My favorite nonfiction reads of 2024

Total nonfiction titles read: 42. Five star earners: 7.

I track my reading in a homemade spreadsheet. (This might stem from control freakiness. I don’t trust Goodreads or Story Graph to organize my data precisely the way I want. 😅)

My five-star scale to rate books:

• Three is average, adequate: I’m not unhappy I finished. It was worth reading, just not great.

• Five is excellent: There’s no such thing as perfect, but these books exceeded expectations.

• I never really have ones because if a text is that disagreeable, I just DNF.

Five-star nonfiction books I read in 2024

That context laid: Here are my five-star nonfiction reads of 2024! (Listed in chronological order, not ranked by favorites. There’s no use comparing a five star to another five star.)

• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, memoir, finished January 20th

• The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser, memoir, finished January 28th

• Calypso by David Sedaris, humorous essays, finished February 18th

• The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell, cultural criticism/personal essays, finished May 19th

• 7 1/2 Lessons About the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett, neuroscience, finished May 24th

• Rethinking Rescue: Dog Lady and the Story of America's Forgotten People and Pets by Carol Mithers, animal welfare, finished October 15th

• Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words by Anne Curzan, linguistics/grammar, finished December 22nd

Four-star nonfiction books I read in 2024

Aaand here are my four stars for good measure.

• Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less by James Hamblin, health, finished February 1st

• Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie, climate change/environment, finished February 2nd

• Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid: The Fraught and Fascinating Biology of Climate Change by Thor Hansen, climate change/environment, finished February 10th

• Psych: The Story of the Human Mind by Paul Bloom, psychology, finished February 14th

• Moonwalking with Einstein by Josh Foer, memory, finished March 28th

• On Writing by Stephen King, writing, finished April 11th

• Know My Name by Chanel Miller, memoir, finished April 30th

• Cultish by Amanda Montell, language/psychology, finished June 25th

• The Vital Question by Nick Lane, evolution, finished July 1st

• No Judgment by Lauren Oyler, cultural criticism, finished July 11th

• Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show by Tommy Tomlinson, dog shows, finished July 30th

• A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains by Max Bennett, evolution/artificial intelligence, finished August 27th

• Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant, psychology, finished October 6th

• This Ordinary Stardust: A Scientist's Path from Grief to Wonder by Alan Townsend, grief memoir, finished October 21st

• Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, outdoors, finished November 1st

• Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer, social/philosophy, finished November 7th

• Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong, memoir, finished November 16th

• Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, psychology, finished November 19th

• The Ugly History of Beautiful Things by Katy Kelleher, history/culture, finished December 17th

• Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist by Frans de Waal, biology, finished December 26th

• The Modern Bestiary by Joanna Bagniewska, animals/zoology, finished December 29th