Non Fiction Reader Challenge 2025 Completed

The older I get, the more non fiction I enjoy reading and this year I successfully completed the Nonfiction Nibbler level of the Non Fiction Reader Challenge 2025. The challenge is hosted by fellow Aussie book blogger Shelleyrae at Book'd Out and I needed to read and review 6 books from any 6 of the 12 categories listed below.

Some of the non fiction I read during the year didn't qualify for the challenge and I couldn't find any books from the Garden and Islands categories I wanted to read. I still have 3 more reviews I'm hoping to complete before the end of the year but at this moment in time, I read 28 books from 10 categories and reviewed 24 of them so I'm very pleased with that.

Here's what I read:

1. History
- All Buttons Great and Small: A Compelling History of the Button, from the Stone Age to today by Lucy Godoroja
- The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff
- The Stuff of History: A Curated Compendium of Curious Objects and Forgotten People by Steven Moore

2. Memoir/Biography
- Always Home, Always Homesick by Hannah Kent
- All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton

3. True Crime
- The Peepshow - The Murders at 10 Rillington Place by Kate Summerscale
- The Mushroom Tapes by Helen Garner, Sarah Krasnostein and Chloe Hooper

4. Science
- Unnatural Causes by Dr Richard Shepherd
- Hidden Potential - The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant
- Wonderdog by Jules Howard
- Sensational by Ashley Ward

5. Health
- The Unclaimed by Pamela Prickett & Stefan Timmermans
- History Stinks! Wee, Snot and Slime Through Time by Suzie Edge
- Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
- Sleep Hacks - Discover the Life-Changing Tranquility of Deep Sleep by Keith Barry

6. Food
- RecipeTin Eats Tonight by Nagi Maehashi
- Bored of Lunch Healthy Slow Cooker Even Easier by Nathan Anthony
- Poppy Cooks: The Potato Book - 101 Recipes from the Potato Queen by Poppy O'Toole
- The All-In-One Cookbook by Taste

7. Travel
- Beyond Suburbia by Warren Kirk

8. Garden

9. Myth, Legend and Folklore
- Gothic by Fred Botting
- Best Australian Ghost Stories by Graham Seal

10. Islands

11. How-To
- Difficult People by Rebecca Ray
- Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You by Ali Abdaal
- 488 Rules for Life by Kitty Flanagan

12. Published in 2025
- What to Expect When You're Dead: An Ancient Tour of Death and the Afterlife by Robert Garland
- Talk Your Way Out of Trouble: Life Lessons from the Law by Jahan Kalantar

My favourite non fiction books this year were from the memoir category and they were All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert and Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton. I'm currently reading The Darkroom by A.J. Hewitt for the true crime prompt but it's unlikely I'll finish it before the end of the year. What non fiction books did you enjoy this year?

I'm looking forward to signing up for this challenge again in 2026, and if you'd like to join me you can check out the details - including the new categories - at Book'd Out.