While we've been looking back at our favorites over the last few weeks, to wrap up the year, let's take a peek at what our patrons have been reading the most. Below, I'll share the adult nonfiction titles that were published this year and checked out the most times. Obviously, this will be weighted towards books that came out earlier in the year since they've had more time be checked out over and over, but hey, no system is perfect!
I'm sure number one will surprise absolutely no one who has paid any attention to books this year, and number nine is impressive because while hugely popular, it's still so new. Have you checked out any of the nonfiction below?
Spare by Prince Harry
It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow--and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling--and how their lives would play out from that point on.
For Harry, this is that story at last.
Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness--and, because he blamed the press for his mother's death, he struggled to accept life in the spotlight.
At twenty-one, he joined the British Army. The discipline gave him structure, and two combat tours made him a hero at home. But he soon felt more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and prone to crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn't find true love.
Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple's cinematic romance and rejoiced in their fairy-tale wedding. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother. . . .
For the first time, Prince Harry tells his own story, chronicling his journey with raw, unflinching honesty. A landmark publication, Spare is full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.
Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully by Kelly Starrett
After decades spent working with pro-athletes, Olympians, and Navy Seals, mobility pioneers Kelly and Juliet Starrett began thinking about the physical well-being of the rest of us. What makes a durable human? How do we continue to feel great and function well as we age? And how do we counteract the effects of technology-dependence, sedentary living, and other modern ways of life on our body's natural need for activity?
The answers lie in an easy-to-use formula for basic mobility maintenance: 10 tests + 10 physical practices = 10 ways to make your body work better
The book offers:
- Easy mobilization practices to increase range of motion and avoid injury
- Intuitive ways to integrate more movement into your daily life and escape sedentary habits
- No-fuss guidelines for improving nutrition and sleep
- Basic breathing practices to manage stress and pain
- Quick and simple assessments to gauge progress and what needs improvement
- Tips and perspectives on healthy aging
It's full of foundational wisdom for everyone from beginners to professional athletes and everyone in between. Built to Move introduces readers to a set of simple principles and practices that are undemanding enough to work into any busy schedule, lead to greater ease of movement, better health, and a happier life doing whatever it is you love to do--and want to continue doing as long as you live. This book is your game plan for the long game.
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.
But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death--for whomever the court found guilty could hang.
Magnolia Table, Volume 3 by Joanna Gaines
Whether it's in the making, the gathering, or the tasting of something truly delicious, this collection of recipes from Magnolia Table, Volume 3 is an invitation to savor every moment. In Joanna's first cookbook, the #1 New York Times bestselling Magnolia Table, she introduced readers to her favorite passed-down family recipes. For her second cookbook, Magnolia Table, Volume 2, she pushed herself beyond her comfort zone to develop new recipes for her family. In this, her third cookbook, Joanna shares the recipes--old and new--that she's enjoyed the most over the years. The result is a cookbook filled with recipes that are timeless, creative, and delicious! Just as in her past books, within each recipe Joanna speaks to the reader, explaining why she likes a recipe, what inspired her to create it in the first place, and how she prefers to serve it. The book is beautifully photographed and filled with dishes you will want to bring into your own home, including:
- Honey Butter Layered Biscuit Bites
- Bananas Foster Pancakes
- Brussels Sprout Gruyére Gratin
- White Chicken Alfredo Lasagna
- Garlic Shrimp over Parmesan Risotto
- Peanut Butter Pie
- Brownie Cookies
Jackie: Public, Private, Secret by J. Randy Taraborrelli
Based on hundreds of interviews with friends, family, and lovers over a thirty-year period--as well as previously unreleased material from the JFK Library--Kennedy historian J. Randy Taraborrelli paints an unforgettable new portrait of a woman whose flaws and contradictions only serve to make her even more iconic. "I have three lives," Jackie told a former lover, "public, private and secret." In this revealing biography, readers will become intimately familiar with all three.
New insights from the book include:
· Jackie's cold feet before her wedding to Jack Kennedy and her secret plan to avoid moving into the White House with him.
· Jackie's plan to meet with the woman with whom her husband, Aristotle Onassis, was again having an affair, Maria Callas...and why, in the end, she decided against it.
· The truth about the nude photos of Jackie which scandalized her in the 1970s...and which family member had betrayed her by selling them.
· Her unusual relationship with Maurice Templesman, which was never what outsiders believed it to be.
· The never-before-reported, last-ditch efforts to save Jackie's life with experimental cancer treatments, and the doctor who wouldn't risk jail time in order to treat her.
Twenty-nine years after her death and sixty years after the assassination of President Kennedy, Jackie delivers the last word on one of the most famous women in the world.
Young Forever: The Secrets to Living Your Longest, Healthiest Life by Mark Hyman
Aging has long been considered a normal process. We think disease, frailty, and gradual decline are inevitable parts of life. But they don't have to be. Science today sees aging as a treatable disease. By addressing its root causes we can not only increase our health span and live longer but prevent and reverse the maladies of aging--including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and dementia.
In Young Forever, Dr. Mark Hyman challenges us to reimagine our biology, health, and the process of aging. To uncover the secrets to longevity, he explores the biological hallmarks of aging, their causes, and their consequences--then shows us how to overcome them with simple dietary, lifestyle, and emerging longevity strategies. You'll learn:
- How to turn on your body's key longevity switches
- How to reduce inflammation and support the health of your immune system
- How to exercise, sleep, and de-stress for healthy aging
- How to eat your way to a long life, featuring Dr. Hyman's Pegan Diet
- Which supplements are right for you
- Where the research on aging is headed
- And much more
With dozens of science-based strategies and tips, Young Forever is a revolutionary, practical guide to creating and sustaining health--for life.
Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World by Theresa MacPhail
Hay fever. Peanut allergies. Eczema. Either you have an allergy or you know someone who does. Billions of people worldwide--an estimated 30 to 40 percent of the global population--have some form of allergy. Even more concerning, over the last decade the number of people diagnosed with an allergy has been steadily increasing, placing an ever-growing medical burden on individuals, families, communities, and healthcare systems.
Medical anthropologist Theresa MacPhail, herself an allergy sufferer whose father died of a beesting, set out to understand why. In pursuit of answers, MacPhail studied the dangerous experiments of early immunologists as well as the mind-bending recent development of biologics and immunotherapies that are giving the most severely impacted patients hope. She scaled a roof with an air-quality controller who diligently counts pollen by hand for hours every day; met a mother who struggled to use WIC benefits for her daughter with severe food allergies; spoke with doctors at some of the finest allergy clinics in the world; and discussed the intersecting problems of climate change, pollution, and pollen with biologists who study seasonal respiratory allergies.
This is the story of allergies: what they are, why we have them, and what that might mean about the fate of humanity in a rapidly changing world.
Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages? In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.
The Woman in Me by Britney Spears
In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice--her truth--was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey--and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.
Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears's groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love--and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk
The most enduring feature of U.S. history is the presence of Native Americans, yet most histories focus on Europeans and their descendants. The long practice of ignoring Indigenous history is changing, however, with a dynamic new generation of scholars insisting that any full American history must address the struggle, survival, and resurgence of American Indian nations. Indigenous history is essential to understanding the evolution of modern America.
In this ambitious book Ned Blackhawk interweaves five centuries of Native and non-Native histories, from Spanish colonial exploration to the rise of Native American self-determination in the late twentieth century. In a transformative synthesis of recent scholarship, Blackhawk shows that European colonization in the 1600s was never a predetermined success, that Native nations helped shape England's crisis of empire, that the first shots of the American Revolution were prompted by Indian affairs in the interior, that California Indians targeted by federally funded militias were among the first casualties of the Civil War, that the Union victory forever recalibrated Native communities across the West, and that twentieth-century reservation activists refashioned American law and policy.
A full retelling of U.S. history requires much more than a reckoning over disease, violence, and dispossession--it requires acknowledging the enduring power, agency, and survival of Native nations to create a truer account of the formation and expansion of the United States. Studying and teaching America's Indigenous truths reveals anew the varied meanings of America.