Penguin Special: The Story of Allen Lane, the Founder of Penguin Books and the Man Who Changed Publishing Forever, 448 pages

 The founding of Penguin Books in 1935 revolutionized the publishing industry with the idea that great writing ought to be made available for the price of a pack of cigarettes. In telling the story of Penguin and its founder, Allen Lane, Jeremy Lewis traces the changes the company wrought in cultural and political life in England and in the publishing industry worldwide, from the publication of Ulysses , with its attendant obscenity trial, to the Penguin Specials that alerted prewar Britain to the Nazi threat. Rich with anecdote and suffused with LaneÂ's larger-than-life personality, Penguin Special touches on the entire twentieth century in its portrait of a man and a company that have changed the way the English- speaking world reads.

The Goat in the Bedroom by Amy Award, 448 pages

 When your love life stinks and you’re clearly the worst at choosing someone who won’t break your heart, why not ask your best friend to find you a date?

Unless of course…you’re in love with her.

I've been friends with Artemis since high school, when we bonded over crushing on the same guy. Six years later, we’re roommates in our shiny new post college lives—she's training for the Olympics while I start my pro football career. We’ve both recently had bad break-ups and she says if she’s going to get back out there, she needs dating lessons. Naturally, she asks me—her completely platonic roommate—to teach her.

We practice eye contact. Hand holding. Cuddling during movies. Because that's what best friends do, right? Practice intimacy? For science?

She thinks I'm being helpful. I think I'm losing my mind.

Meanwhile, I'm out here sabotaging her dates, getting jealous of my own teammates, and having heart-to-hearts with our pet goats about my feelings while she's literally in the next room.

But we're definitely just friends.

The evidence we might be idiots:

• The documentary crew filming my rookie season knows.
• Our pet goats know.
• Everyone knows. EVERYONE.
• The only people who don't know? Us.

This sports romance features two bisexual dating disasters who are Olympic-level idiots for each other —a football player who falls first and pines HARD, and a curvy rugby goddess who's oblivious because she's convinced she's "too much,"— matchmaking goats with excellent taste in humans, that Bridgertons-meets-American-Football family that's about to stage an intervention unless someone snaps and locks them in a closet together first, a documentary crew catching every slip and you've got a love story everyone can see coming … except them.

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, 448 pages

 First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations. The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince.

As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?

Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of Their Common Fate by Mark Kurlansky, 448 pages

I love Mark Kurlansky's books as a general rule, but this was more environmental than history it felt, so I would rate it below most of his others for my personal choice. But it was extremely informative and well written.

The Private Lives of the Tudors by Tracy Borman, 448 pages

This looked at the Tudors, covering Henry VII through Elizabeth, The Virgin Queen, ending with James. The book examined how they presented themselves publicly and how they lived privately, oftentimes using the separation as a tool. I'm a huge fan of English historical nonfiction, and I still learned a lot of new information from this book.