For non-fiction where each word matters, look for:

1. Texts that take storytelling seriously —
• The Power Broker by Robert Caro
• Annals of the Former World by John McPhee 
• 1453 by Roger Crowley 

2. Texts that take arguments seriously —
• Philosophical texts
• The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander

3. Texts that take language seriously —
• Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton 
• See #5 below

4. Texts that understand there is no hard distinction between the factual and the mythical —
• Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung
• Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje

5. Different styles: memoir, letters, essays —
• Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
• A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes 
• And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos by John Berger
• Still Life with Oysters and Lemon by Mark Doty