There's nothing like a good book of nonfiction to expand the mind—and the heart. Whether it's a deeply reported investigation into a timely topic or poignant memoir about one writer's lived experience, nonfiction challenges us, informs us, and moves us. Here are 21 of our favorite nonfiction reads of 2019, spanning topics like gender, true crime, and scammer culture.

1 No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us, by Rachel Louise Snyder amazon.com $28.00 $19.69 (30% off) SHOP NOW A veteran journalist exposes just how ubiquitous and insidious America’s domestic violence epidemic truly is—in fact, she argues, it shapes a startling number of our most pressing national issues. Through stories of victims, abusers, and law enforcement officers, Snyder illustrates the role domestic violence plays in such national emergencies as mass shootings, mass incarceration, and sexual violence. Gut-wrenching, required reading.

2 Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster amazon.com $27.00 $18.83 (30% off) SHOP NOW This singular work of narrative journalism reads like fiction, so intimate is its access to the emotional and erotic lives of the women contained therein. Eight years of immersive reporting on the front lines of female desire gave Taddeo exhaustive access to three complicated women—a homemaker exploring an affair outside her loveless marriage, a restaurateur experiencing consequences for the threesomes she pursues with her husband, and a high school student coming forward with the wrenching truth about a teacher who seduced and devastated her. A heartbreaking, gripping, astonishing masterpiece, Three Women is destined to join the canon both of journalistic excellence and feminist literature.

3 Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, by Jia Tolentino amazon.com $27.00 $19.79 (27% off) SHOP NOW From The New Yorker’s beloved cultural critic comes a bold, unflinching collection of essays about self-deception, examining everything from scammer culture to reality television. Tolentino is among our age’s finest essayists, dissecting the foibles that animate our modern lives with wit, intellectual rigor, and empathy.

4 Nobody's Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs, and Trolls, by Carrie Goldberg amazon.com $27.00 $18.59 (31% off) SHOP NOW In the age of doxxing, revenge porn, and misogynist trolls, this book from Goldberg, a victims’ rights lawyer litigating against online harassment, is required reading. Goldberg shares stories of the heinous abuses her clients have suffered, classifying offenders into four groups: assholes, psychos, pervs, and trolls. At the same time, she warns of an impending crisis, and stresses the dire need for a legal framework to transform the internet from a lawless Wild West into a safer space with clearer consequences. In telling these wrenching stories, Goldberg gives voice to the legions who have experienced unthinkable violence.

5 Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession, by Rachel Monroe Scribner amazon.com $26.00 $14.69 (43% off) SHOP NOW For true crime fanatics and Law & Order superfans, Monroe has written a brilliant book where cultural criticism meets sociological survey in a methodical examination of just what it is about murder that obsesses us. Through four case studies, Monroe explores why women in particular are drawn to the grotesque celebrity of true crime, and what those violent delights say about our culture.

6 She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement, by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey amazon.com $12.99 SHOP NOW In October 2017, Kantor and Twohey helped to ignite a global movement against sexual harassment and abuse through their Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting on Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct. In She Said, they pull back the curtain on months of gumshoe reporting, while also investigating the structural tools of complicity that inoculate abusers from consequences. Kantor and Twohey even-handedly assess the impact of the #MeToo movement thus far while also turning a perceptive, hopeful eye on the way forward.

7 Make It Scream, Make It Burn: Essays, by Leslie Jamison amazon.com $28.00 $20.49 (27% off) SHOP NOW The acclaimed essayist returns to her signature cocktail of memoir, journalism, and cultural criticism in this dazzling collection about the outer reaches of human connection. Jamison reports on surprising subjects, such as lonely whales and break-up museums, while also turning her eye inward for a poignant meditation on her own experiences of marriage, giving birth, and becoming a stepmother. Acute in her analysis and nourishing in her observations, Jamison is at the height of her powers here as she investigates what we owe one another.

8 Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl: A Memoir, by Jeannie Vanasco amazon.com $25.95 $15.79 (39% off) SHOP NOW In this singular, gutting memoir, perhaps the most important book of the season, Vanasco interviews her own rapist. Fourteen years later, Vanasco and the high school friend who raped her struggle together through the landmines of a harrowing conversation about consent, betrayal, and rehabilitation. This book lives masterfully in the messy, liminal space between punishment and forgiveness, asking us to consider the path forward from the unthinkable.

9 In the Dream House: A Memoir, by Carmen Maria Machado amazon.com $26.00 $19.94 (23% off) SHOP NOW Fresh off the staggering success of Her Body and Other Parties, Machado returns with this formally daring memoir of domestic abuse. Pinballing through forms, Machado turns an abusive relationship over and over in her mind’s eye, evaluating it through such varied tropes and lenses as erotica, fairy tales, and Star Trek. Daring, chilling, and unlike anything else you’ve ever read, In the Dream House is a singular accomplishment.

10 The Witches Are Coming, by Lindy West amazon.com $27.00 $20.34 (25% off) SHOP NOW With her signature wit, brio, and laser-like clarity of vision, one of our foremost thinkers on gender unveils her unifying theory of America: that our steady diet of pop culture created by and for embittered, entitled white men has stoked our sociopolitical moment. Adam Sandler, South Park, and Pepe the Frog all come under West's withering scrutiny in this funny, hyper-literate analysis of the link between meme culture and male mediocrity.

11 For the Love of Men: A New Vision for Mindful Masculinity, by Liz Plank amazon.com $27.99 $18.29 (35% off) SHOP NOW It’s a man’s world, but as Liz Plank argues in this timely, gimlet-eyed book about toxic masculinity, men aren’t exactly enjoying the emotional repression and strict gender roles that have become their MO. With sparkling wit and razor-sharp cultural criticism, Plank investigates toxic masculinity and the threat it poses not just to women, children, and society, but to the emotional wellbeing of men themselves.

12 Formation: A Woman's Memoir of Stepping Out of Line, by Ryan Leigh Dostie amazon.com $28.00 $20.49 (27% off) SHOP NOW In this gutting war memoir, an army linguist raped by a fellow soldier recounts her harrowing journey to seek justice from a man’s world hellbent on burying the truth. In a genre with a pitiful dearth of writing by women, Dostie’s account of combat, abuse, and homecoming is urgent and necessary.

13 I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution, by Emily Nussbaum amazon.com $28.00 $18.29 (35% off) SHOP NOW If you know Nussbaum’s work from The New Yorker, you know that she writes about television with a singular clarity of vision. In this collection of essays, readers are treated to the full buffet of all that Nussbaum can do, from deep dives into specific shows to adventurous, high-minded essays about what television can do and be in the era of peak TV. With gregarious, entertaining prose and whip-smart analysis, Nussbaum advocates for a better TV taxonomy—one that can wrap its arms around Vanderpump Rules just as enthusiastically as The Sopranos.

14 Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers, edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton amazon.com $29.95 SHOP NOW The medium is the message in this formally daring anthology of essays from Native writers, organized into basket-weaving themes such as “coiling” and “plaiting.” In these 27 essays by writers hailing from multiple tribal nations, some established and some newcomers, the Native experience is interrogated, elucidated, and celebrated.

15 Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, by Gretchen McCulloch amazon.com $26.00 $20.31 (22% off) SHOP NOW Ever wondered how terms like “on brand” make their way into Merriam Webster, or why you prefer “lol” to “LOL”? In prose at once scholarly and user-friendly, McCulloch unpacks the evolution of language in the digital age, providing a comprehensive survey of everything from the secret language of emojis to the appeal of animal memes.

16 Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls: A Memoir, by T Kira Madden amazon.com $27.00 $15.69 (42% off) SHOP NOW In this haunting debut memoir, Madden excavates her coming of age as a queer, biracial teenager in an affluent Florida community wracked by addiction and abuse. Harrowing and charged with sharp edges, yet somehow life-affirming at the same time, Madden’s story is one of toxic privilege, destructive families, and life-saving friends.

17 Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do, by Jennifer L. Eberhardt amazon.com $28.00 $20.97 (25% off) SHOP NOW From a leading expert on unconscious racial bias comes this timely, exhaustive investigation of how bias infiltrates every sector of public and private life, from the boardroom to the courtroom to the classroom. Eberhardt offers tips for reforming business practices, police departments, and day-to-day interactions in pursuit of a fairer world for everyone.

18 Working, by Robert Caro amazon.com $25.00 $16.39 (34% off) SHOP NOW The veteran biographer returns not with another doorstopper biography, but instead with a master class in writing and researching nonfiction. This generous, colloquial, deeply personal memoir sees Caro reflect on his path to becoming a historian, as well as on the nuts and bolts of the long gestation process for his books.

19 I Miss You When I Blink: Essays, by Mary Laura Philpott Atria Books amazon.com $27.00 $15.68 (42% off) SHOP NOW In this charming memoir in essays, Philpott offers to a pep talk to anyone who “has it all,” but still feels hollow. At once a love letter to Type-A people everywhere and a gentle reminder that it’s okay (necessary, even) to change, this full-hearted book is a warm embrace of a life lived imperfectly.

20 What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence, edited by Michele Filgate Simon & Schuster amazon.com $26.00 $15.14 (42% off) SHOP NOW In this collection of essays by such luminaries as Leslie Jamison, Carmen Maria Machado, and Andre Aciman, writers explore the secrets we keep from our mothers, and they from us. What emerges is a poignant collection of meditations on what it means to be someone’s child, at once raw, comic, and revelatory.

21 Rough Magic: Riding the World's Loneliest Horse Race, by Lara Prior-Palmer amazon.com $25.00 $17.02 (32% off) SHOP NOW At age 19, Prior-Palmer discovered “the world’s longest, toughest horse race”—a breakneck thousand-kilometer race through perilous Mongolian wasteland that recreates a path traveled by Genghis Khan. In this sensual, spiritual memoir, Prior-Palmer recounts her grueling journey through immense physical hardship, and her surprising transformation from underdog to champion.

Adrienne Westenfeld Assistant Editor Adrienne Westenfeld is a writer and editor at Esquire, where she covers books and culture.

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