I’m re-reading Vera Brittain’s “Testament of Youth.” I first read it many years ago, and it’s absolutely one of the very best WWI memoirs. A movie version was released recently, and I’m looking forward to seeing it when it finally gets to my city next month.
Thanks @TatinG . You’ve saved me many hours. Life is too short for less-than-good books. 
Testament of Youth is one of my favorite books. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction so have not contributed to the thread, but had to pipe up to say that!
I read a lot. The following is an edited list of nonfiction books I’ve enjoyed over the last couple of years.
Are we including memoirs? If so:
The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls
Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison (memoir by an autistic person)
Lucky by Sebold (The Lovely Bones author – this is the truth of what happened to her)
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Hiding in Plain Sight by Lauer (about a Holocaust survivor)
Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant by Chast (graphic memoir)
Other than memoirs:
Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas
The Year of Living Biblically by Jacobs
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Schwartz
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Kahneman
Buried in Treasure by Tobin, re: hoarding
The Girls in the Balcony by Robertson, re: women at the New York Times
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Roach
Bonk by Roach
Assassination Vacation by Vowell
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Making the Mummies Dance by Thomas Hoving (head of Metropolitan Museum of Art)
A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary by Ulrich (Pulitzer Prize winner)
The Birth of the Pill by Eig
The Eve of Destruction by Patterson (about the year 1965)
VH, Look me in the Eye and The Glass Castle are both favorites. Have you read Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Wahls? Her grandmother’s life, more fantastic than her own in some ways. Many of your others have been on my list.
Columbine
Brain on Fire
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
@greatlakesmom, I did read Half Broke Horses. I enjoyed it, but not as much as The Glass Castle. You will enjoy Lucky by Sebold as well.
My recommendations are based on audiobooks:
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and InheritanceAug 10, 2004
by Barack Obama read by Obama himself. Loved his “voices” in it. He won a grammy for this recording.
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of LifeOct 27, 2009
by Alice Schroeder
Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to LeadMar 11, 2013
by Sheryl Sandberg
Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of FamilyOct 11, 2011
by Condoleezza Rice
My Beloved WorldJan 7, 2014
by Sonia Sotomayor
And I also agree with
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson -
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
The year of living Biblically by AJ Jacobs
I mostly read non fiction.
Our kids like to give books, non fiction for H this year included,
Packing for Mars:the curious Science of Life in the Void, by Mary Roach ( Stiff, Bonk, and Gulp),
and The Collector; David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest by Jack Nisbet.
I am looking forward to reading H is for Hawk by Helen McDonald,
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/books/review/helen-macdonalds-h-is-for-hawk.html?_r=0
I am partway through Five Days at Memorial( Life and Death in a Storm - Ravaged Hospital), by Sheri Fink, about decision made following Katrina. But a frustrating read for summer.
Im also reading to provide encouragment for purging our belongings that we have collected during the almost 40 years we have been together, is Stuff: compulsive hoarding & the Meaning of things by researchers Randy Frost & Gail Steketee,
and The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, by Marie Kondo. She was organizing her familys stuff, when she was still a kid!
For those who like mountaineering books, along with Krakuer, I would recommend Peter Zuckermans book, Buried in the Sky:The Extraordinary Story of the Sherba Climbers on K2’s Deadliest Day.
http://www.outsideonline.com/1913461/our-favorite-things-second-half-buried-sky
There’s also Sir Edmund Hillary’s book, “View from the Summit”. He’s written other books too. My H loved Krakauer’s book and Hillary’s.
It’s funny - Edmund Hillary and his family were beekeepers in New Zealand. If it was a good year, he would have extra money to go mountaineering. Not what you’d expect!
@emeraldkity4 I’m a +1 on Buried in the Sky. Great read.
Dan Brown books are really good. They are fiction, but they include a lot of historical information in a sophisticated and entertaining way
To add some more I enjoyed:
Unbroken - by Laura Hillenbrand. Incredible story.
For those who enjoy hiking (as I do) - a story of three young women on the John Muir Trail called “Almost Somewhere” by Suzanne Roberts. She doesn’t have the tremendous emotional issues Cheryl Strayed had in “Wild” so it’s more about the friendship and some mistakes with men, but it’s more light hearted.
I was looking forward to reading it too. It was interesting, but nowhere near as good as I expected.
Dos chicos, I’m glad you liked it.
It was written by a college friend of Ds, and his cousin.
I think he is now writing a book about those who have been imprisoned in Malawi, for their sexuality.
I like climbing books, another good author is David Roberts, although I havent read any lately.
They are making a movie about Brysons walk on the Appalachian Trail, with Robert Redford playing Bryson. Since it was published almost 20 yrs ago, I imagine Bryson was significantly younger than Redford, but he looks to be in pretty good shape.
Nick Offerman is also in it, I will be disappointed if he doesnt play a thru hiker who is foraging as he goes.
I like climbing books too although I’m not sure why as I am definitely not an adrenaline junkie and I think climbers, especially those with families, are kind of selfish.
@whuff24, the “historical” information in Dan Brown’s book is so distorted it is certainly not worth reading for any notion that there is anything factual in them. Certainly the supposed “facts” in the two books I read were mostly fiction.
I’ve read a good many if the books mentioned and wouldn’t quibble with any. A couple I have recently finished are “Granny Gatewoods Walk” about a 67 year old who hiked the AT back in 1955 with nothing much but her sneakers and a bed-roll. The publicity is seen as having helped the trail get funding when its existence was doubtful.
Second, " The Disappearing Spoon". Believe it or not, fun and funny reading about the periodic table. Yes, that stupid thing we struggled to understand in high school can be entertaining and elegant.
ETA - anything by Mary Roach is great reading, although she seems to need to add a “more than you wanted to know” sex chapter to them all.
Yes, I read the Mary Roach book on decomposing bodies, body farms and such. Very creepy. Can’t recall the name.
Oops, I forgot I just finished Tracey Kdder’s “Strength in What Remains”. About a young mad who escapes the genocide in Burundi and ends up graduating from Columbia and then finishing his medical training at Dartmouth and going back and building a clinic. Heart wrenching. Good follow up to Mountains Upon Mountains.