Non-Fiction

I. History & History of Science 

Prehistoric Times 

• Monarchs of the Sea: The Extraordinary 500-Million-Year History of Cephalopods by Danna Staaf
• Aquagenesis: The Origin and Evolution of Life in the Sea by Richard Ellis

Roman Empire

• Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland 
• A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome by Alberto Angela

The Middle Ages

• A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman
• The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico by Miguel León-Portilla
• Medicine & Society in Later Medieval England by Carole Rawcliffe 

Modern History

• Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution by R. R. Palmer
• Hiroshima Nagasaki by Paul Ham
• Empireland: How Imperialism Shaped Modern Britain by Sathnam Sanghera 

City History

• Rome: A History in Seven Sackings by Matthew Kneale 
• Five Points: The Nineteenth-Century New York City Neighborhood by Tyler Anbinder 
• The Big Oyster: A Molluscular History of New York by Mark Kurlansky 
• The World That Made New Orleans by Ned Sublette
• Hogenberg & Braun’s Cities of the World by Stephan Füssel (ed.)

History Through Objects, Concepts, & Pastimes

• Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet by Jennifer Homans 
• A People’s History of Tennis by David Berry 
• Milk of Paradise: A History of Opium by Lucy Inglis 
• The History of Chess in Fifty Moves by Bill Price
• Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World by Matt Al
• The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History by Craig Brandon 
• The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
• The Book of Circles: Visualising the Spheres of Knowledge by Manuel Lima
• The Book of Trees: Visualising the Branches of Knowledge by Manuel Lima

II. Music 

• Music in the Castle of Heaven: A Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach by John Eliot Gardiner 
• Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces by Laura Tunbridge 
• A Journey of a Thousand Miles by Lang Lang
• Year of Wonder: Classical Music for Every Day by Clemency Burton-Hil
• Mozart: The Man Revealed by John Suchet
• Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story by Nigel Cliff
• Talking Music: Five Generations of American Experimental Composers by William Duckworth 
• Fryderyck Chopin: A Life and Times by Alan Walker

III. Travel, Survival, & Anthropology 

• Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Neel
• The Innocent Anthropologist: Notes from a Mud Hut by Nigel Barley 
• Miracle in the Andes by Nando Parrado 
• A Visit to Don Otavio: A Mexican Odyssey by Sybille Bedford 
• Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircea Eliade 
• A Year in Marrakesh by Peter Mayne 
• Shamans, Healers, and Medicine Men by Holger Kalweit 

IV. Science, Space, & Universe 

• If Universe is Teeming with Aliens…Where is Everybody? by Stephen Webb 
• Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness by Bruce Rosenblum & Fred Kuttner
• A History of the Universe in 21 Stars (and 3 Imposters) by Giles Sparrow 

V. Medicine & Human Mind

• The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art by David Lewis-Williams 
• The Bilingual Brain by Albert Costa
• The Woman with a Worm in Her Head by Pamela Nagami 
• When Brains Dream by Antonio Zadra & Robert Stickgold 
• Mad in America by Robert Whitaker 
• Am I Dreaming? by James Kingsland 
• The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes 
• Shell-Shock: A History of the Changing Attitudes by Anthony Babbington 

VI. Philosophy & Religion 

• The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
• The Way of Zen by Alan W. Watts 
• Ethics by Benedict Spinoza
• Letters from a Stoic by Seneca 
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

VII. Film-Making & Literary Criticism 

• Making Movies by Sidney Lumet 
• The Films of Michael Powell and the Archers by Scott Salwolke 
• Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema by Robert Bird
• Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer by Paul Schrader

VIII. International Crime, True Crime, & Drugs 

• Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel by Tom Wainwright 
• A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Harkup
• Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano
• The Skies Belong to Us: Love & Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking by Brendan Koerner 
• The Only Living Witness: The True Story of Ted Bundy by Stephen Michaud & Hugh Aynesworth 

IX. Memoir/Biography

• Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance 
• The Railway Man by Eric Lomax 
• The Faithful Executioner by Joel F. Harrington 
• The Good Neighbour: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King 
• Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
• The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives by Christopher Harding