Author: Laura Hillenbrand
Unbelievable what the human body and spirit can go through. If you only take one book from this list, read about Louis Zamperini, national track star turned castaway after his bomber was shot down over the Pacific in WII, turned Japanese POW, and his unstoppable fight to return home.
Author: Bill Browder
Red Notice is the crazy true story of a normal trader, who accidentally stumbled upon insane levels of corruption in the Russian government, setting off a chain of events that ultimately would lead to the Magnitsky Act and freezing of Russian oligarch assets. Buckle up, because this one is wild.
Author: Ben Macintyre
An incredible real-life spy thriller about an MI6 spy embedded in the KGB and an American traitor who almost exposed him; it’s a harrowing story that reads like fiction and keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Author: Bryan Stevenson
Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Institute to defend the poor, incarcerated, and wrongly condemned and Just Mercy tells his story through the eyes of defending a black man in Alabama, sentenced to die for a murder of a white woman that he did not commit.
Author: Patrick Radden Keefe
One of Obama’s books of the year, Say Nothing is an excellent retelling of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, starting with Jean McConville’s murder at the hands of the I.R.A (although never proven) and ending with the Good Friday Accords in 1998. Given how recent this fight was, Keefe’s investigative journalism brings incredible specificity and detail to the brutal violence of the Ireland-Northern Ireland conflict.
Author: Sherry Sontag
The previously unknown and untold history of American underwater espionage during the Cold War; the amount of cool stuff these submariners have accomplished that has since been declassified is incredible.