Presented in alphabetical order by authors’ last names, this list offers sometimes overlooked books of nonfiction by local writers released this year. Check these 10 out and share them with friends. Happy reading!
Editor’s note: Leslie Katz and JL Odom contributed to this report.
“Bring Me the Head of Joaquin Murrieta: The Bandit Chief Who Terrorized California and Launched the Legend of Zorro” by John Boessenecker
Hanover Square Press, 512 pages, $32 hardcover, Oct. 21, 2025
San Francisco attorney, writer and Wild West expert John Boessenecker, a former police officer and commentator on PBS and other networks, is author of the New York Times bestseller “Texas Ranger” and 11 other books. In “Bring Me the Head of Joaquin Murrieta,” he shines a spotlight on the California Gold Rush era, introducing readers to Murrieta, the Robin Hood of El Dorado. Legend may call him a hero fighting injustice, but historian Boessenecker tells a different tale of Murrieta and his gang’s violent adventures. The nonfiction title details never-told-before stories of the band of outlaws’ thrilling exploits.
“In the Shadow of the Bridge: Birds of the Bay Area” by Dick Evans and Hannah Hindley
Heyday, 240 pages, $50 hardcover, Nov. 25, 2025
Veteran photographer Dick Evans, whose books include “San Francisco and the Bay Area: The Haight Ashbury Edition,” “The Mission,” and “San Francisco’s Chinatown,” takes readers behind the scenes in a bird’s life in the greater Bay Area, from a marsh that’s home to endangered birds near Oakland Airport to the quarter million seabirds of the Farallon Islands or the flocks of egrets on Crissy Field. Evans’ images are accompanied by environmental essayist and Berkeley resident Hannah Hindley’s text, which explores notions of independence and ecology connected with the awe-inspiring avians living in an urban landscape.
“Negligent by Design: Anti-Blackness in American Medicine and How to Address It” by Dr. Vanessa Grubbs
North Atlantic Books, 192 pages, $20.95, Sept. 2, 2025
Oaklander Vanessa Grubbs was a resident at Highland Hospital in Oakland and general medicine researcher at University of California, San Francisco, before specializing in nephrology after donating a kidney to a man she later married, a story detailed in her memoir “Hundreds of Interlaced Fingers.” In 2025’s “Negligent by Design,” she addresses microaggressions she experienced on the job and racism endured by other Black physicians, and how she founded a nonprofit aimed at ending the disproportionate dismissal of Black resident physicians. As well as describing how the medical industry systematically denies fair treatment to Black patients, Grubbs offers solutions toward achieving equity.
“The Strength of Water: An Asian American Coming of Age Memoir” by Karin K. Jensen
Sibylline Press, 360 pages, $21, Nov. 7, 2025
When Alameda news writer Karin Jensen was a child growing up in the East Bay, her mother Helen Yee Chan Cochran, a Chinese American immigrant daughter, shared stories from her life about her American dream and her dashed hopes along the way to achieving it. Jensen sets down that powerful history in “The Strength of Water,” illuminating her mother’s journey from 1920s Detroit to wartime China and back to the Bay Area. The story of identity, survival and hope details Helen’s experiences as a youngster working in her father’s Chinese laundry business during the infancy of the auto industry in Detroit; in a Cantonese village on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War; as a live-in domestic worker and teen waitress in mid-20th century California; and more.
“Entwined: Dispatches from the Intersection of Species” by Bridget A. Lyons
Texas A&M University Press, 224 pages, $22, July 18, 2025
Santa Cruz writer-editor Bridget A. Lyons contemplates the intrinsic value of all living creatures and the complex relationships between humans and non-humans. Her collection of 14 stories and essays addresses the query: “What can our 8.7 million ‘more-than-human’ neighbors teach us about life?” Individual investigations include: What can octopuses’ nine brains teach us about climate resilience? How can great horned owls’ keen hearing illuminate relationship dynamics? and does playing with kelp cultivate respect for the value of living things?
“The Pacific Circuit: A Globalized Account of the Battle for the Soul of an American City” by Alexis Madrigal
MCD x FSG, 384 pages, $32, March 18, 2025
Journalist Alexis Madrigal, cohost of KQED’s “Forum,” details how “a logistical revolution that began in Oakland transformed urban America” in “The Pacific Circuit,” a volume resulting from years of reporting on Oakland, the tech industry and the global economy. The book describes connections between city hall politics, venture capital and hedge funds; it also covers Silicon Valley’s beginnings and growth, using the Port of Oakland to illustrate the economic, environmental and cultural effects of decades of systemic segregation and ongoing pressure to advance technology.
“Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy” by Mary Roach
W. W. Norton & Company, 288 pages, $28.99, Sept. 16, 2025
Popular, funny, one-of-kind East Bay science writer Mary Roach, author of eight New York Times bestsellers, considers the far-reaching aspects of regenerative medicine in her 2025 volume. Topics include gene-edited pig organs and “human skin slurry” that sprouts hair. Roach describes her travels to a Mongolian general hospital, a Palm Springs Amputee Coalition and the pig facility of a gene-editing company in China; she also sleeps inside an iron lung and undergoes a single hair follicle transplant.
“Memoir of a Reluctant Giant” by David Cameron Strachan as told to Davi Barker
Norton Press, 262 pages, $35 paperback, Feb. 14, 2025
San Franciscan David Cameron Strachan is intersex, nonbinary and 6 feet, 10 inches tall. Strachan’s godchild Davi Barker, cowriter of “Memoir of a Reluctant Giant,” tells Strachan’s story by sharing things “along the way instead of at the beginning … and so it’s a little more of a roller coaster in that way,” says Barker. A central narrative is Strachan’s longtime relationship with Peter Tannen, who is 5 feet, 4 inches tall. The book also describes Strachan’s LGBTQIA+ activism, including being a founding member of the San Francisco Transgender Civil Rights Implementation Task Force; and Strachan’s childhood, family and events, including introducing Barker’s parents and being present for Barker’s birth in 1981. Mental and physical challenges Strachan faced, including the diagnosis of Klinefelter syndrome at age 29; learning of its intersex variation 18 years later; and testing positive for HIV in the 1980s, also are covered. At its foundation, “Reluctant Giant” is a story of a resilient person’s journey of self-acceptance.
“On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters” by Bonnie Tsui
Algonquin Books, 256 pages, $29, April 22, 2025
Berkeley writer Bonnie Tsui, acclaimed for her unique title “Why We Swim,” again takes on the human body again in her new book, “On Muscle.” The volume similarly blends personal narrative, compelling stories, and interesting facts. Tsui, who also wrote “American Chinatown: A People’s History of Five Neighborhoods,” examines muscle types (cardiac, skeletal, smooth); the discovery of skeletal muscle being an endocrine organ; its influence on cognitive states, and its purposes (e.g., blood flow, motion). Tsui also interweaves her experiences as an athlete and includes perspectives of experts such as Amber Fitzsimmons, chair of the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science at the University of California, San Francisco and of athletes including Serena Williams and Misty Copeland. Tsui says the book is ultimately about the joy stemming from the everyday use of soft tissue: “Muscle is for everyone. It’s the stuff that animates us in life and moves us around, quite literally and figuratively. To move our muscles and to move through the world is a joyful thing.”
“A School Lunch Revolution: A Cookbook” by Alice Waters
Penguin Press, 160 pags, $35 hardcover, Oct. 14, 2025
Beloved Berkeley chef and farm-fresh food activist Alice Waters serves up another inviting, important book promoting food security and education as universal rights. Waters, the Chez Panisse founder who believes all children deserve to go to school and eat nutritious food, has developed a multigenerational cookbook supporting her goals. The new book’s recipes span diverse textures and tastes, reimagining and reinforcing the importance of the school lunch. Easy-to-make, sustainable delicacies as Basil and Sunflower Seed Pesto, Chickpea Falafel (the recipe serves 30), and traditional Chinese breakfast dish Chicken Congee feed the student and the soul.
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