20 Nonfiction Book Recommendations To Jumpstart Your Summer Reading Season

Every year I commit a column to describing a few nonfiction books that I deem worth reading. It used to be my top 15 I’d read that calendar year, then, as I failed to narrow it down, my top 20. Now I’m simply going to put out a list as soon as I get to 20 heartily worthwhile nonfiction reads.

As always, I’ll include links to lists from previous years at the end in case you need even more options, and even though I’ll link a lot to Amazon for ease of use on many of these titles, I’d encourage you to go to your local independent bookstore if you can to actually purchase any of these. With that, in no particular order, here are 20 nonfiction books I can recommend as worth your time this summer at the lake, on vacation, or nowhere in particular.

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King

The Minnesota GOP just held an ill-conceived moment of silence for convicted murderer Derek Chauvin, but even a monster like him almost looks like a Teddy bear compared to the crooked, racist cop at the center of this story. On the other hand, Thurgood Marshall and his noble colleagues might just restore your faith in humanity, not to mention lawyers.

The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures by Louis Theroux

Speaking of white supremacy, documentarian Louis Theroux focuses pretty heavily on it in this, his first book. Theroux has a pretty hot film out on Netflix right now about the manosphere, and here you can get some useful insight into his earlier work.

The Man They Wanted Me to Be: Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making by Jared Yates Sexton

We’re not starting out with traditional beach reads here. Still, wouldn’t you rather come home from the beach with a sunburn and a better understanding of how to combat toxic masculinity than only a sunburn?

A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played by Marshall Jon Fisher

Hey, tennis, that’s kind of summery. Nazis, less so. Unfortunately, Nazis play a prominent role in this drama, mainly in how they infected every area of life prior to WWII, including dictating who could and couldn’t play sports. That sound at all familiar?

Draw: The Greatest Gunfights of the American West by James Reasoner

Now here’s one that you really can breeze through while sipping a piña colada. I don’t know what it is about cowboys murdering each other in the Old West that makes for light reading. Some things just are the way they are.

Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson by Raymond W. Thorp Jr. and Robert Bunker

Part historical figure, part folk hero, all man: Liver-Eating Johnson is certainly not going to dispel any lingering toxic masculinity. As you can imagine, parts of Johnson’s saga are pretty racist. However, you will nonetheless be surprised, and, dare I say touched, at his broader arc of forgiveness.

Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie by Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty

The prairie has long been a neglected landscape. The authors try, and succeed, in portraying America’s once great prairies with the majesty they deserve.

The White Darkness by David Grann

While prairies were once wrongly portrayed as desolate, Antarctic can hardly be described in any other way. This snappy little adventure biography of an Antarctica obsessive is both exciting and moving.

By the Waters of Minnetonka by Eric Dregni

There is a lot more to the premier lake of the Twin Cities than a little fishing and boating. Prince had it figured out: so should you.

Greater Minnesota: Exploring the Land of Sky-Blue Waters by Patrick Hicks

Indulge me with another Minnesota-themed title on this list — it’s been a tough year for Minnesotans like me. We deserve to wallow in a little state pride. This one will take you well beyond the Twin Cities.

A History of New York in 101 Objects by Sam Roberts

I won’t leave out the Big Apple in my regional histories this year. I picked up my copy at a thrift shop on the Upper West Side, and it proved as idiosyncratic as the store it came from.

Resurrecting the Shark: A Scientific Obsession and the Mavericks Who Solved the Mystery of a 270-Million-Year-Old Fossil by Susan Ewing

This tale of getting to the bottom of a mysterious swirl of teeth preserved in stone is every bit as arresting as a detective novel. The world is a strange place, and it has been many strange places before. Submerge yourself in one of them.

A Rum Affair: A True Story Of Botanical Fraud by Karl Sabbagh

It’s not literally about rum, but feel free to go back to that piña colada from a few paragraphs ago if you’d like. You’ll get a stark reminder never to trust anyone who claims their supposed good character means they are necessarily honest in all things.

Newton’s Tyranny: The Suppressed Scientific Discoveries of Stephen Gray and John Flamsteed by David H. Clark and Stephen H. P. Clark

Also remember that a person being brilliant in one area of knowledge does not make that person decent or indicate that said person knows anything at all when it comes to other areas of expertise. Sir Isaac Newton was a dick. Although the advancements he made in physics were astounding for his time, he still managed to singlehandedly set our progress on electrical technologies back by at least a couple decades through his pure, unadulterated dickishness. Find out how within.

A Very Punchable Face: A Memoir by Colin Jost

I am very picky about memoirs. Fortunately I wanted to punch Colin Jost less by the time I finished his.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

I do still want to punch the cabinet member Colin Jost has been portraying on SNL lately, mainly because he seemingly hasn’t read this or anything else about successfully orchestrating a war. It’s really amazing how many of these lessons remain relevant today, and how little anyone in the Trump administration applied any of them in the war with Iran.

Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds by John Fugelsang

As much as I like John Fugelsang, I really didn’t want to read this book, because I already knew that the majority of people who believe themselves to be Christians do not even attempt to follow the actual teachings of Jesus Christ. It’s an important work, though, and is really useful in going right to the Bible to demonstrate how the phrase “conservative Christian” is an oxymoron. Too bad none of the people who need to read it the most will.

King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild

This is about as good an argument as you’re going to find against colonialism. Leopold’s sheer depravity shocks the conscience more than a century hence.

Gentlemen of the Woods: Manhood, Myth, and the American Lumberjack by Willa Hammitt Brown

Ah, the misunderstood lumberjack of yore. Meticulously researched, enticingly readable, this ballad of the Northwoods peels aside the misplaced romanticism to get right on down to the often harsh reality.

The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush by Howard Blum

A Pinkerton, a prospector, and a washed up grifter with one last chance to score big cross paths during the course of a series of grand adventures. It’s a delight.

Enjoy the summer. Here are the links to previous lists if you need even more nonfiction book recommendations:

20 Nonfiction Book Recommendations, Most Written By Women, For Holiday Gifts And The Year Ahead

15 Best Nonfiction Books To Read Yourself Or Give As Gifts, None Of Them Memoirs Or About Politics

15 Best General-Interest Nonfiction Books You Dare Not Overlook For Your 2024 Reading List

15 Of The Best General-Interest Nonfiction Books To Add To Your Reading List In 2023 And Beyond

15 More Excellent General-Interest Nonfiction Books Read During The Second Year Of The Pandemic

15 Best General-Interest Nonfiction Books Read During The Worst Year Of Everyone’s Life

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Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at [email protected].