Thursday, July 23, 2026

This month’s best new popular nonfiction

 
Readworthy by BookBub
This Month’s Best New Popular Nonfiction
 
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Book cover for Hidden Creatures by Dino Martins
Meet Earth’s most misunderstood creatures in this weird, wondrous exploration of parasites
WHY IT’S READWORTHY:
  • Written by an award-winning entomologist and evolutionary biologist who serves as “an enthusiastic guide” (Kirkus Reviews)
  • Learn about how the tapeworm can grow 120 feet in length, how the tsetse fly can pierce crocodile skin, and more
  • “Simultaneously repulsive and intriguing, this will strike a chord with the insatiably curious” (Publishers Weekly)
Learn more...
Media mentions for Hidden Creatures by Dino Martins MEDIA MENTIONS: NPR, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist
GET EBOOK ON:
Amazon Other formats and retailers
Book cover for Our Wild Familiars by Dan Werb
How wild animals adapt to human communities — and how they change them
WHY IT’S READWORTHY:
  • “Enlightening and entertaining, this is a winning snapshot of wildlife that thrives in not-so-wild spaces” (Publishers Weekly)
  • From the chirping birds we hear upon waking to the raccoons we protect our garbage from at night, discover how wildlife shapes our sustainability and evolution as a species
  • “A wide-ranging, delightfully surprising, and often counterintuitive survey” that “examines… how cities change and are changed by the behavior of the undomesticated animals that make their homes in them” (Kirkus Reviews starred review)
Learn more...
Media mentions for Our Wild Familiars by Dan Werb MEDIA MENTIONS: New Scientist, New York Post, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, Literary Hub
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Amazon Other formats and retailers
Book cover for On Courage by Ami Fields-Meyer and Julia Angwin
A New York Times bestselling manual on defying authoritarianism
WHY IT’S READWORTHY:
  • Based on interviews with more than 100 dissidents, activists, and theorists around the world
  • Learn from a student who risked it all for democracy in Hong Kong, an immigrant working to save a US civil rights law, and many more
  • “There has never been a more important time for this book” (Booklist)
Learn more...
Media mentions for On Courage by Ami Fields-Meyer and Julia Angwin MEDIA MENTIONS: The New York Times/The New York Times Book Review, Next Big Idea Club, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Literary Hub
GET EBOOK ON:
Amazon Other formats and retailers
Book cover for How to Kill a Language by Sophia Smith Galer
‘A spirited reconsideration of language as a natural resource’ (Publishers Weekly)
WHY IT’S READWORTHY:
  • How do languages disappear — and can we reclaim them before they’re lost forever?
  • From Ecuador to Oman to Italy, travel alongside an award-winning journalist as she seeks to understand what’s at stake as speakers are drawn toward a consolidating list of languages
  • “Fascinating… [Smith] Galer casts a bright light on the massive linguistic diversity that the world seems set to lose” (The New York Times)
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Media mentions for How to Kill a Language by Sophia Smith Galer MEDIA MENTIONS: The New Yorker, The New York Times/The New York Times Book Review, Nature, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Times, New York Post, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal
GET EBOOK ON:
Amazon Other formats and retailers
Book cover for The Nord Stream Conspiracy by Bojan Pancevski
Get the story behind the biggest act of sabotage in modern history
WHY IT’S READWORTHY:
  • In 2022, a secret mission targeted the $20 billion Nord Stream pipeline system under the Baltic Sea — creating worldwide shock waves and a complex geopolitical mystery
  • “A high-stakes international war story in blockbuster prose… A spectacular feat of investigative journalism” (The New York Times)
  • This New York Times Editors’ Choice is based on unprecedented access to the Ukrainian agents who executed the attack as well as the German investigators of the incident
Learn more...
Media mentions for The Nord Stream Conspiracy by Bojan Pancevski MEDIA MENTIONS: PBS, The New York Times/The New York Times Book Review, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Kirkus Reviews
GET EBOOK ON:
Amazon Other formats and retailers
Book cover for Lost in Curiosity by Roberta Kwok
Delve into the messy, chaotic reality behind scientific discovery
WHY IT’S READWORTHY:
  • With praise from Pulitzer Prize–winning authors Elizabeth Kolbert (“lively and revelatory”) and Deborah Blum (“the kind of trip you won’t want to miss”)
  • Follow passionate scientists and researchers searching for frogs in the Bornean rainforest, seeking signals from outside our solar system, and more
  • “A clear-eyed but still inspiring look at the joys and frustrations of being a young scientist” (Library Journal)
Learn more...
Media mentions for Lost in Curiosity by Roberta Kwok MEDIA MENTIONS: Scientific American, Library Journal
GET EBOOK ON:
Amazon Other formats and retailers
Book cover for Data Empire by Roopika Risam
NPR calls this ‘an easy must-read’
WHY IT’S READWORTHY:
  • A Next Big Idea Club pick named a best book of the month by NPR, New Scientist, and more
  • Discover how data has functioned as the root of power — from the clay tablets of Mesopotamia to today’s Information Age — and how we can resist the powers that seek to control it
  • This “expansive and sobering history of the interplay of human data, conquest, and control” (Kirkus Reviews) serves as “both a historical survey and a call to action” (Booklist)
Learn more...
Media mentions for Data Empire by Roopika Risam MEDIA MENTIONS: NPR, New Scientist, Next Big Idea Club, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, Booklist, The Millions, Electric Literature
GET EBOOK ON:
Amazon Other formats and retailers
Book cover for Catch the Devil by Pamela Colloff
‘An unforgettable masterwork from the leading voice in American crime reporting’ (Gilbert King)
WHY IT’S READWORTHY:
  • After decades of cons, Paul Skalnik fed the broken criminal system even more lies — gaining his freedom and helping put multiple innocent men on death row
  • An award-winning reporter paints a “spellbinding” portrait (Time) of the remorseless manipulator and audacious jailhouse informant
  • “Unfolding in cinematic detail, Catch the Devil offers a riveting and disturbing account” (NPR)
Learn more...
Media mentions for Catch the Devil by Pamela Colloff MEDIA MENTIONS: Time Magazine, NPR, The New York Times/The New York Times Book Review, People, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Town & Country, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, Literary Hub
GET EBOOK ON:
Amazon Other formats and retailers
 
   
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