Nonfiction (Memoir/Self-help/Cooking) — International Review of Books

Bestseller

Simply Ina: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

Ina Garten

Nonfiction (Memoir/Self-help/Cooking)
Clarkson Potter (Penguin Random House) · 20 October 2026

Short review (186 words)

Ina Garten's genius has always been less about invention than about permission. Her famous line that "store-bought is fine" told a generation of home cooks they did not have to make everything from scratch to entertain well. Simply Ina makes that philosophy the organising principle of a whole book: 85 recipes at their simplest, from make-ahead lunches and effortless starters to dinners that can be largely prepared before guests arrive.

The publisher's examples show the approach: a mashed potato and leek soup built on packaged mashed potatoes, bourbon baked beans, a Provençal chicken and an Irish coffee affogato that is little more than assembly. That is the real value here: Garten's judgment about where effort matters and where it doesn't.

Experienced cooks looking for technique or culinary adventure will find little new. This is a book about ease, polish and hospitality, not challenge. But that is exactly the brief most busy households have, and Garten's reliability is a selling point in itself. Its debut at No. 1 on Publishers Weekly's hardcover nonfiction list confirms that her audience trusts her completely. It is a natural holiday gift.

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Bestseller

Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?

Judi Dench (with Brendan O'Hea)

Published in the United Kingdom

Nonfiction (Memoir/Self-help/Cooking)
Michael Joseph (Penguin) · 22 October 2026

Short review (207 words)

Judi Dench has written about Shakespeare before, but this is the more personal book her audience has waited for. Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? is a memoir written in collaboration with her friend and writing partner Brendan O'Hea, the same partnership behind her bestselling Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent. It covers seven decades on stage and screen, and goes back to her upbringing in York.

The publisher's description promises the Dench that interviews have long hinted at: mischievous, self-deprecating and sharp. There are pranks on stage and off, being locked out of the Oscars, a close call with crocodiles in Borneo, and her long, happy marriage to the actor Michael Williams. The collaborative, conversational method suits her. It lets the book sound like Dench talking rather than a polished autobiography, which should please readers who value voice over a strict chronology.

The open question for any late-life celebrity memoir is candour, and how much she chooses to reveal will decide whether this is a treasure or simply a pleasure. Readers have plainly decided to find out: it was the UK's No. 1 hardback nonfiction title in its launch week. For theatre lovers it is the gift book of the season.

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Bestseller

Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body

Andrew D. Huberman

Nonfiction (Memoir/Self-help/Cooking)
Simon Element (Simon & Schuster) · 15 September 2026

Short review (212 words)

Andrew Huberman built one of the world's biggest science podcasts by translating neuroscience and physiology into daily habits, and Protocols is the long-promised book version. According to its publisher, it is a practical guide to improving brain function, mood, energy, physical health and performance. It is organised around customisable "protocols" covering sleep, exercise, stress control, nutrition, light exposure, focus and motivation, and learning new behaviours.

The format is the pitch. Rather than a narrative about the science of wellbeing, it offers a manual: things to try, in what order, and why. For listeners who have tried to piece together advice scattered across hundreds of hours of audio, a single reference volume has obvious appeal, which helps explain why it climbed to No. 8 on Publishers Weekly's hardcover nonfiction list more than a month after release.

Readers should bring a healthy scepticism to any book that promises to optimise the body. Huberman's public profile has attracted scientific and personal criticism in recent years. The sensible approach is to treat individual recommendations as starting points to discuss with a clinician, not as prescriptions, especially around supplements or medical conditions. Taken that way, Protocols is a well-timed, highly organised entry in the evidence-based self-improvement shelf, and certainly one of its most talked-about titles this autumn.

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A Navy SEAL's Bug-In Guide: How to Turn Your House Into the Safest Place on Earth

Joel Lambert

Nonfiction (Memoir/Self-help/Cooking)
Global Brother · 6 August 2024

Short review (183 words)

One of the more striking features of Amazon's US chart this week is how much space it gives to preparedness. Survival and self-reliance guides hold four places in the top 20, and the highest, at No. 2 across all books, is this practical manual from Joel Lambert, described by its publisher as a former Navy SEAL and BUD/S instructor.

Rather than the bug-out bag and wilderness escape that dominate survival culture, Lambert argues for making your own home the safest place to ride out a crisis. The book covers emergency preparedness, home security, essential supplies and practical tactics, and its focus on the home makes it a natural fit for ordinary households, not only committed preppers.

That framing is probably the key to its success, because staying put is the realistic option for most families during a storm or power cut. Like any guide in this field, it complements official local emergency advice rather than replacing it. Published two years ago by the small independent house Global Brother, its climb says as much about the national mood as about the book itself.

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Full review (274 words)

One of the more striking features of Amazon's US chart this week is how much space it gives to preparedness. Survival and self-reliance guides hold four places in the top 20, and the highest of them, at No. 2 across all books, is this practical manual from Joel Lambert. According to its publisher, Lambert is a former Navy SEAL and BUD/S instructor.

The premise is right there in the title. Rather than the bug-out bag and wilderness escape that dominate survival culture, Lambert argues for making your own home the safest place to ride out a crisis. The book covers emergency preparedness, home security, essential supplies and practical tactics, and its focus on the home makes it a natural fit for ordinary households, not only committed preppers.

That framing is probably the key to its success. Staying put is the realistic option for most families during a storm, power cut or other emergency, and a book that treats a house and its contents as the first line of defence is more useful to most readers than advice about surviving in the woods. A military background gives the advice authority, though, like any guide in this field, it is a starting point rather than a substitute for official local emergency guidance.

It comes from Global Brother, a small independent publisher, and it is two years old, so its climb to the top of the chart says as much about the national mood as about the book itself. Read it as a sensible, practical checklist and it should earn its place on the shelf. Treat it as a cure for anxiety and it may disappoint.

A Bigger Life

Louise O'Neill

Published in the United Kingdom

Nonfiction (Memoir/Self-help/Cooking)
HQ · 11 September 2026

Short review (190 words)

Irish novelist Louise O'Neill, author of Asking For It, turns to memoir with A Bigger Life, a candid, funny and hopeful account of rebuilding after heartbreak. It has been reviewed in The Irish Times and the Irish Independent and is shortlisted at the 2026 An Post Irish Book Awards.

At thirty-eight, O'Neill finds herself single after the end of a long relationship with a partner with whom she had bought a house and imagined a future. Faced with all the familiar fears women are taught to have about time running out, she decides to try something different: a year of saying yes. She travels to Paris, London and New York, dates widely, explores therapies and retreats, and asks what she actually wants rather than what she is supposed to want.

O'Neill writes with warmth and vulnerability about ageing, desire, motherhood, her past eating disorder and the way online culture shapes our expectations of love. The Paris chapters in particular are full of sensual pleasure. Comparisons with Eat, Pray, Love are inevitable, but her feminist sharpness gives the book its own voice. It is an uplifting read for anyone starting over.

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Full review (262 words)

Louise O'Neill made her name with hard-hitting fiction such as Only Ever Yours and Asking For It. In A Bigger Life, published by HQ in September, she turns her clear eye on herself. The memoir has been reviewed in The Irish Times and the Irish Independent and is on the 2026 An Post Irish Book Awards shortlist.

The book begins with a breakup. At thirty-eight, O'Neill's long relationship ends, along with the house and future she had planned around it. She writes honestly about the panic that follows, the cultural messaging that tells women over thirty-five they are running out of time, and her fears about motherhood and desirability. Rather than settle, she sets out to discover what she wants, travelling to Paris, London and New York, going on a great many dates and experimenting with wellness practices, retreats and therapies.

The strongest passages connect this adventure to her history: years lost to an eating disorder, the aftermath of sexual assault, and a long struggle to feel at home in her body. Against that background, her pursuit of pleasure and connection feels like a reclaiming. She is also perceptive about how online discourse turns dating into a battleground, and she finds, to her own surprise, more good people than bad.

Critics have noted that the book could probe the costs of its wellness journey more deeply, and readers wary of self-discovery memoirs may feel the format is familiar. Yet O'Neill's humour, candour and warmth make it a generous companion, especially for anyone navigating heartbreak or the pressure to have life figured out.