New Nonfiction | November 2026 – Bloomfield Township Public Library

These nonfiction titles are being released this month. Use your Bloomfield Township Public Library card to place a hold by selecting the linked title.

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The Big Book of Dinner: Recipes and Rules (and How to Break Them) / Melissa Clark
Acclaimed New York Times food writer gives you her ultimate treasure trove: all the recipes you need, the ways to riff off of them, and lessons you learn from them along the way to make you a great cook. She shares the building blocks that make these recipes work, so you’ll know exactly how to follow them to perfection, or how to go off-script if you want and to make it your own.
Blasting Through Blocks: An Artist’s Way Guide to Unleashing Your Inner Creativity / Julia Cameron
Across 52 essays, you’ll encounter one creative block and one practical practice each week. Some tools will feel familiar–rooted in The Artist’s Way heritage–but many will surprise you with their straightforwardness, their clarity, their freshness. Over time, these practices build into a living, flexible toolkit you can revisit whenever you feel stuck again.
Broadway in Black and White: The Untold Story of the American Musical / John Mauceri & John H. McWhorter
Shaped by Black musical traditions, European theatrical forms, and immigrant cultures, the Broadway musical emerged in the twentieth century as a visceral embodiment of the American melting pot.
Buddy Guy: The Life of the Legend and a Story of the Chicago Blues / Sandra B. Tooze
Drawing on years of research, interviews, and access to Buddy’s inner circle, biographer Sandra B. Tooze brings readers closer than ever to the man simply known as “The Legend.” From London in 1965– where his performances helped spark British rock–to Chicago clubs and global stages, Buddy redefined the electric blues and still performs in his nineties.
How to Be Less Useful: The Joy of Inefficiency / Priyanka Mattoo
A delightful book about reclaiming pleasure in mid-life–a potent mix of self-help and memoir, from one of today’s wittiest, wisest voices.
How to Use a Fork: Stories of Mending the Broken Brain / Orlando Swayne
Leading neurologist and neuroscientist Orlando Swayne shows readers how the brain’s natural capacity for reorganization–or neuroplasticity–can be harnessed to transform patients’ lives, and how much that was once thought irrevocably lost can yet be recovered, if people are given the chance.
The Hunt: A True Story of Resurrection and Retribution in the West / Ryan Deveraux
Tells the extraordinary inside story of the deadliest wolf hunt in the history of Yellowstone National Park, in which a fifth of the park’s wolf population was decimated in the winter of 2021-2022, a drama of conservation, corruption, and centuries-old battles to decide the future of wild creatures and wild spaces in the American West.
The Intangibles: Friendship, Fatherhood, and the Love of the Game / Nick Paumgarten
Not a book about hockey, really, but one in which a lifetime of obsessively hanging around the game — as player, parent, son, coach, fan, middle-aged white guy in New York, person of privilege, an imperfect man among other imperfect men — provides a vivid window into a cultish world that hides in plain sight.
Just a Shot Away: Martin Scorsese’s Life in Film / Mark Binelli
The first major biography of Martin Scorsese, America’s greatest modern filmmaker, a book as stylish and audacious as the director’s movies, drawing on previously unseen sources, original research, and new interviews to reveal the origins, genius, and influence of his life and work.
The King Under the Mountain: In Search of J. R. R. Tolkien / D.J. Taylor
A sparkling exploration of the myths that J. R. R. Tolkien created around himself, examining the social and political worlds that surrounded the creator of Middle-Earth, by award-winning biographer D. J. Taylor.
Radical Surrender: Letting Go in a World Addicted to Control / Anna Lembke
Blending relatable stories with neuroscience, Dr. Lembke argues that the antidote to modern despair is living a surrendered life. Using her personal story of loss and subsequent existential reckoning as a powerful entry point, Dr. Lembke defines surrender as the moment we acknowledge a power greater than ourselves.
Salt: A World History / Mark Kurlansky
The gorgeous new edition of a Kurlansky fan favorite: The unlikely history of the world through a grain of salt-now with a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester.
The Secrets of Our DNA: How Genetics Has Changed the World / Turi King
Now Britain’s preeminent authority on DNA and genetic research, Turi King takes us through fascinating true stories–from mistaken dinosaur DNA and the O. J. Simpson trial to Dolly the sheep and Angelina Jolie’s BRCA1 gene–to reveal the fascinating ways in which DNA has solved mysteries and shaped our world today.
The Sensualist: Adventures in Pure Pleasure / Gary Shteyngart
To Gary, a sensualist believes the details of one’s life are always worth savoring and happiness can be found from looking around. A sensualist isn’t a glutton or an aesthete (and certainly not a snob), but someone who embraces the sublime–and the absurd. In The Sensualist Gary takes us across town and across the world, showing us how to appreciate the joys of life, no matter what.
Take My Word for It: A Memoir / LeVar Burton
The legendary actor behind Roots, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Reading Rainbow shares never-before-told stories from a life that has shaped generations in this “compassionate, vulnerable memoir.”
Totem: The Untold Story of Sculpture / Jo Baring
A story-driven meditation on one of the oldest art forms and what it reveals about memory, creativity, and being human.