The best nonfiction books with fantastic storytelling

When I read Gilbert King’s story of the ruination of four Black men based on charges they raped a white woman in the 1950s, I had to check King’s background. He won my admiration for going from small-town newspapers and photography work to tell this epic story of Thurgood Marshall-style justice.  

The story itself will rip you apart as the Southern sheriff “interrogates” these men in inhumane ways. I live just an hour’s drive from where this all went down and I am so grateful to King for helping me better understand the depths of our warped system of justice. The fact the book won a Pulitzer shouldn’t be a surprise. The fact that it led the town of Groveland to posthumously exonerate the men should be one. 

Only dogged research could unearth the story of how one Black woman’s death – and the harvesting of her cells – could change the course of medical research.

It is a story of how some innocuous biological matter could grow into a hothouse of excess. Pharma companies enriched themselves reproducing the cells of Henrietta Lacks but did little or nothing for the family who lost their matriarch.  

For me, this book unleashed the idea of shaping deep research into a story can change our view of society.

Who wouldn’t want to read the story of how a hardscrabble bunch of northwestern kids molded themselves into a nationally ranked crew team, beating not only Ivy League competitors but Hitler’s finest? 

The real reason this book resonates so much with me may have more to do with an author interview featuring Brown. He certainly had me with the epic athletic journey of a handful of unlikely heroes. But it was the way he layered the story, detailing scenes and otherwise bringing history to life, that really interested me.

In that author interview, he talked about going through old newspapers and archival photos of the era to help him really place readers along those riverbanks of Seattle, Washington. It is a tool I never forgot. 

If your first is always your best, Jon Krakauer’s telling of a famously fatal, 1996 Mount Everest quest was my first immersion into the retelling of an event based on exhaustive reporting. 

The story of this group of amateur ice climbers, led by professionals, is so gripping that I then had to read two other books based on the same 1996 calamity. All I can think of as I’m reading is: “How did he get this detail, that quote, so much background?” I looked for too little balance or too much underserved sympathy.  

A newsroom co-worker of mine joined me on this reading journey and I remember asking him: “Doesn’t this make you want to write a nonfiction? book” Perhaps smartly, he answered no. 

Erik Larson lays out Chicago’s efforts to remake its seedy, 1880s image with a World’s Fair cast in all white. Sadly, a serial killer lurked. 

Devil in the White City kept me engaged by conjuring up that feeling of dread you have when you know something monumental is about to be undone. The scene-setting put me smack in the middle of the Fair preparation as organizers toil against pressing deadlines. So many young women coming to help launch the spectacle. I could feel my heartbeat quicken as the dueling storyline introduces yet another of Herman Mudgett’s 27 victims. 

Best yet for me – this was not historical fiction. This was real.