10 top nonfiction books of 2020 you might have missed

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Their authors talk about effective learning and career crises, aging and femininity, as well as other interesting and important things.

The outgoing year has challenged us almost every day. It was not so easy to keep work, health and at least relative peace of mind, and some of us looked for answers to pressing questions in books. Collected 10 non-fiction works that became the main bestsellers of 2020, even if they were released earlier.

1. “Choice. About freedom and inner strength of man ", Edith Eva Eger

This book was published back in 2019, but in 2020 it was very popular with readers.

"Choice" is the story of a young girl Edith from the Polish city of Kosice, who ended up in a concentration camp. She suffered from hunger, exhausting work, bullying by guards and the threat of imminent death: "Standing in the shower, we never knew if water or gas would come right now." But she also had a choice - to grieve for what was lost, or to appreciate what was. Dreaming about the end of the war and about your beloved. Help others, stick to your own, no matter what.

It is also the story of Dr. Edith Eger, a world-renowned psychologist. For many years, she preferred not to return to terrible memories, bury them in her soul, put on a smile and behave normally, like everyone else. But the longer we are silent, hide even from ourselves the feelings caused by the traumatic experience, the worse it becomes for us. Dr. Eger helps his many patients to talk to the past, to accept it, to free themselves from it. The bestseller by Edith Eger is about fortitude, about the opportunity not to be a victim, to choose life without devaluing our own traumas, but also not letting them define us.

2. “Invisible women. Why we live in a world comfortable only for men. Data Inequality, "Caroline Criado Perez

In 2011, the Swedish city of Karlskog decided to restructure its policy based on gender equality. In the process, one of the officials inadvertently joked that it was where and where, and the advocates of a gender approach would definitely not stick to the snow removal. It is ironic that it was this joke that made me wonder: does cleaning really infringe on the rights of women?

It turned out that it also infringes on how: usually the snow was removed first on major highways, and then on the sidewalk and bike paths. However, men and women move around the city in different ways: men mostly get into the car and drive along the “home-work-home” route. Women move along multiple routes: in the morning they take their children to school, in the afternoon they can accompany elderly relatives to the doctor, in the evening, on their way home from work, they also buy food. Thus, it would be fairer to revise the snow removal schedule and start with the interests of pedestrians and public transport passengers. The city authorities did just that, and at the same time, the number of injuries associated with falls on icy sidewalks decreased.

Caroline Perez's book consists of similar, seemingly insignificant, but important examples that lead us to the need to consider the behavioral patterns of both women and men.

3. “The best in us. Why there is less violence in the world”, Stephen Pinker

Good news, so much needed in these challenging times. Stephen Pinker convincingly shows how wars, slavery, child abuse, maiming punishment and murder decline over time, no matter how hard the media tries to convince us otherwise. Pinker explores the topic of violence and debunks myths about its inherent necessity. An alternative book for long vacations to great novels.

4. “Homo Mutabilis. How brain science helped me overcome stereotypes, believe in myself and drastically change my life ", Nastya Travkina

Are we able to change: learn effectively throughout life, overcome childhood traumas, revise negative attitudes learned at an early age? Neuroscience provides encouraging answers. Science journalist Nastya Travkina, using examples from her life, shows which factors influencing the work of the brain can be controlled and which cannot. And he offers methods to manage some and deal with the consequences of others. The most understandable and very exciting book.

5. “This is normal! A book about finding oneself, career crises and self-determination ", Elena Rezanova

An up-to-date book for all professionals and not only. She reminds that career crises are cyclical and it is important to treat them as a natural course of events. A crisis for a professional is an opportunity to revise his own trajectory and correct it. And it is also a signal for the transition to the next, higher level of self-realization. Moreover, this does not always mean a transition to a new company, a new position or the opening of your own business. In order to find the right path, it is important to ask yourself the right questions. There are plenty of them in the book of Elena Rezanova. Remember, everything is fine with you.

6. “Easy and simple. How to cope with tasks that are scary to approach ", Timur Zarudny and Sergey Zhdanov

The New Year is a time of new promises: to finally learn English, set the bar every day, give up sugar and communicate with toxic scoundrels. The friendly manual of Timur Zarudny and Sergey Zhdanov will help you not to give up good ideas at the beginning of February.

Recommendations are suitable not only for acquiring good habits, but also for the implementation of personal and work projects. Life-affirming thought from the book: sometimes goals lose their meaning in the process of achieving them. It's okay if you decide to give them up - more strength will remain for what is truly important.

7. “To myself it is tender. The book is about how to value and take care of yourself ", Olga Primachenko

Perhaps the most needed book of this year, helping literature at its best. Olga Primachenko discusses the aspects of self-care and offers simple questions and practices to improve your well-being. For example, how can you help yourself cope with the influx of feelings? End the stress response by squatting or bouncing, not caring if you look stupid. Shake with your whole body or dance like no one sees. Name what is happening to you right now.

Finally, think about this: just because you are angry, fearful, or anxious does not mean that you are a bad person - it is just a signal that at this particular moment you are at zero. In the final part of the text, you will find a marathon of tenderness for yourself - thirty-one simple practices of how to help yourself right now.

8. Superlearning by Scott Young

It seems to many that getting a bachelor's degree in a year is an achievement available only to rare geeks. Scott Young refutes this by his own example and the experience of his students. In 12 months, he mastered the four-year Computer Science course at MIT and learned four languages in the same period.

Young identifies nine basic principles of fast and high-quality self-education. The main one is meta-learning: you must clearly understand why you need to study a subject or acquire a skill, what concepts and practical procedures will be needed, and how exactly you will master them.

9. “What are the women called. Feminitives: history, structure, competition ", Irina Fufaeva

If you are tired of the unscientific, but charged disputes about the need for feminitives, the work of the linguist of the Russian State Humanitarian University Irina Fufaeva will come to the rescue. It is not a fact that your position on this issue will change, but there will be more data for thought. You will learn how certain “female” suffixes arise, why “author” is better than “woman-author” and why the majority are so enraged by feminitives.

10. “Counterclockwise. What is aging and how to deal with it ", Polina Loseva

The most detailed and quite optimistic book about what we all have to face. Polina Loseva examines how our body is aging at different levels: from molecules to tissues and organs. Unexpectedly, what we see as degradation, upon closer examination, turns out to be an adaptation, a switch to a new mode of operation.

Will We Ever Beat Aging? Unknown. Will we better understand this phenomenon and improve the quality of life in old age? Undoubtedly.

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