10 New Nonfiction Book Releases of February 2025

Sarah Chihaya built a life for herself centered around reading and teaching at the Ivy League level. But after she’s hospitalized for a mental breakdown, her world is turned upside down. Feeling adrift, Chihaya finds her way through books, and reading helps her discover herself again and rebuild her life.

Since I can remember, I’ve been watching Alton Brown on Food Network. His latest book is a collection of essays. Brown delves into his thoughts about everything from what makes the perfect roast chicken to behind-the-scenes tidbits from his work on shows like Iron Chef America, Good Eats, and Cutthroat Kitchen.

Lidia Yuknavitch shares how the trauma she’s experienced throughout her life has informed the way she creates art. Using her love of literature, she’s able to reframe her experiences and heal, restoring her soul in a whole new way.

In this series of micro essays, which are organized by types of candy, writer Sarah Perry contemplates everything from Edmund’s love of Turkish delight in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe to the demonization of “junk” food. This one-of-a-kind essay collection is full of delight and surprise, coaxing its readers to think of candy in a whole new light.

Back in the 1950s, Rich Benjamin’s grandfather was the president of Haiti. But after his grandfather was removed as president, Benjamin’s mother was smuggled out of the country. In his memoir, Benjamin shares what it was like growing up knowing little about his family’s past and how that impacted his life as a gay Black man coming of age in the United States.

Eve. L. Ewing argues that the United States’ public school system is a fundamental aspect of the system that creates inequality for Black communities today. Ewing discusses how the public school curriculum minimizes the horrors of American history and reinforces the racial hierarchy.

Shannon Luders-Manuel grew up as the biracial child of a white mother and a Black father. After her parents split, she spent most of her life with her mother’s side of the family. In her memoir, Luders-Manuel describes reconnecting with her father’s side of the family, a tumultuous process that didn’t go how she’d always imagined.

The moment a friend of mine suggested this book, I knew I had to have it. I am a sucker for all things Jane Austen. In Jane Austen’s Bookshelf, Rebecca Romney examines the women writers from Jane Austen’s own library, each chapter looking at a different woman writer who inspired Austen’s work.

Roxane Gay, the popular author who made her name with Bad Feminist, has pulled together feminist writing from across the centuries, giving readers a collection of fundamental writings of the feminist movement. Focusing on an intersectional approach to the topics, Gay presents readers with pieces of writing that center marginalized writers’ perspectives from a diverse range of backgrounds.

Omar El Akkad is known for his fiction work, but for the first time, he’s venturing into nonfiction. From his perspective as an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad describes his experience of the lies of the American Dream. He argues that while America claims to be the land of the free, its funding of violence in Palestine is one of many examples of America treating others as less than human. Over the course of the book, El Akkad grapples with what it means to be an American citizen while watching the violence that America’s tax dollars have funded.