Nominations for best Non-Fiction of the year!

Post your votes for best non-fiction of the year, and I will tally them up! Please only post all your votes in one message, although you can comment on others if you want.

Best World History

Best US History

Best Religion

Best Biography/Memoir

Best Essays

Best Poetry

Best Short Stories

Best Plays

Best Science

Best Cookbook/Food

Best Politics

Best Sports

Best Entertainment

Best Health/Nutrition

Best Relationships

Best Business

Best Reference

Best Travel

Best General Non-Fiction

(let me know any categories I need to add)

I nominate Walden by Henry David Thoreau although I'm not sure whether it goes best in Memoir or Essay (has tags for both).

eta: thanks Cindy for the thread!

The best non-fiction book I read this year was Stephanie Soldana's The Bread of Angels that I won through ER. It could fit the travel, the memoir, or the religion categories.

For cooking/food, I'd give the edge to an older cookbook that I picked up at a used bookstore and used in my Caribbean Cruise category. Sky Juice and Flying Fish by Jessica B. Harris.

For the history category, I guess I'd nominate: Island in the Storm: Sullivan's Island and Hurricane Hugo as being the best although I had two others that fit this category that I also gave an equal rating star-wise.

Best Reference would probably be Native American Place Names in Mississippi by Keith A. Baca since it's the only book I read for the challenge that truly falls in this category.

My nominees:

Best World History
The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo by Paula Huntley

Best US History
1776 by David McCullough

Best Religion
I Am Hutterite by Mary-Ann Kirkby

Best Biography/Memoir
I Am Hutterite by Mary-Ann Kirkby

Best Essays
On Tremendous Trifles by G.K. Chesterton

Best Cookbook/Food
Tea with Jane Austen by Kim Wilson

Best Travel
The Road to Andorra by Shirley Deane

Best Genealogy/Family History
Annie's Ghosts by Steve Luxenberg

I don't read a lot of non-fiction, so some of my nominees are the only book that I read this year in the category. But I really liked the ones that I've mentioned, and think they deserve a vote, even I don't have books to compare them to this year.

Best World History
The Histories by Herodotus

Best US History
Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

Best Religion
Genesis, translation and commentary by Robert Alter

Best Poetry
The Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950 by T.S. Eliot: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Best Plays
Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Best Health/Nutrition
Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Michael Pollan

Best science
The Red Queen

Best Biography/Memoir
The Blind Side

I don't read too much non-fiction but I was very moved by:

Best Biography/Memoir:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

How about a general non-fiction category? Many of my fave non-fiction reads of the year don't fit into these. Also, maybe a "world events" category, for books that aren't historical in nature.
Final note -- wouldn't poetry, short stories & plays belong more in the fiction category??

Best World History
Mrs. Adams in Winter by Michael O'Brien

Best US History
The Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick
Hot Time in the Old Town by Edward Kohn

Best Biography/Memoir
The Memory Chalet by Tony Judt

Best Essays
How to Live: A life of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell

Best Science
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr

Best Politics
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick
Every Man in This Village is a Liar by Megan Stack
Game Change by John Heilemann

Best Entertainment
Cello Suites by Eric Siblin

Best Business
The War at the Wall Street Journal by Sarah Ellison

Best Travel
On the Spartacus Road by Peter Stothard
Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw by Will Ferguson

Best Biography/Memoir

The Glass Castle by, Jeannette Walls

Little Madhouse on the Prairie by, Marion Elizabeth Witte

I will add a general NF category, but I think I'll leave the plays, poetry and short stories here, mostly because that's where I find them in the library.

My own votes:

Best US History: Team of Rivals

Best Religion: To Draw Closer to God, Broken Things to Mend

Best Biography/Memoir: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Best Science: Spineless Wonders

Best Cookbook/Food: The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, Salt: A World History

Best Reference: Albion's Seed

I had an outstanding year of non-fiction reading, even better than my fiction, I think. My categories don't match the ones in the OP at all, but I'll try to give a bit of description:

A Room of One's Own (reread) and Women and Writing, Virginia Woolf -- essays

Living Dolls, Natasha Walter & Enlightened Sexism, Susan Douglas -- feminism

Have a Nice Doomsday, Nicholas Guyatt & Quiverfull, Kathryn Joyce -- Cultural studies, religion

Brightsided, Barbara Ehrenreich -- cultural studies, general

The rest I'd categorize as cultural studies, political and human rights:

Planet of Slums, Mike Davis
Age of Oprah, Janice Peck
Travel as a Political Act, Rick Steves
Murder in Amsterdam, Ian Buruma
Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg
Caged Virgin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Every single one of these was a great read.

I kept up the great non-fiction reads after the challenge was over. I'm finding that I enjoy non-fiction more than fiction now.

CM, your thread, your call on the short stories, of course. I'd just point out that that in libraries (as in all bookstores), they are filed side-by-side with novels by the same authors (eg William Trevor) and they don't have Dewey decimal numbers that would enable them to be filed in non-fiction. Plays & poetry do have call numbers, but are usually found in stores alongside fiction as imaginative works. Just explaining my own rationale/thinking on this. Shakespeare may have been writing plays about Julius Caesar, but it's hard to see The Tempest as a non-fiction work.

Essays: What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920 - 1933 by Joseph Roth
Travel: Forbidden Journey by Ella Maillart
Sociology: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
US History: Since Yesterday: The 1930's in America by Frederick Lewis Allen

Added a Sociology category to put Barbara Ehrenreich into.

I already posted above, but I must say that my favorite nonfiction from last year far surpassed my faves from this year, so I will post those, as well:

Best Bio--Team of Rivals
Best General Non-fic--Half the Sky (really phenomenal)
Best Food--Pickled, Potted, and Canned

Edited to say that you should really read Pickled, Potted, and Canned, cmbohn, I think it's right up your alley!

Thanks for the recommendation! I will have to look for that one. It definitely sounds like one I would enjoy.

Best World History -- Over the Edge of the World

Best US History -- Team of Rivals

Best Biography/Memoir --Millard Fillmore:Biography of a President

Best General Non-Fiction -- Desperate Engagement: How a Little-Known Civil War Battle Saved Washington, D.C., and Changed American History

Best US History
Son of the Morning Star
In the Shadow of the Moon

Best Biography/Memoir
The Strangest Man

Best Essays
The Scientist as Rebel

Best Nature
Dunwoody Pond
Wildwood

Best Science
Geography- The World in 2050
Medicine- The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Ecology/Biology- Where the Wild Things Were

Best Politics
World- Nothing to Envy
US- The Climate War
Geopolitics- Monsoon

Best Manifestos
Whole Earth Discipline
You Are Not a Gadget

Best Business
Technology- The Dream Machine

Best Reference
Infrastructure

Best General Non-Fiction
Book as object- The Red Book

Best World History
The Landmark Herodotus

Best Religion
Society Without God by Phil Zuckerman

Best Biography/Memoir
Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency by Walter R. Borneman

Best Science
Fossils: The History of Life by Richard Fortey
Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz

Best Politics
Thirteen American Arguments by Howard Fineman

I was actually surprised by how much non-fiction I read this year. I usually consider myself a fiction reader. I'm just going to mention my favorite though:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver and I guess if would go in the Best Cookbook/Food category

>22 thornton37814: I just picked it up very cheap at the Goodwill Bookstore near my Dad's house. I'm looking forward to reading it in the near future!

>22 thornton37814: My brother just bought a small farm in March and I gave it to him for his birthday. I'll be looking for what you think when you read it.

The ones that stand out the most for me:

Myth -- Occidental Mythology by Joseph Campbell

Biography/Memoir -- The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
The Boy who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba

Plays -- Much Ado about Nothing by Shakespeare

Science -- Microcosm by Carl Zimmer

Culture/Anthropology/Science -- Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Social Science -- Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

History -- The Histories by Herodotus