Being a college student means being prepared for higher education. Greater learning requirements await you, such as increased reading and writing skills. how can we improve them? here’s a tip for you today: read nonfiction books for college students.
I know that romance novels or science fiction are more fascinating, but non-fiction books can help you, a college student, get background information effectively.
You are reading: Non fiction books for college students
Understanding and acquiring new knowledge depend on existing knowledge, which is prior knowledge.
The stronger the prior knowledge, the better they will be able to understand the new content by analogy. and reading non-fiction books is one of the effective ways for college students to accumulate basic knowledge.
The following nonfiction books for college students are life-changing because each showcases real-life humanistic experiences and leads you into deep self-reflection that will lead to a changed perspective on life’s dilemmas and woes.
1. option b: face adversity, build resilience and find joy
by sheryl sandberg and adam grant
malala yousafzai said about option b, “none of us can escape the sadness, loss or disappointments of life, so the best option is to find option b.” the book is full of painful experiences, painful emotions, but at the same time, it is full of hope and optimism.
sandberg and grant write the moving stories of several people whose lives have been unexpectedly changed by tragedy. This life-changing book tries to answer the question: how do we move forward after the unimaginable happens?
How do we deal with loss? And ultimately, how do we build resilience?
The book teaches us that the seeds of resilience are planted in the “ways we process negative events.” if we know how to process traumatic events, we build resilience.
The authors of this book have the answer to coping with loss through the three P’s of recovery. Personalization is the belief that the unfortunate events that happen to us are our fault.
Omnipresence is the belief that these events will affect our entire lives and in all areas of our lives. Lastly, permanence is the belief that the sadness and despair of this event will last forever.
If we become incredulous about the three P’s, we build resilience.
This book not only helps you understand its characters and generate sympathy for them, but it also aims to help you understand the difficulties of life and how to cope with them.
Maybe this non-fiction book can give you the strength to perk up when you’re always facing all sorts of hardships as a college freshman. buy it here
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2. sapiens – a brief history of mankind
by yuval noah harari
more than a history book, this book is a history. the history of our species. Using a chronological structure, Harari tells the story of human existence that began about 300,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens began to conquer the world.
This book explains how everything began, from language to science. gives you an eerie new perspective on our species and how we became what we are now. the narrative answers the question: why and how did humans conquer the world?
explains the cognitive, agricultural, and scientific revolutions and how they have changed the course of history.
also, harari gives you an idea of how much humanity has improved, from lowering infant mortality rates to managing agriculture so our massive population can be fed.
It also explains the beginning of the use of currency and the transition from our increasingly materialistic needs.
As a result, we keep fighting for better things. At the end of the book, Harari talks about a possible future in which our bodies will change grammatically through science and the use of anti-aging remedies for the purpose of increasing our life expectancy.
A Brief History of Man is a survey of world history, encompassing physics, anthropology, ecology, and psychology. therefore, this non-fiction book can greatly enrich the knowledge of college students. buy it here
3. when breath becomes air
by paul kalanithi
This book is simply impossible to forget and a real heartbreaker. Paul Kalanithi spent his entire life dedicated to his education, earning two bachelor’s degrees, two master’s degrees in literature and philosophy, and graduating from Yale with a medical degree.
It was when he was doing his graduate fellowship in neuroscience that he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Kalanithi chronicles his life as a student, husband, doctor, and finally as a patient.
There is a noticeable transition between his interest in medicine and his interest in humanism. After reading about his experiences in this nonfiction book, you might think your own struggles in college weren’t that difficult.
Through its pages, we can see that Kalanithi still lives to influence others with his life-changing story of fragile and impetuous mortality.
“Most lives are lived passively towards death: it is something that happens to you and to those around you”. Despite Kalanithi’s life being cut short by illness, he makes the final decision to have a child with his wife. he wishes longevity. he says in the book, “words have longevity, I don’t.”
As you read this book, you can vividly see that as he is dying, he becomes wiser. but, the most important lesson of this book is that, even if it is true that we will all succumb to death, the meaning of our lives never dies.
buy it here
4. Dreams of my father: a story of race and heritage
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by barack obama
In addition to addressing issues of race, this story is about finding one’s identity, accepting oneself, but most of all finding one’s destiny. Obama shows his struggle with biracial identity, but his decision to uncover his father’s past leads him to find his true identity and destiny.
Obama narrates that, although he hardly saw his father, his curiosity to know more about Kenya and his father was his final decision to change the course of his life.
It was after traveling to Kenya and meeting his father’s family that Obama found himself and decided to move on with his own life.
Because this non-fiction book is a story about his younger years in college, it does not address his political leanings, but conveys the importance of community work and unity, which is also important for college students.
The book takes you on an unmissable journey through his beginnings in Hawaii and Indonesia, to Chicago, New York and Kenya with the sole motivation of finding his own identity and purpose in life. buy it here
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5. polite
by tara westover
While other Brigham Young University students entered their new lives as college students, for Tara Wesover, it was her first time in a classroom. The nonfiction book tells the story of Tara Westover‘s journey to find her life’s purpose through education.
He was 17 years old, had studied on his own for the act and passed. During his classes at the university, he realized that he did not know what the holocaust was or who Martin Luther King was.
Ridiculed by her classmates, she struggled to have a social life. She comes from a Mormon family that lives in Idaho, she was only allowed to read the Book of Mormon and the Bible.
She did not have a birth certificate and has never been to a doctor’s office for a checkup.
His father suffered from extreme paranoia about the government and the educational system. In addition, he did not want the educational system to “brainwash” his children.
His father refused to go to a hospital or hospitalize his children even though they were seriously injured. He realized that his only way to escape from his bipolar father and his physically abusive brother was through education.
This life-changing book is a lesson in survival, the power of transformation, and the determination to shape your destiny. Westover is not just another young woman leaving home to go to college; she ran away from home in search of unknown knowledge and her greatest talent was her desire to learn. buy it here
6.become
by michelle obama
when it comes to life, michelle obama once said, “now i think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child: what do you want to be when you grow up? as if growing up is finite. like at some point you became something and that was the end.”
perhaps this quote goes some way to explaining how michelle obama is becoming.
In the life-changing book, Obama offers a candid and sobering look at his own life: Born into a working-class Chicago family, he attended an Ivy League college where the percentage of the population of color was only eight. she finally, she graduated with a promising job.
Later, as first lady, she became a great helper to her husband and successfully balanced her family and career, becoming one of the world’s most respected women of our time. After reading the book, she will be impressed by Obama’s love of learning, unwavering personality, and her strong sense of purpose.
michelle obama’s life can be described as a life in which she became a better version of herself. young college students, especially girls, can learn wisdom and persistence in life from this nonfiction book.
buy it here
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7. having fun to death
by neil postman
In the age of entertainment, you must be surrounded by doujin, instagram, facebook and youtube. and going to college means you have more freedom to use these apps.
I understand that you enjoy these applications. but what does entertainment itself mean? then you must read this non-fiction book, having fun to death.
With this book, you will learn that new media prefer completely different content than traditional media. it seems that new media tend to end up dominating the dominant culture.
People prefer short content, or more simply, short videos. under such circumstances, there are fewer and fewer opportunities for deeper thought. and recognizing it is important for you, university students.
This nonfiction book makes a less obvious point: People today seem to know everything, but without the ability to think deeply, they may know nothing. if you really want to gain knowledge, you’d better stay deep in one field.
buy it here
8.the drowned and the saved
by cousin levi
this book is the final work of primo levi, italy’s most intellectual and talented writer. the author gracefully looks back, without delving into specific experiences or making repeated accusations.
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He simply analyzes human nature narrowly, with a subtle pride in being an “intellectual”.
levi took his own life to witness the atrocities of the nazis, and his succinct work is a wonderful celebration of life, proving that the human spirit cannot be defeated.
The world war may have ended many years ago, but its spiritual impact may still be there. after reading this book, you may understand why you should be against war.
This nonfiction book may be cruel to some college students, but it’s certainly worth reading. so you can understand what war really means.
buy it here
9. the order of time
by carlo rovelli
There is a lot of speculation about the time. What does “the passage of time” mean? Do we exist in time or does time exist within us? With his poetic words, Carlo Rovell allows people to join him in contemplating this ancient enigma: the nature of time.
People subconsciously think that time is uniform throughout the universe, constantly flowing from past to future, and can be measured by clocks. but rovelli shows that people’s perception of the passage of time depends on their perspective.
because this book is so packed with scientific information and so beautifully written that you often lose track of time while reading it.
something that should be mentioned is that the book is not limited to a scientific perspective, but has a deeply humanistic sentiment.
is a great non-fiction science book for those college students who are beginning to wonder about the universe, i.e. the origin of time and space.
buy it here
10. the difficult of difficult things
by ben horowitz
While most books on entrepreneurship talk about doing the right thing and not messing things up, ben horowitz also tells you what to do when things are already messed up.
ben horowitz is a silicon valley investor, known as one of the “50 best angel investors in silicon valley”, who invested in facebook, twitter, groupon and skype in his early years.
This is an honest book, and almost all of the advice in it comes from the author’s lessons on failure. reading those failures, you will realize that starting a business is really a hard thing to do.
so if you already know something about entrepreneurship and want some helpful advice, this book couldn’t be a better fit.
This is an excellent non-fiction book for students who want to start their own business after college. through thick and thin, you can find advice that’s right for you.
buy it here
11. the vital question
by nick lane
Do you think the earth is amazing? Earth is the only planet in the entire universe where life exists. or to put it this way, the birth of life itself is magical. but how did life evolve from a simple bacterium to something as complex as a human being?
if you’re wondering, read this book: the vital question.
this is an ambitious but insightful work of popular science. Most endearingly, Lane’s book presents a full picture of the specific paths of a biologist’s thought, research, and experimentation, which is extremely rare.
Because of the complex picture it presents, the book requires at least a high school student’s knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology.
This is a great non-fiction book. Although there is a lot of jargon, there are also many poetic descriptions that are sure to appeal to college students. The whole book can greatly satisfy the curiosity of teenagers and make them feel the magic of this world.
buy it here
final thoughts on nonfiction books for college students
In general, non-fiction books can not only help college students improve their reading and writing skills, but also help new employees improve their job skills.
You should know that most job reports are logical, complex, and require strong information processing skills to understand.
Starting to read nonfiction in college can help you develop your analytical skills at a young age.
Perhaps, after reading one of our recommended life-changing non-fiction books for college students, you will realize the power of those books: the truth itself is powerful.
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