Learn something new with these incredible nonfiction picks!
PRIDE AND PLEASURE: THE SCHUYLER SISTERS IN AN AGE OF REVOLUTION by Amanda Vaill
9780374254377 | 10/21/25
Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler, born to wealth and privilege in New York’s Hudson Valley during the latter half of the eighteenth century, were raised to make good marriages and supervise substantial households. Instead they became embroiled in the turmoil of America’s insurrection against Great Britain—and rebelled themselves, in ways as different as each was from the other, against the destiny mapped out for them.
Glamorous Angelica, who sought fulfillment through attachments to powerful men, eloped at twenty with a war profiteer and led a luxurious life, charming Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the Prince of Wales. Eliza, one year her junior, too candid for flirtation and uninterested in influence or intrigue, married a penniless illegitimate outsider, Alexander Hamilton, and devoted herself to his career. After his appointment as America’s first Treasury Secretary, she was challenged by the public and private controversies that followed her husband, not the least of which was the attraction that grew between him and her adored sister.
When tragedy followed, everything changed for both women: one deprived of her animating spirit, the other improbably gaining a new, self-determined life. “You would not have suffered if you had married into a family less near the sun,” wrote Angelica to Eliza, “but then [you would have missed] the pride, the pleasure, the nameless satisfactions.”
Drawing on deep archival research, including never-published records and letters, Amanda Vaill interweaves this family drama with its historical context, creating a narrative with the sweep and intimacy of a nineteenth-century novel. Full of battles and dinner parties, murky politics and transparent frocks, fierce loyalty and betrayals both public and personal, PRIDE AND PLEASURE brings two extraordinary American heroines to life.
THE SEA CAPTAIN’S WIFE: A TRUE STORY OF MUTINY, LOVE, AND ADVENTURE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD by Tilar J. Mazzeo
9781250352583 | 12/9/25
Summer, 1856
Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Patten and her husband, Joshua, were young and ambitious. Both from New England seafaring families, they had already completed their first clipper-ship voyage around the world with Joshua as captain. If they could win the race to San Francisco that year, their dream of building a farm and a family might be within reach. It would mean freedom. And the price of that freedom was one last dangerous transit—into the most treacherous waters in the world.
As their ship, Neptune’s Car, left New York Harbor and sailed down the jagged coast of South America, Joshua fell deathly ill and was confined to his bunk, delirious. The treacherous first mate, confined to the brig for insubordination, was agitating for mutiny. With no obvious option for a new captain and heartbroken about her husband, Mary Ann stepped into the breach and convinced the crew to support her, just as they slammed into a gale that would last 18 days. Determined to save the ship, the crew, and their future, she faces down the deadly waters of Drake’s Passage.
Set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush and taking us to the brink of Antarctica, THE SEA CAPTAIN’S WIFE finally gives Mary Ann Patten—the first woman to command a merchant vessel as captain — her due. Mazzeo draws on new archival research from nineteenth-century women’s maritime journals and on her own expedition to the Southern Ocean and Antarctica in search of Mary Ann’s route. Thrilling, harrowing, and heroic, THE SEA CAPTAIN’S WIFE is the story of one woman who, for love, would do what was necessary to survive.
THIS IS FOR EVERYONE: THE UNFINISHED STORY OF THE WORLD WIDE WEB by Tim Berners-Lee
9780374612467 | 9/9/25
Perhaps the most influential inventor of the modern world, Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a different kind of technologist. Born in the same year as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, he famously distributed his invention, the World Wide Web, for no commercial reward. Its widespread adoption changed everything—transforming humanity into the first digital species. Through the web, we live, work, dream, quarrel, and connect.
In this intimate memoir, Berners-Lee tells the story of his iconic invention, exploring how it launched a new era of creativity and collaboration while unleashing powerful forces that imperil truth and privacy and polarize public debate. With his trademark humor and candor, he recounts how he arrived at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, as a young engineer, and soon came up with the astonishing idea of adding hyperlinks to the then-nascent Internet. His goal was to unleash a wave of creativity and collaboration for the benefit of all—a goal he’s pursued to this day.
Peppered with rich anecdotes and amusing reflections, THIS IS FOR EVERYONE is a gripping, in-the-room account of the rise of the digital world. As the rapid development of artificial intelligence brings new risks and possibilities, Berners-Lee also offers a crucial guide to the decisions ahead—and shows how our digital lives can be reengineered for the sake of human flourishing rather than profit or for power.
NIGHTMARE OBSCURA: A DREAM ENGINEER’S GUIDE THROUGH THE SLEEPING MIND by Michelle Carr
9781250342720 | 11/18/25
People think of nightmares as something to forget about, to leave behind in the dark of night, to make our peace with having no control over. But over the past few years, bad dreams started showing up everywhere. Social media was filled with #CovidDreams and stories of how our suddenly bizarre and fearsome daily lives were interweaving into dream content.
Michelle Carr assures us that there is an upside to nightmares, an advantage to facing these inner demons at night, from helping us deal with difficult events in life to providing a safe space to practice responding to potential real-life threatening scenarios. At the extreme though, nightmares can seep into our waking lives and harm our mental health. This crossover is especially true for those who have faced significant trauma, but nightmares can interfere with anyone’s ability to regulate emotion.
Luckily, Carr explains, modern dream science is revealing how we can interact with the dreaming mind and illuminate the usefulness of nightmares. With dream engineering, we are learning to modulate the brain and body while asleep, to dampen negative emotion and interrupt the bodily stress of a nightmare, and to empower a sense of agency and freedom in both the dreaming and waking world. Drawing on her cutting-edge research as the Director of the Dream Engineering Research Lab at the University of Montreal, Carr shows us how to tap into our sleeping minds to lead more conscious and lucid lives.
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