The New Year is always a good excuse to loosen your reading habits and take up books that teach you something unexpected. We’ve put together a list of African books that will give you the 411 on everything from space science and Black time to oceans, mental health, food, medicine, business, and art.

Some of these books are driven by large-scale questions of time, space, and the nonhuman. Out of This World by Adriana Marais opens the list outward, using space science and astrobiology to think about humanity’s future beyond Earth. Black Time by Fatin Abbas turns inward and sideways, examining how time is lived, structured, and unevenly distributed. Deep Blue: Why We Love the Sea by Veruska De Vita follows the ocean as both ecological system and emotional force, showing how nature shapes human imagination.

Others focus on care, the mind, and embodied knowledge. The Friendship Bench by Dixon Chibanda demonstrates how mental health care can be reimagined through community-based practice. On Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and I’m Telling the Truth, But I’m Lying by Bassey Ikpi treat emotional life as a form of knowledge, showing how grief and mental health reshape perception and language.

Several books turn to everyday systems: food, work, medicine, and making a life. Chop Chop by Ozoz Sokoh and Gather Me by Edim approach cooking and care as intellectual practices. Small by Small by Ike Anya explains medicine from the inside, while Making It Big by Femi Otedola offers a grounded account of entrepreneurship and risk.

Finally, An African Abroad by Olabisi Ajala and Words by William Kentridge reflect on movement, language, and meaning, reminding us that thinking itself is a craft.

Together, these books show African nonfiction as a space of explanation, expertise, and imaginative reach—writing that teaches, wonders, and thinks in public.