While there are many courses and tutorials online, learning from a book is still one of the best ways to greatly improve your skills. Below I have selected top Nonfiction Historical books.
- Salt: A World History (2003)
- We Were the Lucky Ones: A Novel (2018)
- Wolves at the Door: The True Story Of America’s Greatest Female Spy (2008)
- Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident (Historical Nonfiction Bestseller, True Story Book of Survival) (2014)
- Surviving The Forest (A WW2 Historical Novel, Based on a True Story of a Jewish Holocaust Survivor) (2019)
- Sold on a Monday: A Novel (2018)
- Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II’s Greatest Rescue Mission (2002)
- Spilled Milk: Based on a true story (2013)
- The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home (2018)
- No Better Friend: Young Readers Edition: A Man, a Dog, and Their Incredible True Story of Friendship and Survival in World War II (2018)
Salt: A World History (2003)
In his fifth work of nonfiction, Mark Kurlansky turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind.
We Were the Lucky Ones: A Novel (2018)
It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland.
Wolves at the Door: The True Story Of America’s Greatest Female Spy (2008)
Virginia Hall left her Baltimore home in 1931 to enter the Foreign Service and went to work for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) when Hitler was building toward the peak of his power in Europe. She was assigned to France, where she helped the Resistance movement, escaped prisoners of war, and American Allied paratroopers.
Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident (Historical Nonfiction Bestseller, True Story Book of Survival) (2014)
The mystery of Dead Mountain: In February 1959, a group of nine experienced hikers in the Russian Ural Mountains died mysteriously on an elevation known as Dead Mountain.
Surviving The Forest (A WW2 Historical Novel, Based on a True Story of a Jewish Holocaust Survivor) (2019)
She was a beautiful and happy young woman who lived a fairytale life. Shurka, her beloved husband and their two small children lived in a pretty house in a village in Poland, surrounded by a little garden with lilies. This was their life and nothing could harm it, or so they thought…WWII broke out and though the happy family thought the Germans would never reach their idyllic village, they quickly understood they were wrong and their happiness came to a brutal end.
Sold on a Monday: A Novel (2018)
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A USA TODAY BESTSELLER A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLERA NATIONAL INDIEBOUND BESTSELLER An unforgettable novel by Kristina McMorris, inspired by a stunning piece of history. 2 CHILDREN FOR SALE The sign is a last resort. It sits on a farmhouse porch in 1931, but could be found anywhere in an era of breadlines, bank runs and broken dreams.
Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II’s Greatest Rescue Mission (2002)
On January 28, 1945, 121 hand-selected U.S. troops slipped behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: March thirty rugged miles to rescue 513 POWs languishing in a hellish camp, among them the last survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March.
Spilled Milk: Based on a true story (2013)
Brooke Nolan is a battered child who makes an anonymous phone call to social services about the escalating brutality in her home.When they jeopardize her safety, condemning her to keep her father’s secret, it’s a glass of spilled milk at the dinner table that forces her to speak about the cruelty she’s been hiding.
The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home (2018)
A New York Times bestseller with an “engaging narrative and array of detail” (The Wall Street Journal), the “intimate and sweeping” (Raleigh News & Observer) untold, true story behind the Biltmore Estate—the largest, grandest private residence in North America, which has seen more than 120 years of history pass by its front door.The story of Biltmore spans World Wars, the Jazz Age, the Depres…
No Better Friend: Young Readers Edition: A Man, a Dog, and Their Incredible True Story of Friendship and Survival in World War II (2018)
No Better Friend tells the incredible true story of Frank Williams, a radarman in Britain’s Royal Air Force, and Judy, a purebred pointer, who met as prisoners of war during World War II. Judy, who became the war’s only official canine POW, was a fiercely loyal dog who sensed danger–warning her fellow prisoners of imminent attacks and protecting them from brutal beatings.
Best Nonfiction Historical Books Reviewed & Ranked
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some nonfiction historical books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Out of the Shoebox: An Autobiographic Mystery
Author(s): Yaron Reshef
ID: 2418701, Publisher: , Year: 2014, Size: 763 Kb, Format: epub
Out of the Shoebox: An Autobiographic Mystery (Historical Nonfiction story)
Author(s): Reshef, Yaron
ID: 2755445, Publisher: , Year: 2014, Size: 898 Kb, Format: azw3
Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience (Historical Nonfiction Letters, Letters from Famous People, Book of Letters and Correspondance)
Author(s): Usher, Shaun(Compilation)
ID: 2850735, Publisher: Chronicle Books, Year: 2014, Size: 177 Mb, Format: pdf
Please note that this booklist is not absolute. Some books are absolutely hot items according to Los Angeles Times, others are drafted by unknown writers. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant books you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.