Narrative Non-Fiction Book Group

Narrative Nonfiction Book Club 2025!

Consider this your invitation to read and discuss narrative nonfiction with us! We will be reading across the genres of nonfiction, from history to adventure, memoir/biography, and beyond with books that read like a novel. You can view our past book club picks by clicking here.

Our book club meets on the 1st Saturday of the month from 11:00am to 12:00pm in the Hermann meeting room. Copies of our latest book pick will be available one month prior to our book club meeting date at the adult service desk. Stop on by to pick up a copy and to register to attend our book club meeting. You can also register online by going to our event calendar or by clicking on the book club dates in the table below. Please contact the Adult Services department at 508-457-2555 x 7 or info@falmouthpubliclibrary.org for any questions.

Narrative Nonfiction Book Club 2025 Book Picks

DateBook
May 3, 2025The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson (NYT Bestseller)
"On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln's election and the Confederacy's shelling of Sumter, a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals."
June 7, 2025The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight by Andrew Leland (2024 Pulitzer Prize Finalist)
"In a book that is part memoir, part historical and cultural investigation, the author, midway through his life with retinitis pigmentosa, explores the state of being that awaits him, not only the physical experience of blindness but also its language, politics and customs so he can not only survive this transition but grow from it."
July 12, 2025Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves by Nicola Twilley
"In Frostbite, New Yorker contributor and cohost of the award-winning podcast Gastropod Nicola Twilley takes readers on a tour of the cold chain from farm to fridge, visiting off-the-beaten-path landmarks such as Missouri’s subterranean cheese caves, the banana-ripening rooms of New York City, and the vast refrigerated tanks that store the nation’s orange juice reserves. Twilley’s eye-opening book is the first to reveal the transformative impact refrigeration has had on our health and our guts; our farms, tables, kitchens, and cities; global economics and politics; and even our environment."
August 2, 2025Cue The Sun! The Invention of Reality TV by Emily Nussbaum (2025 Andrew Carnegie Finalist)
"From beloved New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum comes a groundbreaking narrative detailing the fights, egos, drama, and future presidents of reality television. Cue the Sun is a rollicking, deeply reported story about how the early reality TV business metastasized into an industry that now dominates entertainment in the United States. Through extensive interviews, Nussbaum follows the reality TV industry from its inception with shows like Candid Camera to its 90s heyday and 00s aftermath and dives into some of the industry's most remarkable stories."
September 6, 2025Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie (2024 National Book Award Finalist)
"The internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner speaks out for the first time about the traumatic events of August 12, 2022, when an attempt was made on his life, in this deeply personal meditation on violence, art, loss, love and finding the strength to stand up again."
October 4, 2025The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story by Lily Koppel (NYT Bestseller)
"As America's Mercury Seven astronauts were launched on death-defying missions, television cameras focused on the brave smiles of their young wives. Overnight, these women were transformed from military spouses into American royalty. The Astronaut Wives Club tells the real story of the women who stood beside some of the biggest heroes in American history."