But I don't read fiction...

I came across my blog post from this date in 2014, with book suggestions for that friend who only reads memoirs, or biographies, or cookbooks, etc., etc.  

It made me wonder why I stopped sharing gift suggestions for readers. So, if you celebrate Christmas (and are therefore running out of time) and have run out of gift ideas for that person, here you go:

For the sports buff:

On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the revolution in women's sports by Christine Brennan (Scribner, 2025).

Caitlin Clark arrived as a sports and cultural icon a little more than fifty years after the passage of Title IX, the 1972 law that opened the floodgates for girls and women to play sports in America. On Her Game is a sports story, certainly, but it’s also the story of a nation falling in love with what it has created because of that law—millions of new athletes, led by the magical Caitlin Clark.

For the music-lover:

Great Musicians: Letters for the ages edited by James Drake and Edward Smyth (Bloomsbury Continuum, 2025).

Ranging from Hildegaard von Bingen to Amy Winehouse, the letters assembled in this collection combine to delve into musicians' personal relationship with music and the creative process behind their greatest works of art. Witness your musical idols, warm-hearted and compassionate, arrogant and angry, insecure and egocentric, defeated and morose.

For the foodie:

Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love by Samin Nosrat (Random House, 2025).

With all the generosity of spirit that has endeared her to millions of fans, Samin Nosrat offers more than 125 of her favorite recipes—simply put, the things she most loves to cook for herself and for friends—and infuses them with all the beauty and care you would expect from the person Alice Waters called “America’s next great cooking teacher.”

For the history (and mystery) buff: 

The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective by Sara Lodge (Yale University Press, 2025).

From Wilkie Collins to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the traditional image of the Victorian detective is male. Few people realise that women detectives successfully investigated Victorian Britain, working both with the police and for private agencies, which they sometimes managed themselves.
Shortlisted for The Wolfson History Prize 2025

For the memoir reader:

Book of Lives: A memoir of sorts by Margaret Atwood (Doubleday, 2025).

As she explores her past, Atwood reveals more and more about her writing, the connections between real life and art—and the workings of one of our very greatest imaginations.

"But I don't read fiction!"

Everybody has that friend. You know, the one who says they only read biographies, or books about current affairs or sports or - well, you get the drift.  If you're stuck (and, by now, running out of time!) here are some ideas.


For the sports fan:

The Best American Sports Writing 2014 by Christopher McDougall and Glenn Stout (Mariner Books trade paperback, 7 October 2014).

From more than 350 national, regional, and specialty publications and, increasingly, the top sports blogs, Christopher McDougall, best-selling author of Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, hand-selected the very best sports journalism of the past year.  


For the music lover:

Live at the Fillmore East and West by John Glatt (

In 1968, rock promoter Bill Graham launched the Fillmore East in New York City and the Fillmore West in San Francisco, changing music forever. For three years, every major rock band played the Fillmores, performing legendary shows: Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin, Cream, the Allman Brothers, and many more.
Chronicling the East and West Coast cultures of the late ’60s and early '70s—New York City with its speed, heroin, and the Velvet Underground versus San Francisco with the LSD-drenched Summer of Love—Glatt reveals how Graham the made it all possible . 

For the foodie:

A Kitchen in France:  A Year of Cooking in My Farmhouse by Mimi Thorisson (Clarkson Potter hardcover, 28 October 2014).

When Mimi Thorisson and her family moved from Paris to a small town in out-of-the-way Médoc, she did not quite know what was in store for them. She found wonderful ingredients—from local farmers and the neighboring woods—and, most important, time to cook. Her cookbook chronicles the family’s seasonal meals and life in an old farmhouse, all photographed by her husband, Oddur. Mimi’s convivial recipes—such as Roast Chicken with Herbs and Crème Fraîche, Cèpe and Parsley Tartlets, Winter Vegetable Cocotte, Apple Tart with Orange Flower Water, and Salted Butter Crème Caramel—will bring the warmth of rural France into your home.


For the history buff:

In the Kingdom of Ice:  The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides (Doubleday hardcover, 5 August 2014).

In the late nineteenth century, people were obsessed by one of the last unmapped areas of the globe: the North Pole. No one knew what existed beyond the fortress of ice rimming the northern oceans, although theories abounded. The foremost cartographer in the world, a German named August Petermann, believed that warm currents sustained a verdant island at the top of the world. National glory would fall to whoever could plant his flag upon its shores. 
On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds in the grip of "Arctic Fever."  With twists and turns worthy of a thriller, In The Kingdom of Ice is a spellbinding tale of heroism and determination in the most unforgiving territory on Earth.


For the spy buff:

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre (Crown Publishing hardcover, 29 July 2014).

Kim Philby was the greatest spy in history, a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War—while he was secretly working for the enemy. And nobody thought he knew Philby like Nicholas Elliott, Philby’s best friend and fellow officer in MI6. 
But Philby was secretly betraying his friend. Every word Elliott breathed to Philby was transmitted back to Moscow—and not just Elliott’s words, for in America, Philby had made another powerful friend: James Jesus Angleton, the crafty, paranoid head of CIA counterintelligence. 
The stunning truth of his betrayal would have devastating consequences on the two men who thought they knew him best, and on the intelligence services he left crippled in his wake.