Gabino Iglesias

As "traditional bonds disintegrate in the face of industrialization, urbanization, and secularization, brands and objects become a means to curate and project who we are," writes reporter Adam Minter.

Andre Perry's debut essay collection reads like a slightly fragmented memoir focused on the search for identity, the desire to write, and his constant sense of unease as a black man in Iowa City.

Under Carmen Maria Machado's narrative of a psychologically abusive relationship lies an academic view of female queerness, a play, a choose your own adventure book, a look at the mechanisms of abuse.

More than a mere chronicler armed with facts and dates, Sam Roberts is a nonfiction writer with the heart of a novelist; he's writing about buildings — but he does so while telling engaging stories.

Paul Kingsnorth moved to a small farm in Ireland to be closer to the land and to reconnect with the essence of being. Instead of contentment, he found that it was tough to find meaning in writing.

Rachel Eve Moulton's story about a young woman in an abandoned town in the Black Hills of South Dakota will crawl into you and give you the shudders — just let it.

Jill Heinerth's memoir leads with her thoughts as she wonders if she will die underwater, setting the tone for an honest and engaging book about life as one of the world's top cave divers.

Ian Urbina combines stellar investigative reporting skills and straightforward writing to convey what lies on the other side of the ocean — opposite cruise-ship vacations to beautiful beaches.

Timothy C. Winegard has written a well-researched work of narrative nonfiction that offers a history of the world through the role that mosquitoes — and mosquito-borne illnesses — have played in it.

While the prolific Hollywood writer's career is well-documented, his personal history has been a mystery. His memoir is painful and inspiring, infuriating and full of hope, humorous and depressing.