#nonfiction

#nonfiction

This year I couldn't narrow it down to 15, so you get 20 recommendations. Call it literary inflation. Also, after last year's list was published, I got an email from a reader who decried that I had so few titles by female authors on my list (fair enough). This time I made a special effort to include a majority of books written by women.

"The stories that are most rewarding are often the ones that really fill you with a cold dread as you begin, because you're inventing something that doesn't lean into a template," the New Yorker staff writer tells Bustle. "It requires a lot more imagination, and I think it's perfectly natural to stop and think 'I could have just done this the easy way. Why didn't I?'"

Archaeologists have conjured vivid portraits of humankind's past from recovered relics, though experimental archaeology captures sounds, smells, and tastes that traditional methods cannot convey.

To read Rachel Clarke's The Story of a Heart is to experience an onslaught of often competing emotions, showcasing the medical marvels at play in tragic circumstances.