These are the best nonfiction and history books of July 2026, according to Amazon book editors

With 44 million book titles around the world and roughly $28 billion in revenue from book sales, Amazon has become a go-to source for readers, for better or worse. People purchase around 780–800 million books from the seller annually, according to automateed.com.

You want romantasy? They’ve got it. Crime thrillers? Done. Nonfiction biographies? Absolutely. That’s why it’s helpful when Amazon points out what’s worth reading—there’s just too much to sort through these days. Its editors, who post their favorites on their Amazon books hub, just released a list of the best nonfiction and history books of July 2026. These books are not only brand-new this month but they are worth your time, according to the editors. 

The books span genres, from true crime narrative nonfiction to a tear-jerking memoir and much more. Below are their five picks and what they had to say about each one.

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1. Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast by Pamela Colloff 

“Paul Skalnik seems too good to be true: he’s a former cop who finds himself on the wrong side of the law but is still determined to do right by coaxing confessions out of his fellow jailmates. ‘As the old saying goes, ‘you’ve got to make a deal with a sinner to catch the devil,’ prosecutors say, relying on Skalnik’s sworn testimony to tie men to murders across America. But all is not as it seems with the shape-shifting Skalnik, who is exposed as a ruthless conman willing to do whatever it takes to bend the law to his whims and work the systems upon which America’s ’land of the free’ are built. Skalnik leaves a trail of victims in his wake—men sentenced to lifetimes behind bars, women reeling from his broken promises and charm that twisted into violence, neighbors and businessmen who trusted him with their fortunes and their futures. In this ripped-from-the-headlines narrative nonfiction that reads like a real-life thriller, Pamela Colloff unspools a dizzying story of deceit, exposing how one man with nothing to lose is able to fool everyone. Even, perhaps, the reader who held this man up as a hero at the beginning of the book.” — Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor

2. The Solo Honeymoon: A Brief Beautiful True Love Story by Laura Murphy

“The seeming simplicity of this memoir belies its extraordinary strength and insight. You will sob, but you will also be buoyed by the power of community. In 2024, Laura Murphy packed her bags and went on her six-week European honeymoon alone, because three weeks earlier her 28-year-old fiancé unexpectedly died. This is a gutting and honest portrait of the youthful blush of falling in love, the black hole that loss leaves—‘He broke me when he died. He broke me. But alive, he made me whole’—and how slowly, it’s rebuilt. Before boarding a plane, she vowed to share her travels on TikTok for her family and friends to see—but it became so much more than that. ’I was overwhelmed by how enormous and kind the world could be. How do I answer a million voices when I am only one?’ So often we read about the dangers of social media to us as individuals and as a society, but Murphy’s story is a powerful reminder of how it can be used for good, how strangers can lift us and help us see beyond the dark. All we have to do is reach out. Like Belle Burden’s Strangers, this book will suck you into a tailspin of tragedy. But Murphy’s quintessentially next-generation way of moving through it offers readers hope—and joy.” — Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor

3. They Stole a City: Wilmington’s White Supremacist Coup and the Families Who Live with Its Legacy by Lauren Collins

“In 1898—after the Civil War and Reconstruction—Wilmington, North Carolina was a thriving community for Black Americans who created successful businesses, built homes, and put down roots. Tensions over that nascent success led to a violent white mob determined to ‘take back the city,’ unleashing chaotic rioting that ended with capturing city hall officials at gunpoint in what is believed to be the only successful coup d’état in America. New Yorker writer Lauren Collins, who grew up in Wilmington, sets out to tell the true, and terrifying, story of the murderous mass, and how their actions ricocheted through time—impacting both white and Black residents for generations, and to this day. This compelling and in-depth history, told through the experiences of four families, is meant to be consumed slowly, with time for the deep reflection it is sure to inspire. Collins excels at drawing readers in with each stunning detail.” —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor

4. Dad, Love, Me: A Memoir by Matthew Quick

“Matthew Quick is perhaps best known for his novel Silver Linings Playbook (which was adapted to screen starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper), and over the years he’s continued to publish novels about family that have a similar sense of heart and humor. But this summer, he’s turning to his own life in Dad, Love, Me. Quick had a complicated relationship with his abusive father (not unlike Robert De Niro’s character in Silver Linings Playbook), and after Jungian analysis and his father’s dementia diagnosis, he pens a letter to his father asking him why their relationship was so fraught. I’ll just say this: I read this on the subway, and immediately my throat was full of marbles, eyes pricked with tears.” — Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor

5. Cancel Me If You Can by Dave Portnoy

“Dave Portnoy is most famous for launching cultural juggernaut Barstool Sports, catered toward ‘bro culture’ with its brash voice, and his popular YouTube pizzeria review series, One Bite Pizza Show, which led The New York Times to dub him ‘one of the most influential people in the world of food social media.’ Cancel Me If You Can ‘isn’t a memoir or a business book—it’s another bet on himself,’ promises his publisher. He’s fully aware that half the internet hates him while the other half loves him. The truth? He doesn’t care, as long as people take interest.’ This book will ensure he gets plenty of attention. And it’s a wild ride of a read. You can count on Portnoy to speak his mind. He holds nothing back in this funny, honest, tell-it-like-it-is tale of his, and Barstool Sports’ rocket-rise to fame.” — Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor

6. Hidden Creatures: Luscious Leeches, Bashful Botflies and the Wondrous, History-Shaping World of Parasites by Dino Martins

“Dr. Dino Martins loves bugs. Particularly the ones that are too small to be seen by the naked eye: parasites. And his excitement fills the pages of this extremely vivid book that would otherwise make me flinch. Instead, the professor (who holds a PhD in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard and is based in Kenya) makes me curious about what’s happening when, for example, he discovers ‘wasps eating wasps within a caterpillar!’ (exclamation point his). Equal enthusiasm (with exclamation points galore) is expressed for ‘diabolic and horrific’ worms that ’plague humankind,’ a ’truly cosmopolitan parasite,’ and ’delightful and complex bodies of vertebrates.’ And while there are plenty of whimsical sketches of these nightmare-inducing creatures, you may even be compelled to Google the real thing. (Reader, I did.) We all have parasites living among and within us. Our choice is to recoil in horror, or to embrace the wild, weird, and fascinating ecosystem of parasites with the same childhood wonder and awe as Dr. Martins.” — Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor