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Non-Fiction: Home

Enjoy reading about real life? Here are some great picks.

Welcome!

Non-fiction books are about facts or true events. This guide focuses on non-fiction subjects and books that are often chosen based on personal interests, rather than for research. At WPL our most popular non-fiction genres are biography & memoir, cookbooks, self help, and true crime. We've also included a section called Our World, which features books in history, social issues and science.

Many other important and interesting topics have their own Info Guides. There are also new staff picks and lists on the Readers' Salon blog.

Pride all year

Pageboy : a memoir by Elliot Page
Real queer America : LGBT stories from red states by Samantha Allen
Sissy : a coming-of-gender story by Jacob Tobia
Dutiful boy : a memoir of a gay Muslim's journey to acceptance by Mohsin Zaidi
A two-spirit journey : the autobiography of a lesbian Ojibwa-Cree elder by Ma-Nee Chacaby
How we fight for our lives : a memoir by Saeed Jones
Unapologetic : a Black, queer, and feminist mandate for radical movement by Charlene A. Carruthers
Tomorrow will be different : love, loss, and the fight for trans equality by Sarah McBride
I'm afraid of men by Vivek Shraya
No ashes in the fire : coming of age black & free in America by Darnell L. Moore
When we rise : my life in the movement by Cleve Jones
Logical family : a memoir by Armistead Maupin
Why be happy when you could be normal? by Jeanette Winterson
Finding Masculinity Female to Male Transition in Adulthood by Alexander Lundberg Walker
Me, myself, they : life beyond the binary by Joshua M. Ferguson

Manitoba Book Award Nonfiction Winners 2023

Malleable Forms: Selected Essays by Meeka Walsh
Resilience: Honouring the Children of Residential School by Geraldine (Gramma) Shingoose
Exactly what I said: translating words and worlds by Elizabeth Yeoman

Great graphic non-fiction

Let's make bread! : a comic book cookbook Author: Forkish, Ken.
Give me space but don't go far : my unlikely friendship with anxiety Author: Weaver, Haley.
Woman, life, freedom by Marjane Satrapi
In love with art : Françoise Mouly's adventures in comics with Art Spiegelman by Jeet Heer
Shelterbelts by Jonathan Dyck
How about never-- is never good for you? : my life in cartoons by Bob Mankoff
I will judge you by your bookshelf by Grant Snider
Sapiens : the birth of humankind : a graphic history by Yuval N. Harari
Am I there yet? : the loop-de-loop, zigzagging journey to adulthood by Mari Andrew
The best we could do : an illustrated memoir by Thi Bui
How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you by Matthew Inman
Relish : my life in the kitchen by Lucy Knisley
Amazing fantastic incredible : a marvelous memoir by Stan Lee

Outstanding audiobooks

The Only Plane in the Sky An Oral History of September 11, 2001 by Garrett M. Graff
I'm Just a Person by Tig Notaro
You Can't Touch My Hair And Other Things I Still Have to Explain by Phoebe Robinson
Stay sexy & don't get murdered : the definitive how-to guide by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
In the dream house : a memoir by Carmen Maria Machado
Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern
How Not to Get Shot And Other Advice From White People and Doug Moe
In conclusion, don't worry about it by Lauren Graham
When they call you a terrorist : a Black Lives Matter memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
The greatest love story ever told : an oral history by Megan Mullaley and Nick Offerman
Dad is fat by Jim Gaffigan
When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

Staff picks

The beauty in breaking : a memoir by Michele Harper
Broken circle : the dark legacy of Indian residential schools : a memoir by Theodore Fontaine
You are here : around the world in 92 minutes by Chris Hadfield
The cowkeeper's wish : a genealogical journey by Tracy Kasaboski
Braiding sweetgrass : indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Over the top : a raw journey to self-love by Jonathan Van Ness
Thing explainer : complicated stuff in simple words by Randall Munroe
Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman
I contain multitudes : the microbes within us and a grander view of life by Ed Yong
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery
Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston

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