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Narrative Nonfiction - Extreme Reader 2026

Reading suggestions for anyone to enjoy that also work for the Extreme Reader 2026 challenge! Additional Category Information: • A true story that's written in the style of a novel

User from Tacoma Public Library

24 items

  • Accountable

    the True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed

    Slater, Dashka,
    A young adult nonfiction book on how Albany High School handles a racist social media incident that incurs lasting and devastating consequences"-- "When a high school student started a private Instagram account that used racist and sexist memes to…
    Book, 2023New York, NY : Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, 2023. — Y 371.829 SLATER 2023
  • In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five,…
    Book, 2020New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 2020. — Y 306.7662 JOHNSON 2020
  • The Anxiety Club

    How to Survive Modern Life

    Fanget, Frédéric,
    In The Anxiety Club we are introduced to three characters, each with a different form of anxiety. After hearing their stories, we follow them into the therapy room, where they discover the behavioral, cognitive, and emotional tools to help free…
    Book, 2024London : SelfMadeHero, 2024. — YG 152.46 FANGET 2023
  • In 2016, author Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world: Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond…
    Book, 2024New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2024. — 598.0723 TAN 2024
  • The dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century's great, unequal cities. In this fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of…
    Book, 2012New York : Random House, [2012] — 305.5690954 B64417B 2012
  • The Cat I Never Named

    a True Story of Love, War, and Survival

    Sabic-El-Rayess, Amra,
    In Bihac, Bosnia, in 1992, sixteen-year-old Amra and her family face starvation and the threat of brutal ethnic violence as Serbs and Bosnians clash, while a stray cat, Maci, provides solace.
    Book, 2020New York : Bloomsbury Children's Books, 2020. — Y 949.703092 SA135C 2020
  • City of Thorns

    Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp

    Rawlence, Ben,
    A researcher for Human Rights Watch describes the refugee camp in Dadaab, home to those fleeing civil war in Somalia, and highlights the life of various residents, including a former child soldier, a schoolgirl and a youth leader.
    Book, 2016New York : Picador, [2016] — 967.73053 R198C 2016
  • Death in the Jungle

    Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown

    Fleming, Candace,
    A chronicle of one of American history's most notorious cults, a book including first-person accounts follows Jim Jones from humble origins to "Jonestown" in Guyana, South America, and traces his transformation of Peoples Temple into a nefarious…
    Book, 2025New York, NY : Anne Schwartz Books, [2025] — Y 279.99 FLEMING 2025
  • The Demon of Unrest

    a Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

    Larson, Erik, 1954-
    On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln…
    Book, 2024New York : Crown, [2024] — 973.711 LARSON 2024
  • Driving the Green Book

    a Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance

    Hall, Alvin, 1952-
    Join award-winning broadcaster Alvin Hall on a journey through America's haunted racial past, with the legendary Green Book as your guide. For countless Americans, the open road has long been a place where dangers lurk. In the era of Jim Crow, Black…
    Book, 2023New York, NY : Harper One, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2023] — 917.3049 HALL 2023
  • Endurance

    Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

    Lansing, Alfred,
    Bound for Antarctica, where polar explorer Ernest Shackleton planned to cross on foot the last uncharted continent, the Endurance set sail from England in August 1914. In January 1915, after battling its way for six weeks through a thousand miles of…
    Book, 2014New York : Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, 2014. — 919.8904 SH118L 1959
  • A Fever in the Heartland

    the Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

    Egan, Timothy,
    A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the riveting story of the Klan's rise to power in the 1920s, the cunning con man who drove that rise, and the woman who stopped them. The Roaring Twenties -- the…
    Book, 2023New York, NY : Viking, [2023] — 322.42 EGAN 2023
  • A Flower Traveled in My Blood

    the Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children

    Cohen Gilliland, Haley, 1989-
    The epic, true story of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, grandmothers who fought to find their stolen grandchildren during Argentina's brutal dictatorship.
    Book, 2025New York : Avid Reader Press, 2025. — 362.87 COHEN_GIL 2025
  • In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now,…
    Book, 2019[St. Louis, Missouri] : Lion Forge, LLC, 2019. — YG 306.76 KOBABE 2019
  • Hidden Valley Road

    Inside the Mind of An American Family

    Kolker, Robert,
    Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In…
    Book, 2020New York : Doubleday, [2020] — 616.898 K8327H 2020
  • In Cold Blood

    a True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences

    Capote, Truman, 1924-1984
    On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no…
    Book, 1966New York : Random House, [1966] — 364 C173I
  • Susan Orlean reopens the unsolved mystery of the most catastrophic library fire in American history, and delivers a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution--our libraries.
    Book, 2018New York : Simon and Schuster, 2018. — 027.479494 OR53L 2018
  • Replaceable You

    Adventures in Human Anatomy

    Roach, Mary,
    The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what's available--sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs…
    Book, 2025New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2025] — 617.95 ROACH 2025
  • Say Nothing

    a True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

    Keefe, Patrick Radden, 1976-
    A stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions. In December 1972, Jean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her…
    Book, 2019New York : Doubleday, [2019] — 364.1523 K242S 2019
  • The Song of the Cell

    An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human

    Mukherjee, Siddhartha,
    Presenting revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, the author draws on his own experience as a researcher, doctor, and prolific reader to explore how the discovery of cells…
    Book, 2022New York : Scribner, 2022. — 571.63 MUKHERJEE 2022