Was there ever a catch-all quite like the term "non-fiction"? Luckily, that catch-all can step in and catch you in these final shopping days before Christmas. Because here on our Non-Fiction LitWishList, you will find a little bit of everything, and we've organized these great books by topic to make it even easier for you to match each reader on your list to his or her perfect book. 

*****

History

You can't go wrong with history books because they've got everything—great stories, facts and trivia, plus it's learning, so it's good for you. Here are four books by award-winning Canadian biographer/historians.  

The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 by Margaret MacMillan

Aunt Winnie by Elspeth Cameron

The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and the Trial that Shocked a Country by Charlotte Gray

Almost a Great Escape: A Found Story by Tyler Trafford 

Family

For anyone who ever liked a bit of drama, we bring you these acclaimed books on family which touch on the complexity of interfamilial relations and ask probing questions about biological connection and our need to know where we come from.

Projection: Encounters With My Runaway Mother by Priscila Uppal

Blood Marriage Wine and Glitter by S. Bear Bergman

The Juggler’s Children: A Journey Into Family, Legend and the Genes that Bind Us by Carolyn Abraham

Blood: The Stuff of Life by Lawrence Hill

Rosina the Midwife by Jessica Kluthe 

Arts

These arts books are a veritable grab-bag—a book on film, another on painting, and then music and poetry. And beneath these labels, of course, these are books about people's lives, and the intractable connections between artists and their work. 

This Great Escape: The Case of Michael Paryla by Andrew Steinmetz

Mary Pratt

Metal on Ice: Tale from Canada's Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Heroes by Sean Kelly

Journey With No Maps: A Life of PK Page by Sandra Djwa

War and Current Events

Three of these books are award-winners, and the fourth is so inspiring that it ought to be one. Here are books that will take to places you've never been and inform your point of view about stories you know best from newspaper headlines. 

Walls: Travels Along the Barricades by Marcello di Cintio

Is This Your First War: Travels Through the Post 9/11 Islamic World by Michael Petrou

The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan by Graeme Smith

Ascent of Women by Sally Armstrong

Hockey

Reading about hockey is the next best thing to playing hockey and watching hockey. And let this selection whet your appetite for our list of New Books for the 2012/14 Hockey Season. 

The Lonely End of the Rink: Confessions of a Reluctant Goalie by Grant Lawrence

Welcome to Maple Leaf Gardens: Photographs and Memories from Canada's Most Famous Arena by Graig Abel and Lance Hornby

Keon and Me: My Search for the Lost Soul of the Leafs by Dave Bidini

Angela James: The First Superstar of Women's Hockey by Tom Bartsiokas and Corey Long  

Politics

Books on politics are great for both political junkies and readers with a lot to learn (i.e. most of us). Three of these are written by well-known Canadian journalists whose books are the product of years of living and breathing their stuff.

Shopping for Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and We Choose Them by Susan Delacourt

Some Great Idea: Good Neighbourhoods, Crazy Politics and the Invention of Toronto by Edward Keenan

The Longer I'm Prime Minister: Stephen Harper and Canada by Paul Wells

Jack Layton: Art in Action edited by Penn Kemp

Conservatism in Canada by Farney and Rayside

Memoirs

Oh, what stories does a life make! These ones are about aging, grief, book selling, nuns and New York in the 1950s. And then a final book about the nature of memoir and why it has become such a modern fascination. 

Everything Rustles by Jane Silcott

Nocturne by Helen Humphreys

The Pope's Bookbinder by David Mason

And Then There Were Nuns: Adventures in a Cloistered Life by Jane Christmas

Love and All That Jazz by Laurie Lewis

Boom: Manufacturing Memoir for the Popular Market by Julie Rak 

Food

Food is something we've all got in common, though its politics have never been more divisive. So here are three books that get to the heart of food matters, and a fourth to reminds us what it's really about—getting together around a table. 

The Stop: How the Fight for Good Food Transformed a Community and Inspired a Movement by Nick Saul and Andrea Curtis

Consumed: Sustainable Food for a Finite Planet by Sarah Elton

The Politics of the Pantry: Stories, Food and Social Change by Michael Mikulak

How to Host a Dinner Party by Corey Mintz