That's another really popular one. So, if you've not read that one already, that this could be a really good moment for you to get into that.

That is a that's a good one, too. And that is also a dictionary book because that's about a man who contributed to the making of the OED.

That was a fantastic book and it was the best of the Jasons. I made a whole video about that if you didn't see it, but that is literal codes, cryptographic puzzles, so that is and it really takes you inside what those codes were and how they went about breaking them, which is so mind-boggling to me, so that one was absolutely fantastic.

So this one talks about it's four different species. It's what Potatoes, apples, marijuana, >> Tulips. >> and tulips. Yeah.

This talks about different cases that he worked. All the different bureaucratic nightmares he had to deal with in the coroner's office, especially at the end of his career. It wasn't quite as good as the science of murder, but it got close.

Please read that. Please. Please don't make me beg. You have to read that. I love that book so much.

Cory Stamper's newest book called True Colors, which again, I wasn't as much of a fan of as I was Word by Word.

There is of course Word by Word by Kory Stamper, which I did love very, very much.