{"id":5491,"date":"2026-01-29T01:41:49","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5491"},"modified":"2026-01-29T01:41:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:41:49","slug":"5-new-non-fiction-books-feb-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5491","title":{"rendered":"5 New Non Fiction Books Feb 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coming out in February, we have a touching and funny memoir from Mark Haddon<\/a> and Julia Cooke\u2019s fascinating account of three women reporters. Enjoy 5 New Non Fiction Books Feb 2026!<\/p>\n

This post may contain affiliate links that earn us a commission at no extra cost to you.<\/em><\/p>\n

5 New Non Fiction Books Feb 2026<\/h2>\n

\n

Leaving Home by Mark Haddon<\/h2>\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/p>

Buy Now<\/strong>: Amazon<\/a> | AbeBooks<\/a><\/p>\n

Simultaneously heart-breaking and hilarious, Leaving Home is a portrait of the artist both as a child and as an adult.<\/p>\n

His parents were not really cut out for the job of having children. They were cut out, respectively, for the jobs of designing abattoirs and keeping a pathologically clean and tidy house. At least he had the consolations of The Weetabix Solar System Wallchart, walnut whips and the occasional Babycham.<\/p>\n

Astringently honest and scalpel sharp, this is a book about being different and seeing the world differently. It\u2019s about being a cartoonist and a care assistant. It\u2019s about family. It\u2019s about knickerbocker glories and heart surgery, about papier m\u00e2ch\u00e9 and mental breakdown and great white sharks. It\u2019s about how art, in all its varied forms, provides a way of understanding and coming to terms with the mess of human life.<\/p>\n

I Told You So! by Matt Kaplan<\/h2>\n
\n<\/div>\n

Buy Now<\/strong>: Amazon<\/a> | AbeBooks<\/a><\/p>\n

For two decades, Matt Kaplan has covered science for the Economist. He\u2019s seen breakthroughs often occur in spite of, rather than because of, the behavior of the research community, and how support can be withheld for those who don\u2019t conform or have the right connections. In this passionately argued and entertaining book, Kaplan narrates the history of the 19th century Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis, who realized that Childbed fever\u2015a devastating infection that only struck women who had recently given birth\u2015was spread by doctors not washing their hands. Semmelweis was met with overwhelming hostility by those offended at the notion that doctors were at fault, and is a prime example of how the scientific community often fights new ideas, even when the facts are staring them in the face.<\/p>\n

In entertaining prose, Kaplan reveals scientific cases past and present to make his case. Some are familiar, like Galileo being threatened with torture and Nobel laureate Katalin Karik\u00f3 being fired when on the brink of discovering how to wield mRNA\u2013a finding that proved pivotal for the creation of the Covid-19 vaccine. Others less so, like researchers silenced for raising safety concerns about new drugs, and biologists ridiculed for revealing major flaws in the way rodent research is conducted. Kaplan shows how the scientific community can work faster and better by making reasonably small changes to the forces that shape it.<\/p>\n

Starry and Restless by Julia Cooke<\/h2>\n
\n<\/div>\n

Buy Now<\/strong>: Amazon<\/a> | AbeBooks<\/a><\/p>\n

Rebecca West, Emily \u201cMickey\u201d Hahn, Martha Gellhorn<\/a>. Congo, the American South, Cuba, the lively salons of Shanghai, Yugoslavia on the brink of World War II, the shot-riddled streets of Spain, Hong Kong under Japanese occupation, Germany and Italy at war, post-Blitz London, McCarthy-era Mexico, and beyond. These women didn\u2019t just bear witness to the great changes of the twentieth century, they didn\u2019t just write the backstory to wars that roused their readers to support, they transformed the very world they were describing, and the way it was understood.<\/p>\n

Each writer traversed the globe, searching for stories they would then dispatch to The New Yorker, The Times (London), The New York Times, The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, Collier\u2019s, and Vogue. They often traveled alone, sometimes teaming up with other women reporters, sometimes with their husbands along for the ride. They sneaked onto the front lines when they were forbidden, interviewed civilians to gather color and detail. They wrote novels to pay the bills and articles to explain the world to itself. Over the course of their intertwining lives, they became mothers and friends, took joy in each other\u2019s successes.<\/p>\n

Julia Cooke\u2019s Starry and Restless is the story of three women whose curiosity, grit, and ambition expanded the possibilities for women and meaningful work.<\/p>\n

The Company of Owls by Polly Atkin<\/h2>\n
\n<\/div>\n

Buy Now<\/strong>: Amazon<\/a> | AbeBooks<\/a><\/p>\n

In the woods above Polly Atkin\u2019s home in Grasmere, Cumbria live the tawny owls she calls her neighbours. Each night, they come down to her cottage at dusk, calling out as night falls \u2013 in particular a trio of owlets she watches grow from fledglings to young adults.<\/p>\n

As the antics of the owl siblings develop \u2013 their capacity to play, to bicker, to share and to protect \u2013 they encourage her to think differently about some of the big needs of all our lives: solitude and companionship, care and belonging, rest and retreat. And into the frame step questions about all sorts of relationships, from how we feel when in darkness to the homes and connection we so desperately seek.<\/p>\n

The Company Of Owls is a love song to these incredible creatures, and a reflection on what makes them, and us, unique. It\u2019s a call to find joy in unexpected places and times. It is a lesson in learning to listen \u2013 to really listen \u2013 when all around us seems clamour and noise.<\/p>\n

The Last Kings of Hollywood by Paul Fischer<\/h2>\n
\n<\/div>\n

Buy Now<\/strong>: Amazon<\/a> | AbeBooks<\/a><\/p>\n

This is story of the most successful group of friends in the history of cinema and how they reshaped it forever.<\/p>\n

The Last Kings of Hollywood tells the thrilling, dramatic inside story of how the three filmmakers rivalled and supported each other, fell out and reconciled, and struggled to reinvent popular American cinema. Along the way, Coppola directed The Godfather, then the highest-grossing film of all-time, until Spielberg surpassed it with Jaws \u2013 whose record Lucas broke with Star Wars, which Spielberg surpassed again with E.T. By the early 1980s, they were the richest, best-known filmmakers in the world, each with an empire of their own. The Last Kings of Hollywood is an unprecedented chronicle of their rise, their dreams and demons, their triumphs and their failures \u2013 intimate, extraordinary, and supremely entertaining.<\/p>\n

If you enjoyed 5 New Non Fiction Books Feb 2026, check out last month\u2019s releases 5 New Non Fiction Books Jan 2026<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coming out in February, we have a touching and funny memoir from Mark Haddon and Julia Cooke\u2019s fascinating account of three women reporters. Enjoy 5 New Non Fiction Books Feb 2026! This post may contain affiliate links that earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. 5 New Non Fiction Books Feb 2026 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}