February 21, 2016
| This Week | Last Week | Hardcover Nonfiction | Weeks on List |
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| 1 | 1 | WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR, by Paul Kalanithi. (Random House.) A memoir by a physician who received a diagnosis of Stage IV lung cancer at the age of 36. | 4 | |
| 2 | ORIGINALS, by Adam Grant. (Viking.) A Wharton School professor argues that innovators are made, not born, and offers suggestions for how to become one. | 1 | ||
| 3 | 3 | BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. (Spiegel & Grau.) A meditation on race in America; winner of the National Book Award. | 30 | |
| 4 | 5 | THE NAME OF GOD IS MERCY, by Pope Francis with Andrea Tornielli. (Random House.) In a conversation with a Vatican reporter, the pontiff explores the cornerstone of his faith. | 4 | |
| 5 | 4 | THE ROAD TO LITTLE DRIBBLING, by Bill Bryson. (Doubleday.) An American expatriate travels around his adopted country, Britain. | 3 | |
| 6 | 2 | DARK MONEY, by Jane Mayer. (Doubleday.) An account of how the Koch brothers and other super-wealthy donors deployed their money to change American politics. | 3 | |
| 7 | 8 | BEING MORTAL, by Atul Gawande. (Metropolitan/Holt.) The surgeon and New Yorker writer considers how doctors fail patients at the end of life and how they can do better. | 60 | |
| 8 | 7 | KILLING REAGAN, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. (Holt.) The host of “The O’Reilly Factor” recounts the events surrounding the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981. | 20 | |
| 9 | 6 | THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE TRIPOLI PIRATES, by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger. (Sentinel.) The war against the Barbary pirates in 1801. | 14 | |
| 10 | 9 | THE WRIGHT BROTHERS, by David McCullough. (Simon & Schuster.) The story of the bicycle mechanics from Ohio who ushered in the age of flight. | 35 | |
| 11 | ON MY OWN, by Diane Rehm. (Knopf.) The NPR radio host describes her husband’s death from Parkinson’s in 2014 after 54 years of marriage, and her struggle to make a life for herself. | 1 | ||
| 12 | 11 | MODERN ROMANCE, by Aziz Ansari with Eric Klinenberg. (Penguin Press.) The comedian enlists a sociologist to help him understand today’s dating scene. | 24 | |
| 13 | 12 | GRATITUDE, by Oliver Sacks. (Knopf.) Four essays about living a good life and facing mortality by the neurologist and author, who died last August. | 8 | |
| 14 | 13 | H IS FOR HAWK, by Helen Macdonald. (Grove.) A grief-stricken British woman decides to raise a goshawk, a fierce bird that is notoriously difficult to tame. | 17 | |
| 15 | SPQR, by Mary Beard. (Liveright.) A concise history of ancient Rome. | 9 | ||
| 16 | * | FURIOUSLY HAPPY, by Jenny Lawson. (Flatiron.) A humorous treatment of the author’s life with depression and anxiety disorder. | 7 |