20 of TikTok’s Favorite Nonfiction Books

Investigative journalist Ronan Farrow recounts his investigation into Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuse against numerous women and the ways he evaded consequences. As Farrow attempted to break the story, his articles were quashed over and over again, he received threatening text messages, and people began following him. Despite this, his exposé is eventually published but with more difficulty in its aftermath.

Botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about nature and climate change in the modern day through the lens of practices and knowledge of Indigenous traditions. With insights into her personal life and beautiful writing, Braiding Sweetgrass wows readers.

Known as Emily Doe in the news reporting, Chanel Miller takes charge of her narrative as she recounts her experience of sexual assault by Brock Turner and the subsequent public trial where the defense tried to turn her into someone she wasn’t. Through court transcripts and personal recollection, Miller digs into her experiences, how she coped, and advocates for a better justice system for fellow survivors.

Ruth Reichel grew up reading Gourmet magazine, soon working as a chef and writing about food in various outlets as she moved into the food critic realm. At 51, she’s offered the editor-in-chief role at the very magazine that inspired her. But dealing with the adjustment of being managed to being a manager was a learning curve, one full of fumblings and challenges on the way to accepting her position of power.

Through a letter to his 15-year-old son, Ta-Nehisi Coates recounts experiences growing up as a Black man in West Baltimore and the separation he felt from most of white society. Attending Howard University, reading his father’s books, and current events are all touched on in this touching but unflinching book.

Surgeon Atul Gawande knows firsthand the ways medicine can fail people in end-of-life care. After his father was diagnosed with cancer, he was motivated to look into the history of care for the elderly and the way it falls short of what people need. Outlining the benefits and limitations of the options that exist, Gawande advocates for readers to plan ahead and think through these difficult decisions as soon as possible.

The word “love” has a fairly set meaning in today’s society, but hooks’s exploration of what love means challenges these societal perceptions and makes readers think in a new way where compassion and community are at the center of it. While some of the book is outdated since it was published in 1999, the concepts will help you reframe what love is and what you’re looking for.

The female employees at the radium Luminous Materials Corporation and Radium Dial worked for hours, painting watch dials. But quickly, the women started to experience side effects from the radium they worked so closely with. As governmental safeguards failed them, some turned to the courts to expose a system built to ignore and cover up the impacts of radium.

It goes without saying the Green brothers are TikTok darlings of sorts. John Green, author of mega-popular YA books, makes his debut in the nonfiction realm with these essays on what he finds amusing and worrying about the humanity we live among. Tackling environmental concerns, Scratch N’ Sniff stickers, and his own neighborhood, Green exposes the complicated nature of being alive at this moment in time.

As the title suggests, Three Women is about, well, three women and their experience with sex and desire over an eight-year period. Lina, a married housewife; Maggie, a young 20-something; and Sloane, a restaurant owner, all share their intimate experiences with intimacy, including their affairs, interests, and complex feelings about sex.

In 1972, during the Troubles in Ireland, a 38-year-old mother of 10 named Jean McConville was kidnapped from her home by IRA members and killed. As Keefe dug into her story, he revealed the culture and consequences of a society at war and the enduring pain in its aftermath.

Klosterman reckons with the ’90s, a decade of new technology, pop culture, and societal shifts that still impact the modern day. In the span of the decade, cell phones rose in popularity, the 9/11 terrorist attack shocked the world, and the internet took over what used to be wholly analog ways of life. Klosterman captures the feelings of living through the decade and looking back on it now.

Growing up the youngest of seven on a farm in rural Ohio, Tara Westover was kept away from society due to her father’s paranoia. As she became a teenager, her need for independence grew in the face of violence from her brother, and she applied to college at Brigham Young University, eventually earning a PhD from Cambridge. Westover’s story is one of triumph despite obstacles and the way education helped her do that.

Caroline Criado Perez exposes the ways in which our male-centric society has left women out of history and technology for hundreds of years. From the erasure of female athletes to the danger of crash dummies modeled after men and even the number of references to men in textbooks, Criado Perez shows the numerous ways our society is still skewed toward men.