Top 9 Best Selling Non-Fiction Books For Adults

The best selling non-fiction books served to gratify our wandering imaginations in a period when time spent trying new activities and meeting new people was still a rare pleasure. By both established and emerging writers, these works explore a wide range of topics, from the history of Black performance in America to the significance of the 19th-century Russian short tale to the personal anguish of losing a parent.

They're great histories, daring essay collections, moving memoirs, and superb literary criticism. Their variety is a value in and of itself, allowing us to explore and satisfy our interests. The best non-fiction books of all time are listed below.

1. The Kissing Bug, Daisy Hernández

Daisy Hernández's aunt moved from Colombia to the United States as a child to find a solution for a mysterious sickness that caused her tummy to swell. Many mistook her for pregnant. Hernández thought her aunt got sick after eating an apple as a child, and she didn't hear about Chagas disease until decades later.

Chagas disease, which is spread by "kissing bugs" that carry the parasite that causes it, sickens hundreds of thousands of individuals in the United States, many of whom are poor immigrants from Latin America, as Hernández explains in her well-reported book. 

She examines the history of Chagas and the lives of those who have been most affected by it, providing a nuanced and compassionate look at the linkages of poverty, racism, and the United States healthcare system.

2. Finding the Mother Tree, Suzanne Simard

Suzanne Simard, a pioneering forest ecologist, combines her biography with the trees she has studied for decades in her first book.

Finding the Mother Tree is both detailed and highly personal, especially as Simard delves into her fascination with trees and what it's like to work as a woman in a male-dominated sector. 

Her enthusiasm for the subject is evident on every page, culminating in a passionate cry to embrace our connection to the earth and do everything we can to protect it.

3. The Copenhagen Trilogy, Tove Ditlevsen

The Copenhagen Trilogy, first published in three parts in Danish between 1967 and 1971 and now available in a single translated volume, is a devastating picture of an artist.

Tove Ditlevsen reflects on her life in precise and ruthlessly self-aware terms, from her difficult upbringing during Hitler's rise to power through her discovery of poetry and eventually the collapse of her several marriages. Although the novel was written decades ago, Ditlevsen's portrayal of the complexity of womanhood is ageless.

4. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders

George Saunders is well-versed in 19th-century Russian short stories, having taught a course on the topic to M.F.A. students for two decades. He begins by reviewing seven classic works by authors like as Chekhov and Tolstoy to emphasise the relevance of fiction in our lives.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain commands the reader's attention in a world rife with diversions. Saunders begins by taking down a storyline by line—this process might be exhausting in less thoughtful hands. Still, Saunders invests so much emotion into the effort that it is simply enjoyable.

5. Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe

Empire of Pain is a riveting examination of three generations of the Sackler family from the author of the 2019 best book Say Nothing, which delves into Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

Patrick Radden Keefe delves into the Sacklers' infamous fortune, which they amassed by developing and marketing a medication that became the catalyst for the opioid crisis. It's a sprawling portrait of a family's colossal impact on the world—and a tenacious piece of reporting that exposes the heinous consequences of greed.

6. Aftershocks, Nadia Owusu

Nadia Owusu was born in Tanzania and reared in various countries, including England, Italy, and Ethiopia. She never felt at home anyplace. She begins on a tour de force investigation of her life in her heartbreaking memoir, which was marked first by her mother's abandonment when she was a baby, and subsequently by the death of her adored father.

Owusu picks up the shards of her life to make sense of it all by examining the people and places that moulded her. She creates an intimate and intelligent investigation of identity, family, and home in lyrical and luscious prose.

7. How the Word Is Passed, Clint Smith

Clint Smith, a poet and journalist, takes readers around the United States—from the Monticello estate in Virginia to a maximum-security prison in Louisiana—to highlight the legacy of slavery and how it has changed the country amid a discussion about what students should be studying about history.

The result is a fascinating examination of the relationship between memory, history, and America's continual struggle with its past, longlisted for the National Book Award.

8. Invisible Child, Andrea Elliott

Reporter Andrea Elliott has been following the coming-of-age of a child named Dasani, who has spent much of her life in and out of the New York City shelter system.

Dasani's life is riddled with inconsistencies—her Brooklyn shelter is mere blocks away from some of the borough's most wealthy real estate—and Elliott is relentless in her pursuit of them all. In excruciating detail, she situates Dasani's experience amid more significant concerns of inequality, homelessness, and racism in the city and, more broadly, the United States.

9. Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner

Her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer when Michelle Zauner, the creator of the indie-rock band Japanese Breakfast, was 25 years old. Her mother's illness broke Zauner's sense of self, and she was compelled to reconsider her relationship with her Korean culture.

Zauner explores for answers in her memoir about the forces that impacted so much of her life, frequently pondering on the food her mother prepared for her. The memories linked with these dishes—jatjuk, gimbap, galbi—move the story forward. Food becomes a devastating marker of her mother's decline, especially when chemotherapy prevents her from eating.

Crying at H Mart is a powerful and tragic depiction of a mother and daughter and their life. It is sincere and written in vibrant terms.