The Must-Read Nonfiction Books of 2026 (So Far)

In 2024, Belle Burden wrote a New York Times op-ed decrying Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Swans vs. Capote for depicting a shallow portrayal of her late grandmother, the socialite Babe Paley. She wrote that she wished Paley had been able to tell her own story, especially about her husband’s betrayals. Now, Burden is taking her own advice with her memoir Strangers, about her husband’s sudden and shocking departure from their marriage and family at the start of the pandemic in 2020. The book examines how we view intimacy, how the people closest to us can change without us knowing, and how to move forward in the wake of devastation.

Lena Dunham returns with her second memoir since 2014’s Not That Kind of Girl, which was published at the height of her Girls fame (and infamy). Famesick looks back on that time with the wisdom of hindsight, asking whether all her success has been worth the price she’s paid. Told in three parts, beginning with selling the Girls pilot to the present, Dunham contends with her ambition, relationships, and chronic physical and mental illnesses in the way only she can: with ruthless self-deprecation and a healthy dose of humor.

Christina Applegate grew up in Laurel Canyon in the ’70s and ’80s—a free but chaotic world that she found reprieve from as a child actor. Early gigs turned into a decades-long career, with roles on the hit sitcom Married... with Children and in films like Anchorman and Dead to Me. But a 2021 Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis left her bedridden and forced to face issues she’d long avoided, including a lifetime of struggles with body dysmorphia, the discomfort of growing up in the spotlight, and complicated family dynamics. You With the Sad Eyes is Applegate’s confrontation with herself, Hollywood, and her past.

In Liza Minnelli’s Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!, the 79-year-old EGOT winner finally tells her story for the first time. The memoir takes readers through Minnelli’s childhood with her mother, Judy Garland, her meteoric, prolific career, struggles with substance abuse and financial precarity, and her fascinating love life. Minnelli long vowed never to write about her life, but recently, she told People that she felt documentaries about her “didn’t get it right,” having been made by people who “didn’t know my family and don’t really know me.” So, she said, “Finally, I was mad as hell. Over dinner one night, I decided, it’s my own damn story, I’m going to share it with you because of all the love you’ve given me.”

Fred Brathwait aka Fab 5 Freddy tells his story with Everybody’s Fly (a reference to the first line of Blondie’s “Rapture,” of course). The legendary artist has stood at the center of pivotal moments in pop culture with a unique gift for translating his message to the masses. As a pioneer of graffiti and hip hop—and their intersection with fashion and film—Freddy has been both a catalyst and a connector, working with fellow artists like Basquiat, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and the Clash during the height of the new wave. Everybody’s Fly is a journey through that time.

Millions of readers are familiar with the works of Judy Blume, who, with classics like Deenie and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret proved that children’s literature can be elevated, accessible, and enduring works of art. Fewer know the woman behind the books, but Mark Oppenheimer’s new biography sets out to change that. Blume worked closely with Oppenheimer, participating in candid, intimate interviews and sharing personal archival material, including early unpublished short stories. The book traces the 87-year-old icon’s 1950s childhood, her relationships and marriages, and her journey as one of the most famous writers of all time.

Cultural critic Jamilah Lemieux takes an oft-disparaged figure, the Black single mother, and pays her the respect she deserves. Personal essays, cultural and historical analysis, and twenty-one first-person testimonies speak to the wide-ranging experience of Black single motherhood, celebrating the strength required to be a matriarch and challenging ignorant tropes.

The first memoir from Brandy, the Grammy-winning icon of the ’90s and 2000s, peels back the curtain on her early rise to fame. It can be easy to forget just how young Brandy was when she first found success, scoring her first record deal at fourteen, making a platinum album at fifteen, and starring on Moesha and in Cinderella (as the first Black actress to play the role, going toe-to-toe vocally with Whitney Houston, no less) at fifteen. Phases chronicles these times, telling the story of a girl growing up under the unimaginable pressure of fame and massive success.

Cazzie David’s follow-up to her 2020 collection of essays, No One Asked For This, confronts the looming deadline of turning 30. It’s one of the first birthday milestones culturally prescribed to provoke a sense of dread, but David isn’t convinced that entering a new era of adulthood has to be all bad. With essays that employ her signature sharp humor to riff on the pressure to settle down with a partner, the ails of social media, and the looming specter of body dysmorphia, she puts into words what so many are feeling at this age.