Kicking off 2026, we have some fascinating non-fiction releases including a new memoir from Jung Chang and Julian Sancton’s tale of the lost treasure of the San Jose. Enjoy 5 New Non Fiction Books Jan 2026!
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5 New Non Fiction Books Jan 2026
When Trees Testify by Beronda L. Montgomery
The histories of trees in America are also the histories of Black Americans. Pecan trees were domesticated by an enslaved African named Antoine; sycamore trees were both havens and signposts for people trying to escape enslavement; poplar trees are historically associated with lynching; and willow bark has offered the gift of medicine. These trees, and others, testify not only to the complexity of the Black American narrative but also to a heritage of Black botanical expertise that, like Native American traditions, predates the United States entirely.
In When Trees Testify, award-winning plant biologist Beronda L. Montgomery explores the ways seven trees – as well as the cotton shrub – are intertwined with Black history and culture. She reveals how knowledge surrounding these trees has shaped America since the very beginning. As Montgomery shows, trees are material witnesses to the lives of enslaved Africans and their descendants.
Combining the wisdom of science and history with stories from her own path to botany, Montgomery talks to majestic trees, and in this unique and compelling narrative, they answer.
Polar War by Kenneth R. Rosen
Tensions are building at the top of the world and the Arctic – the fastest-warming place on Earth – stands at the crossroads of geopolitical ambition and environmental catastrophe. As thawing ice opens up new trade routes, untapped natural resources and long-frozen biological weapons, award-winning commentator Kenneth R. Rosen draws on first-hand reportage and testimony to document the race to control this strategically crucial territory. Can America, which since the 1990s has lagged behind on infrastructure, reimpose its might against the superior technology and strategic engagement of Russia and China? Above the Arctic Circle, the world’s superpowers stand on the brink of a new cold war – and every day it grows hotter.
Timely and incisive, Polar War is an indispensable account of the interests, landscapes and people that define the world’s most extreme frontier.
Undimmed by Cecily Mak
We hold the power – now – to live this one precious life undimmed.
The current thinking about any escapist behaviour is binary: either you have a ‘problem’ or you don’t. But any ‘dimmer’ habit – whether it’s alcohol, social media or any other behaviour or substance we use to self-soothe or avoid difficult emotions – exists on a spectrum.
In Undimmed, Cecily Mak presents a revolutionary approach to transforming our relationship with anything that dims our light. Rather than waiting until addiction appears, she offers a different approach that gives you the power, agency and choice to start making positive changes in your life. You’ll learn how to address the root causes of escapist tendencies, cultivate self-trust and heal so you can eliminate the need to ‘dim’ at all.
Undimmed will forever alter how you perceive so-called addiction, and empower you to break free from unhealthy habits, so you can live a life filled with clarity, connection and well-being.
Neptune’s Fortune by Julian Sancton
Roger Dooley wasn’t looking for the San Jose. But an accidental discovery in the dusty stacks of a Spanish archive in the 1980s led him to the story of a lifetime—the journey of a ship that had gathered a mountain of riches from the New World for a long-awaited delivery to the King of Spain nearly three centuries earlier. But that ship, the galleon San Jose, never reached its destination. Instead, the Spanish treasure fleet was drawn into a pitched battle with British ships of war off the coast of Cartagena. When the smoke cleared, the San Jose had disappeared into the ocean.
Though a diver at heart, Dooley was an unlikely candidate to find the San Jose. Half Cuban by birth, he lived a life that stretched from the ballfields of Brooklyn to the shores of Castro’s Havana at the dawn of revolution, where he would help birth a fledgling nation’s diving program and make films with Jacques Cousteau, before finding himself placed on an international watch list and barred from the United States. Dooley had little in the way of serious credentials, yet his tenacity and single-minded devotion to finding the San Jose led him to breakthroughs once thought impossible.
As he jousted with famous treasure hunters and well-funded competitors, Dooley ultimately homed in on a patch of sea that might contain a three-hundred-year-old shipwreck—or nothing at all.
Neptune’s Fortune plunges into a rarified world through the eyes of an idiosyncratic protagonist, one whose work would spark the hopes of presidents and make real the dreams of a nation. This tale of temerity and treasure is a one-of-a-kind story of a lost fortune and the decades-long quest to shine a light on the bounty at the bottom of the sea.
Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang
Jung Chang arrived in the UK in 1978 aged 26, part of a Chinese scholarship programme for study abroad. Finding herself in the London of punk, political protests and Ziggy Stardust, she felt as if she’d landed on the moon. She and her fellow students had all grown up in complete isolation from the west, living in fear as to what might happen if they broke any of the strict rules imposed upon them by their government. It was an invaluable opportunity but came at a cost of long-term separation from her mother and family in China.
As Jung began to adjust to life in the West, she warmed to the fashion scene, rebelled and thrived. Her studies took off and she became the first person from the People’s Republic of China to be awarded a doctorate from a British university.
As Jung becomes a successful academic and writer in the West, Fly, Wild Swans demonstrates how much she relies on her mother still living in China and the painful years in which politics has prevented them meeting. Through the arc of their respective lives, she gives an immersive, deeply moving and unforgettable account of what it is like to live in a communist dictatorship and the threats modern China poses to the international world order. It is family history at its best.
If you enjoyed 5 New Non Fiction Books Jan 2026, check out The Wolfson History Prize Shortlist 2025