The Best Books of 2020: Non-Fiction

by |December 10, 2020
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We’re rounding up The Best Books of 2020! Non-Fiction Category Manager Joel Naoum is on the blog today to share his favourite non-fiction books of the year. Read on!


This year, we were captivated by a great range of non-fiction books, from personal stories to anthologies and more.

Phosphorescence seems like the quintessential book of 2020 – in it, Julia Baird examines the question of how to find some light in even the most difficult times. Richard Fidler had us spellbound in The Golden Maze, weaving his personal history with the history of the city of Prague, while Moonlite introduced us to one of Australia’s last bushrangers. Rutger Bregman’s Humankind then asked us to reconsider what we think about humanity and altruism.

My Tidda, My Sister by Marlee Silva collects stories of strength and resilience from Australia’s First Women, acknowledging a breadth of experiences from Indigenous women. Florence Given’s Women Don’t Owe You Pretty gave us a colourful guide to feminism, while Women and Leadership by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala offers advice and experience from women in power, as well as an exploration of the realities of leading as a woman.


Phosphorescence

by Julia Baird

9781460757154

Read our review here and listen to our podcast with Julia Baird here.

A beautiful, intimate and inspiring investigation into how we can find and nurture within ourselves that essential quality of internal happiness – the ‘light within’ that Julia Baird calls ‘phosphorescence’ – which will sustain us even through the darkest times.

Buy it here


The Golden Maze: A Biography of Prague

by Richard Fidler

9780733335266

Listen to our podcast with Richard Fidler here.

Richard Fidler returns to Prague to uncover the glorious and grotesque history of Europe’s most instagrammed and uncanny city: a jumble of gothic towers, baroque palaces and zig-zag lanes that has survived plagues, pogroms, Nazi terror and Soviet tanks.

Buy it here


Women Don’t Owe You Pretty

by Florence Given

9781788402118

An accessible leap into feminism, for people at all stages of their journey who are seeking to reshape and transform the way they view themselves. In a world that tells women we’re either not enough or too much, it’s time we stop directing our anger and insecurities onto ourselves, and start fighting back to re-shape the toxic structures of our patriarchal society.

Buy it here


My Tidda, My Sister

by Marlee Silva

9781741177114

Watch Marlee Silva in conversation on Booktopia TV here.

My Tidda, My Sister shares the experiences of many Indigenous women and girls, brought together by author and host of the Tiddas 4 Tiddas podcast, Marlee Silva. The voices of First Nations’ women that Marlee weaves through the book provide a rebuttal to the idea that ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’.

Buy it here


Women and Leadership

by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

9780143794288

As a result of their broad experience on the world stage in politics, economics and global not-for-profits, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Julia Gillard have some strong ideas about the impact of gender on the treatment of leaders. Women and Leadership takes a consistent and comprehensive approach to teasing out what is different for women who lead.

Buy it here


Humankind: A Hopeful History

by Rutger Bregman

9781408898949

Read a Q&A with Rutger Bregman here.

It’s a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Dawkins, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we’re taught, are by nature selfish and governed by self-interest. Humankind makes a new argument- that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good.

Buy it here


Moonlite

by Garry Linnell

9780143795773

Listen to our podcast with Garry Linnell here.

A gay bushranger with a love of poetry and guns. A grotesque hangman with a passion for flowers and gardening. A broken young man desperate for love and respect. These men – two of them lovers – are about to bring the era of Australia’s outlaws to a torrid and bloody climax. Moonlite is the true and epic story of George Scott, an Irish-born preacher who becomes, along with Ned Kelly, one of the nation’s most notorious and celebrated criminals.

Buy it here


Explore more of The Best Books of 2020!

The Best Books of 2020
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