Topic
Narrative Nonfiction
10 reading guides and book lists curated by the Editors Reads team.
10 posts
Where to Start with Isabel Wilkerson: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Isabel Wilkerson — whether to begin with The Warmth of Other Suns, Caste, or both. A complete reading guide to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
Where to Start with Laura Hillenbrand: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Laura Hillenbrand — how to approach Unbroken, her essential account of Louis Zamperini's impossible survival story. A complete reading guide.
Where to Start with Oliver Sacks: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Oliver Sacks — whether to begin with The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Awakenings, or his later memoirs. A complete reading guide.
Best Books About Adventure and Survival: Essential Outdoor and Wilderness Reading
The best books about adventure and survival — from Into the Wild and Into Thin Air to Life of Pi and Wild. Essential outdoor and wilderness reading.
Best Narrative Nonfiction Books: Essential True Stories
The best narrative nonfiction books — from The Devil in the White City and Say Nothing to Empire of Pain and The Warmth of Other Suns. Essential true stories.
Jon Krakauer Books in Order: Complete Bibliography & Best Starting Points
Jon Krakauer's complete bibliography in order — from Into the Wild and Into Thin Air to Under the Banner of Heaven. Best starting points for new readers.
Michael Lewis Books in Order: Complete Bibliography & Best Starting Points
Michael Lewis's complete bibliography in order — from Liar's Poker and Moneyball to The Big Short and The Undoing Project. Best starting points for new readers.
Books Like In Cold Blood: True Crime, Narrative Journalism, and the Criminal Mind
Truman Capote's account of the 1959 Clutter family murders in Kansas — and the killers who committed them — invented the true crime genre and the narrative nonfiction form. These books share its intimacy with violence, its literary ambition, and the moral problem of making art from real suffering.
Books Like Into the Wild: Escape, Nature, and the American Wilderness
Jon Krakauer's account of Chris McCandless — who gave away his savings, walked into the Alaskan wilderness, and starved to death — is one of the most argued-over books of the last thirty years. These books share its fascination with the person who rejects civilization, its love of wild places, and its unresolved question: was McCandless a romantic idealist or a fool?
Books Like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: Science, Race, and the Body as Property
Rebecca Skloot's account of HeLa cells — taken without consent from Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman who died of cancer in 1951, and used in medical research for decades — is the best science book written for general readers and the most important book about medical ethics in recent memory.
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