Since my life is still fairly chaotic thanks to our continued home remodeling as well as just, you know, stuff, weekly Top Ten Tuesday posts seem to be about all I can handle here at BBB. I'm hoping the remodel will be done by the end of this month and life will get back to normal. In the meantime, here's a little peek to show you how good things are looking:

I'm really happy with how the remodel is going, although I'm impatient for it all to be done, of course. 

Anyway, back to TTT. I missed last week because my husband and I were in the mountains celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. It was a nice little getaway, but I was bummed to miss a fun TTT topic so I'm going to do that one instead of this week's, which is: Top Ten Books I Received for Review That I Loved So Much I Bought a Copy for My Personal Library. That's a mouthful! Instead, I'm going with the School Freebie from last week. I really wanted to make a list of books set in haunted schools, but I couldn't come up with five titles let alone ten, so I'm going for a less fun but still interesting (to me at least) theme—Top Ten Non-Fiction Titles I Want to Read. Since I'm such a fiction addict, non-fiction books feel educational to me, and educational = school, so yeah, here we go:

1. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe—My friend is in the middle of this one and she was telling me last night how intriguing she's finding it. It's about the Sacklers, the family "famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin." Definitely sounds like a compelling read!

2. The Woman They Could Not Silence: The Shocking Story of a Woman Who Dared to Fight Back by Kate Moore—The same friend who recommended #1 suggested this one for our next book club discussion. It tells the story of Elizabeth Packard, a wife and mother whose husband had her committed to an insane asylum when he started feeling too threatened by her opinions and intellect. Her unwillingness to back down led to advances in women's rights and the freedom of other women who were institutionalized against their will.

3. My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past by Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmair—As the subtitle indicates, this memoir is about a Black woman who discovers her grandfather was Amon Goeth, a ruthless Nazi commandant who was executed for his brutal war crimes. The discovery throws her into a deep depression and causes her to question many things about her family and heritage.

4. The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim DeFede—I've heard excellent things about this book, which tells the story of how a small town welcomed thousands of stranded jetliner passengers with open arms when their planes were forced to land in Gander on September 11, 2001.

5. The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman—Just looking at the cover of this book makes me nostalgic for my teenage years! Sounds like a super fun read starring a unique decade in history.

6. In the Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado—Even though I have no interest in mountain climbing myself, I still find memoirs about scaling Mt. Everest and other giants absolutely fascinating. This one is about a woman struggling with the challenges of her own life and her experience leading a group of novice climbers on a harrowing trip up Everest. 

7. Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases by Paul Holes—Although I used to be a big true crime fan, I've read little of it in recent years. Still, this memoir by the detective who found the Golden State Killer sounds interesting. 

8. Taste for Poison: Eleven Deadly Molecules and the Killers Who Used Them by Neil Bradbury—Speaking of true crime, this is another title that sounds really intriguing to me.

9. Overdue: Reckoning With the Public Library by Amanda Oliver—I've always loved libraries, so this book sounds right up my alley. The author recounts her experiences working as a librarian in impoverished areas of Washington, D.C., and what she learned about the evolving role public libraries serve.

10. Admissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School by Kendra James—James' job as an admissions officer who specialized in bringing diversity to elite prep schools caused her to reflect on her own tumultuous experience as the first Black legacy student at The Taft School. 

There you go, ten non-fiction books I want to read. Have you read any of them? What did you think? Which NF titles are on your TBR list? I'd truly love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.