2011 Best Nonfiction

Presents a history of the role of British citizens in the American Civil War that offers insight into the interdependencies of both nations and how the Union worked to block diplomatic relations between England and the Confederacy.

Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty fierce, hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. Here she tells of the unconventional journey taken through the many kitchens of her life on her way to where she is now.

Between 2002 and 2008, the world embraced a wave of cheap credit that allowed people to enjoy spoils they usually wouldn't be able to afford. However, when the bubble burst in late 2008, everything came crashing down, including most of Europe. Here, Michael Lewis investigates the causes of the 2008 financial meltdown and projects what awaits the countries that were, and still are, most affected.

Presents a reconstruction of the eighteenth-century empress's life that covers her efforts to engage Russia in the cultural life of Europe, her creation of the Hermitage, and her numerous scandal-free romantic affairs.

Alexandra Fuller tells the story of her mother, Nicola Fuller of Central Africa, as Nicola grows up in Africa, and with her husband Tim, seek their place of contentment in the African continent. A story of survival and war, love and madness, loyalty and forgiveness.

Written with full cooperation from top management at Google, this is the story behind one of the most successful and admired technology companies of our time.

Reitman offers the first full, journalistic history of the Church of Scientology, in an even-handed account that at last establishes the truth about the controversial religion. She traces Scientology's development from the birth of Dianetics through to the present day.

With allusions to David Bowie and interplanetary travel, Life on Mars imagines a soundtrack for the universe to accompany the discoveries, failures, and oddities of human existence.

An acclaimed biographer tells the story of the Karl and Jenny Marx's marriage, painting a unique and human picture of the revolutionary German socialist as a protective father, loving husband and a jokester.

Having achieved the seemingly unachievable-- becoming a U.S. Memory Champion-- Foer shows how anyone with enough training and determination can achieve mastery of their memory.

Allegedly found in the ruins of a bombed-out dog kennel in France during World War I, then brought to Los Angeles by Lee Duncan, the soldier who found and trained him, by 1927 Rin Tin Tin had become Hollywood's number one box-office star. Susan Orlean's book--about the dog and the legend--is a poignant exploration of the enduring bond between humans and animals.

A narrative history of World War I explores its impact on everyday men and women, drawing on diaries and letters by twenty individuals from various countries to present an international mosaic of perspectives.

A narrative account of the twentieth president's political career offers insight into his background as a scholar and Civil War hero, his battles against the corrupt establishment, and Alexander Graham Bell's failed attempt to save him from an assassin's bullet.

From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long misunderstood "talking drums" of Africa, James Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He also provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the development of our modern understanding of information, including Charles Babbage, Ada Byron, Samuel Morse, Alan Turing, and Claude Shannon.

The award-winning actress documents her rise from an everyday girl to an acclaimed performer while exploring her defining relationship with her mother and how their shared and separate dreams influenced their experiences.

After their parents divorce in the 1970's, Andre Dubus III and his siblings grew up with their working mother in a Massachusetts mill town saturated with drugs and crime. To protect himself and those he loved from street violence, Andre learned to use his fists so well that he was even scared of himself. He was on a fast track to getting killed, or killing someone else. Nearby, his father, an eminent author, taught on a college campus and took the kids out on Sundays. The clash of worlds couldn't have been more stark or more difficult for a son to communicate to a father.